Piola Houston Midtown — Restaurant in Houston

My family and I were traveling to Houston to visit relatives and take my 11 year old to the space center. We had dinner here as this spot is listed in the book in the hotel we stayed at and sounded great from the website as well. Since we were traveling we only had casual clothes and I called ahead to ask if there was a dress code. The person answering the phone laughed and said no. We showed up around 7:00pm and although the food was tasty, the evening was pretty ruined due to the hostess trying not to seat us. I understand that we were not dressed to the nines like all the younger people that looked very trendy, however neither were we wearing dirty workout clothes either. Shorts and tee shirts should be fine for July for dinner at a place that states they have no dress code. The hostess continuously pointed to one table on her seating chart layout paper and stated that it was reserved then looked at us as if she expected us to leave. Another waiter kept telling her there were other tables available in another section but she kept brushing him aside and informing us the one table was reserved. It was so rude that I felt we did not thoroughly enjoy the pizza and gnocchi like we could have. I wish we had picked a different restaurant that had an inviting and welcoming hostess. My family and I will not be patronizing this chain again, and hopefully the hostess will not continue her pretentious and...

After having visited Naples recently, we were hoping to get a taste of that same style of Pizza here in Houston. While Piola's pizza is OK, it's just lacking something, perhaps some olive oil on the crust and maybe some salt in the sauce. We found it quite bland, and it wasn't hot or even warm when it reached our table. Also, they were really stingy with the fresh basil. I got only 3 small leaves on the whole pizza. In addition to pizza, we had the caprese salad as an appetizer. Surprisingly, it was more of a make-your-own caprese kit. We were given a ball of mozzarella on a plate, surrounded by plain tomato slices, four small basil leaves, and bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was OK, but I've always had it already marinated and served at room temperature. Another oddity we found at Piola was chilled red wine. We had one glass each, and it was ice cold--not good. On a positive note, the atmosphere is great, at least when the restaurant isn't busy. While the guy working at the door was really complacent and looked as though he'd rather be anywhere other than there, our server was EXCELLENT. She was both friendly and superbly attentive. We tipped her very well. I can't imagine having cravings for Piola, but I wouldn't be surprised if I end up there...

We had the Capricciosa and the Lisbona pizzas here. Both were terrible and massively over-priced for the quality ($23pp). I believe this is supposed to be a Neapolitan thin style pizza but it's hard to tell given how crappy the crust is: it might be a restaurant version of a frozen pizza.

The crusts are tough, chewy, flat disks of dough that managed to be both overcooked and uncooked. Some very mild charring on the bottom and none on the top. Imagine an unsweetened shortbread cookie - it looks that pale and that dense/flat only chewy and tough. There is no appreciable lip on the edges.

For pizzaphiles: zero oven spring, no cornicione, no hole structure, no leopard spotting. Try Pizaros if you want a good Neapolitan style pizza

The problem appears to be an under-powered or over-stuffed oven with none of the pizzas hitting the floor at the right temperature. You could tell by the gradient of overcooked to under-cooked from one end of one pizza to the other.

I would have sent it back but the waitress would go missing for 10 minutes at a time and I wanted to go eat somewhere better. Left half of it on the plate. .

Fun looking place though. Wish the...