Don Antonio — Restaurant in New York

Continued with my pizza cravings this season and stopped by this place recommended by my friend. Clearly it is known for their guilty-pleasure gluten-free pizza and their unique fried pizzas (which I didn’t get).

The place seems to quite spacious with an open kitchen in the back featuring a red brick stone oven for pizza baking. Monday noon is not busy at all so we did walk-ins and got seated right away.

Pistachio & Salsiccia It features mozzarella, pistachio pesto, sausage, pecorino romano, basil. We had never had pistachio pesto before so we were intrigued to try. The basil on top and the extra virgin olive oil’s flavors didn’t fall short in comparison to pesto and sausage. I got hints of pistachio but not much from eating this pizza. The sausages were crumbly and fell kinda everywhere when I cut the pizza. The flavor is new, just not impressive.

Ricotta Got a lighter pizza to hopefully offset the other heavier one. It is indeed light, but I didn’t get too much from tomato sauce: I didn’t get the acidity or tanginess or sweetness, it is like my eyes were telling me I was eating a pizza rosse but my taste buds said otherwise. The ricotta was nice and creamy even after being torched. But after the pizza got colder, the ricotta didn’t want to be stay with the pizza dough anymore.

I didn’t like one particular thing: they delivered both pizzas at the same time to the table and the pistachio & salsiccia pizza was a bit colder, so the cheese started to harden and there were no stretch of the mozzarella.

I loved about one thing: the chewiness and the bounecyness of their crust. I wouldn’t say they have the lightest crust (compared to the other Naple style pizza places I have eaten), but their crust is the most mochi-like one. I started to wonder what flour they used to develop that much gluten. Really good crust which I am willing to eat alone or pair with maybe some dip everyday, subjectively speaking.

I feel like I probably need to try some other flavors to possibly re-evaluate this place. The truffle and mushroom pizzas are still waving their...

‘Declining Pizza Taste and Quality’ Classicana Montarana - fried pizza

Let me start here: Around 6 months ago i came to New York and managed to find this gem. The pizza was absolutely mouth watering and had me cry a little bit when i first had it. I introduced 7 of my close acquaintances to this place and they visit regularly as well. I came so much that the manager of the restaurant started recognising me.

Lately the pizza doesn’t taste the same.

The quality of the dough, in my opinion has deteriorated from a perfect combination of crisp and soft to a crisp and ‘chewy’ soft. More importantly, the fluffiness of the dough has reduced A LOT.

The cheese, which once used to be WOW has now become a little more unexciting in taste as well. More so, months ago, the cheese was intricately placed and when asked for extra quantity, the sommelier mentioned asking the chef and letting us know. Now, the pizza comes with extra cheese anyhow. Thats odd.

The pizza used to be ‘very hot’ when ordered earlier, now its usually warm. Its probably because the restaurant is busy, but worth a mention.

Apart from that, the staff, the experience, and the ambience is perfect.

Making it a 3 star review for anyone like me, who usually reads only 3 star reviews 😇.

My review may seem opinionated, sure. However, id mention that all 7 friends of mine think the same and together we have visited the place over 30 times in total, ordering the same pizza. ‘A classicana montarana and a bottle of coke please?’

[NOTE: Montarana is a semi fried pizza and this place in NYC has one. The taste is significantly different from a Napoleon, classic or a NY style pizza. Try it once! You’ll go crazy]

Ive attached two pictures: One is from 6 months ago. The pizza looks perfectly baked and even throughout. The other one is from this week. The pizza is over baked on one side and a little ‘chewy’ on another. The amount of cheese used is more and the dough is at-least...

TL;DR horrible service, subpar appetizer, good pizza.

I went here with my girlfriend, her mother and her brother. Her mother does not eat pork for religious reasons. So when the when our server (didnt catch the name, hispanic, male, with glasses, around 5’8”) came by, I asked him for his suggestion on an appetizer that does not contain pork. With some sort of attitude he said that they dont serve pork and proceeded to show me the appetizer page and even told me that if i look through it, I wont find any pork in there, and then walked away. I looked through, and in one glance I saw some appetizers with prosciutto and another with ham. When he came back to take our order I mentioned to him that some of the appetizers, in fact, do seem to have pork, such as prosciutto and ham. He responded that yes some of the items do contain pork, and that if I can read I should be able to tell for my self. (The irony of how this was in contradiction to his earlier comment seemed lost on him) We ordered caprese for appetizer, and two pizzas for our entree. The caprese at $14 was very disappointing. It was literally 4 mozzarella balls, bunch of grape tomatoes, exactly 2 basil leaves, with some olive oil on top and some stale bread on the side. Balsamic vinegar was brought to table on the side. The pizzas were probably the only positive part of our experience. The sauce and cheese was decent, but the crust was the best. The crust had perfect leoparding, crispy at the bottom, yet rich and fluffy around the crust. Overall, the pizza was fine but I’d rather go elsewhere for better service and overall food quality.

We went here on Monday, Oct...