Antica Forma — Restaurant in Moab

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Antica Forma: Great Service, Disappointing Pizza.

We had lunch at Antica Forma today after seeing their website proudly claim to serve true Neapolitan-style pizza. Having eaten authentic pizza in its birthplace, Italy, I was excited and had high expectations. We even have a Neapolitan pizza oven in our backyard, and I’ve spent years perfecting my own pizzas. They’re still not flawless, but I also don’t claim to be trained by masters (as their website says they are), nor do I call mine “true Neapolitan” the way they do. I know good pizza… and unfortunately, this experience fell short.

Our server (I wish I had caught her name!) was absolutely wonderful! She was warm, attentive, polite, and genuinely provided excellent service. She was the highlight of our visit. I ordered a mushroom and sausage pizza and specifically asked for it to be cooked extra well-done because I can’t stand soggy pizza. She assured me she'd pass my request to the cook.

What came out was the opposite of what I expected. The cornicione was heavy, doughy, and tasted almost raw - nothing like true Neapolitan pizza, which should be airy and blistered with big bubbles. The center was limp and soggy, and my husband’s pepperoni pizza was the same way: undercooked and lacking structure. It was a huge disappointment, especially considering how much they emphasize authenticity online.

To her credit, our server offered to have my pizza remade. I was hesitant (I’ve heard horror stories about upset kitchen staff tampering with food, so yes, I was nervous...), but she kindly insisted. The replacement pizza was so much better: crispy, flavorful, and much closer to what I had hoped for from the start. Which left me wondering: why wasn’t it made like this in the first place?

When she came back to check on us, I told her how much better the second pizza was. She mentioned that the cook had been upset about my complaint, and said she told him this whole situation could have been avoided if he had just cooked it properly the first time. She definitely earned a good tip (and I hope she keeps it all to herself as she deserves it; the kitchen didn't!)

On a positive note, the...

The pizza at this place is delicious, but the preparation of everything is sloppy - verging on health code violation sloppy. The staff is so frenetic running around that there were obvious mistakes being made. I understand they want to turn around as many pizzas as possible, but they could take 2 more seconds to do things with a better result. We sat at the bar and watched the bartender knock a glass of ice back into the ice maker and just refill it again. She looked right at me and said “well at least the glass was clean”. Yeah, that’s not how this works. We also saw her knock a patron’s beer over by handing him the check without looking at him and then didn’t apologize, didn’t offer him another one … it was strange. We had a clear view of the pizza staging area where we saw one of the hostesses appear to be helping by doing the finishing touches on a pizza and she literally threw prosciutto on this pizza with her bare hands. We both looked down at our own pizzas and realized how unevenly the toppings had been put on them, like someone had thrown the toppings on in a rush. What was even weirder was AFTER she put the prosciutto on this pizza, cut it and put it up on the counter for the waiter to take, she washed her hands and put on gloves, only to go back to the hostess desk and start seating people with latex gloves on. Who knows if she washed her hands before she started helping at the pizza area (we didn’t see if she did or not). This place could do with a management overhaul to train the staff on efficiency in restaurant logistics and it might make them all a lot less stressed and with fewer near misses and/or health code violations. Don’t get me wrong: the pizza is very good but I’m glad we didn’t get food poisoning. The fact that thought crossed my mind is case in point of the problem with...

I visited on a Saturday afternoon and when I walked inside I waited for several minutes with no hostess or server coming to greet me. I started to question if they were open, but I saw 2 people eating inside. I saw 2 young men across the room sitting behind the bar, slumped over playing with their phones so I walked over to ask if they were open. They acted like I was bothering them and then said the server was outside, and then went back to playing on their phone. I finally asked if one of them would go get the host or server, which one did begrudgingly. Not sure what they said to the server but he finally came inside from the patio and borderline snaps that he is the only server there at the time. At this point I've already been waiting close to 10 minutes just to get seated. I should have walked out at that point, but I didn't. I ordered the bruschetta and the lasagna. The bruschetta was a giant mistake. It was just a couple of thick slices of bread with grape tomatoes cut in half and layed on top of the bread. It was not appetizing to look at and it didn't taste any better. The lasagna was pretty good. It was not as good as the price charged, but overall not bad and it was enough for 2 people to share. I understand it's challenging to get labor these days, especially in small towns, but treating customers as if they're a bother is not the best business model. I still tipped 20%, when I shouldn't have, hoping this was an anomaly; but considering it was a Saturday afternoon and not many people were there, makes me believe they treat a lot of customers how...