Gia's Pizza Kitchen — Restaurant in Town/Village of East Rochester

I'm sorry, I wish them luck, but I just don't get all the 5 star reviews, except to assume they are all written by friends and family.

First of all, they need a sign. We drove by the place twice because it was so dark and uninviting, and there's no sign at all with their name on it. I think I may have overheard that they are expecting an awning soon, which I'm sure would help if true.

Now, I'd assume a place called "Gia's Pizza Kitchen" would be, you know, a pizza shop, but I was wrong. The inside is drab and dark, and has but a few typical chairs and tables that you'd expect to find in a pizza shop, as well as a small bar with only beer and wine. The bar was occupied with what seemed to be staff or friends of staff as they were constantly in and out of the kitchen area, which is very off-putting for any customers that may have wanted to sit at the bar.

When presented with the plastic laminated menu by the teenage server with a backwards baseball hat, we were quite surprised to see more "upscale" Italian entrees and appetizers. We came for pizza and wings, so we skipped all that, but we did notice that the prices for some of the the items were very expensive. One particular shocker to me was an appetizer order of Arancini was $15. I make Arancini at home all the time, it's literally just a fried ball of rice. This is more expensive than other restaurants in the area that are genuinely nice Italian restaurants.

We were offered bread when we sat down, which was a frozen, pre-purchased loaf. It was exactly like the awful Italian bread you can get at Aldi's around here. No self-respecting Italian restaurant should ever serve bread like this.

We ordered a large pizza and wings, and were told that they were out of wings. The server offered a double order of "mini-wings", but we have never heard of mini-wings before, so we went with boneless wings instead, which were nothing special. The pizza was small and a very thin crust compared to other pizza shops in this area. In my opinion, if you're going to do a thin crust pizza it must be crispy and ideally wood-fired; this was neither. I did ask, and this was their regular crust. They also offer a thin crust on the menu, and the server did say they can do a thicker crust if asked. I really wish I had known about the thicker crust before we ordered.

All-in-all our bill was just short of $50 for a 2-topping pizza and boneless wings and two waters, and while that's not too bad for pizza and wings these days, we just didn't feel like this particular pizza and wings was a very good value. For us, this was one and done, we won't be returning.

My take is that they don't know what they are trying to be. They have expensive, upscale entrees, but who wants to go out for a nice dinner in a drab, dark pizza shop with laminated menus and a server with a backwards baseball hat? If I want a nice Italian dinner, I expect a nice atmosphere, tablecloths, professional servers, and a full bar, to name a few things. On the other hand, I don't really know who's going to order their pizza as it's not that great, and there's definitely better options right around them in East Rochester. I can't speak to their wings since they apparently ran out of them at 8pm on a Thursday.

Again, I wish them the best of luck, but we don't...

A local at a bar nearby recommended we try Gia’s while visiting the area. 8pm on a Saturday night it was busy but rapidly clearing out as the dinner rush ended. I overheard one lady say “the gnocchi, was just like I make at home” I suspect from her tone, she is unused to competition from the non-Nona crowd. We were served by Bella, who was refreshingly non robotic and actually interacted with us and engaged in conversation. A personal touch all too rare, we find. Had the calamari and wings to start. Calamari was tender with a light batter with a good shatter to it. Highlight was the red dipping sauce. Wings were cooked well and in a fairly mild buffalo garlic sauce. The garlic wasn’t noticeable and the wings were sprinkled with parm. Good size for the order. We then had linguine with red sauce and meatball and a chicken french. Meatball was good sized and the red sauce is excellent, 2 chicken breasts and a nice light sauce on the chicken. The chicken had 2 breasts that were big enough, that I could only finish 1. We both agreed the pasta was a highlight, in that it was cooked perfectly. Bella was super helpful in helping with wine selection and again, her personality made the experience even more enjoyable. We left with 2 full to go boxes, that may be lunch tomorrow…..but I don’t even want to think about eating for a bit. Thank you to everyone for the good food and hospitality...

My wife and I went mid afternoon so it wasn't busy. I had the gnocchi with bolognese sauce my wife had gnocchi with red sauce. Both had meatball. The red sauce was delicious and a nice thick consistency. Mine ,with bolognese sauce, was the best I've ever had. True shreds and chunks of beef and pork were abundant and the sauce was very flavorful. Not overly garlic to where you could actually taste tomatoes, basil, olive oil, etc. each. Nice and thick sauce which clung to gnocchi. Dipping the warm bread in sauce was heavenly. Portions were great in which I needed a take home box. Included salad was not skimpy with many tomatoes, Red onion, chi-chi beans, tasty croutons added a nice crunchy taste. The dressing , house Italian, was delicious with a sweetness making it very tasty. We were immediately hooked on Gia's and is our new and permanent "go to" Italian favorite...