Brunetti Pizza — Restaurant in New York

Feeling nostalgic for traditional Italian Sunday dinners? Father-and-son owners, Michael and Jason Brunetti, have teamed up to bring their traditional Neapolitan Pizza to the West Village and opened Pizzetteria Brunetti.

And now, they’ve revealed their own take on an authentic Sunday dinner and created a prefix four-course family meal, priced at $30 and offered every Sunday starting April 27. The menu starts off with the Insalata alla Pulcinella, followed by the Polpette alla Maria (Mary’s Meatball) and Neapolitan Margherita Pizza served with a glass of Brunetti wine or beer. You will also be able to enjoy an espresso and delicious orange zest Zeppole for dessert.

I was recently was invited to give the menu a try and it was delicious! Michael and Jason Brunetti have put together a real gem. Leaving no details ignored, the restaurant has a custom-built wood-burning brick oven created on-site “brick by brick” and is one of only a handful of pizza restaurants in New York City that use a wood-burning brick oven.

The classic Margherita pizza has San Marzano tomatoes, house made mozzarella, basil, sea salt and is drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

The San Gennaro pizza has sweet Italian sausage, buttery caramelized onions, roasted red and yellow peppers, sheep’s milk ricotta, San Marzano tomatoes.

The Spezie pizza is a delicious mixture of sauteed broccoli rabe, broccolini, spicy Italian sausage, creamy burrata cheese, hot peppers and a spicy Calabrian pepper puree.

Aside from the incredible pizza, the Riso salad was one of my favorites. Black and red rice, organic kale, almonds and dried figs topped with caciocavallo cheese. A spicy chile oil gives this dish a subtle warmth – delicious!

The Verdict

I don’t know why Pizzetteria Brunetti is under the radar of many pizza lovers. With a variety of pizzas sure to please everyone, this place is well on the way to being a West Village hot spot. Delicious food with attentive and friendly service that treat you like family have me giving Pizzetteria Brunetti two thumbs up!

*This meal was provided free, courtesy of...

Quite Subpar.

Dropped in for some dinner recently. Staff is friendly and got us seated and took our drink order. After our drinks were ordered though, our waiter was quite scarce and was mostly paying attention to (playing with) the child of another patron. After getting the attention of a different staff member, we were finally able to place our food order.

So far, nothing really bad and if it weren't for the rest of the experience, I would have been perfectly fine with everything (I sincerely don't mind wait-staff being social or something, just that things are timely and handled without much wait).

But that is when our food arrived. We got the garlic bread, which presentation-wise looked great. But, after the first few bites it was, really bad. Almost no actual garlic seems to have made it even near the bread, and the rest of the taste was just slightly under-cooked, bland if not ashy (bitter) (wood-oven cooked, apparently) bread. We could not finish it.

Hey, not everything can be perfect, right? Maybe the pizza will save the meal... not really.

We ordered the Margherita and the San Gennaro. Maybe the experience so far was coloring my perception here, but they arrived and at first glance, I already had a bad feeling about them.

We took a few bites and tried to get through it. I got 2 slices (out of 4) in before I gave up, and my partner barely got through 1.

Thoroughly bland, watery marinara sauce, dough was again flavorless, ashy, and somewhat under-cooked.

I used to say that it was near impossible to screw up pizza, but.. I guess...

The staff here was amazing. Our server was definitely an expert on the menu and was able to give us excellent suggestions.

The ambiance is nice and intimate and there is a back patio area that opens when the weather gets nicer. I liked how the pizza oven was close to the bar so we could see when the pizzas went in.

Now on to the food! For appetizers, the eggplant parmigiana was really good. The way our server described it, I was expecting it to look a little different, but the taste was on point. The grilled octopus was beautiful and had great flavor, but the texture was a little chewy. I think I’ve said before in other reviews, my experience is that they prettier the octopus is, the tougher it is. I like my octopus when it’s been beaten into tender submission. I did think the farro salad underneath paired really well.

My favorite pizza is the Tea’s which I believe is one of the more popular ones according to our server. It’s named after their first employee and has buratta, arugula, and prosciutto. Delicious! The carbonara tastes just like the pasta dish and was my second favorite. The San Gennaro was also really good but if I could only order one of these three, it would be the Tea’s. I gave four stars because the pizza dough wasn’t my absolute favorite, but the toppings were all really delicious. Each pizza is enough for one person for a meal. I recommend doing what we did and ordering a few to share so you can taste as many...