D & A House of Pizza — Restaurant in Newton

This place fell off man... I have been going to DNA since I was in elementary school. Since I am a local to this place, it would always be the spot for some great pizza. The quality was excellent and consistent until late 2024. Around that time, my friends, family and I started noticing the quality of their pizza went downhill significantly. The pizza is often overcooked, and the crust is burnt a lot of the time. I also noticed that the pizza is especially uneven, like one slice would be thin as paper, but another slice would be very bulky. Not only that, but the quality of the cheese and the sauce went downhill as well, so I don't know. I suspect it is a lack of motivation from the people working there, and I can sympathize to some extent. I acknowledge that these are people who work really hard for 6 days a week, and they only give themselves 2 weeks off each year. With that, I don't think it is an excuse to be lazy and serve people borderline burnt pizza with mid ingredients when I know they can do better than that. I can't exactly say much on their other stuff, since I always go for pizza, but I can imagine their other things have decreased in quality as well. They have potential to return to their former glory, but with how things are going for them I don't know if that will happen. I can only hope. I would honestly give this place 2 stars if it wasn't for the amazing memories I had there when I was younger, and the polite service I get from only some of the people that work there. It's sad, seeing a place I've loved for so long go downhill like this. Hopefully they can get their shit together and figure out solutions to the problems I've listed, and if they cannot, I will no longer give them my business, and I am sure many people will...

Every time I order spaghetti at a hole in the wall restaurant like this, I wonder: Is this going to be the one? Have they cracked the code on how to make palatable spaghetti in a high speed environment? Are their meatballs fresh-ground and seasoned? Do they at least use non-dried pasta? Do they, perhaps, use egg wash? Do they at the VERY least make their noodles al denté?

The answer is, as usual, no. It's hard to mess up a sandwich, but not so hard to mess up a pizza and a plate of red-sauce spaghetti. And boy oh boy do they mess it up.

The pizza dough is unpleasantly spongy, their ingredients have little cohesion to the pizza's base, the ingredients have an unpleasant temperature gradient, and their marinara sauce is acrid and slightly burnt. Their spaghetti suffers from slippery, oiled noodles which have no grip on the chunky-yet-wet sauce (also bad.) The pasta accumulates a puddle of practically starch-free water at the bottom (a feeble attempt at using pasta water as a sauce coagulant.) The meatballs are incredibly obviously either bought frozen or made a day in advance, as the meat suffers from freezer-burn, a temperature difference, and poor grinding. And to make matters worse, it's a LOT of mediocre spaghetti - a veritable deep dish. You won't go hungry - a bitter consolation prize.

If there's any upside, the sandwiches are alright. But that's little comfort for a place sandwiched between a quite excellent red sauce joint (Giuseppe's) and an excellent meat place...

Pizza review. This crust is dense, not enough sauce even when asking for a little extra. Two slices of a small pizza 100% missing the third topping. Expected a risen “Greek style pizza”. When the dough isn’t given the opportunity to rise it isn’t light and flavourful. This is a common problem with Greek Pizza (pan pizza) - it’s due to lack of planning wherein the dough must be stretched in the pan and rest in optimal warmth conditions to give it a full rise. Ordered Saturday at ~5:30 - definitely should have had a fully risen pizza ready to go. I recognise that I must take ownership for not scrutinising the review photographs - the thin edge crust should have been a dead giveaway that lack of planning is a regular occurrence. The nice thick edge has a rare appearance in the review photographs - the style should contain little white flecks (air release) on the outer crust and the under crust should have uneven texture where the little air pockets formed. Fast efficient...