Pizza Review: Bella Notte in the Strip

It was my first day at a brand new job. I was meeting new people, sharing details about my life, and planning some great stuff with an exciting new company. Within the first few hours I exhausted nearly all topics of conversation dealing with pizza. My coworkers knew I was obsessed with the combination of crust, sauce, and cheese. So, on my inaugural lunch outing the question wasn’t if we were going to eat pizza, but where.

I had to impress these people. I’d be working with close proximity with them and any irritation I caused now would come back to haunt me weeks later. By choosing the wrong pizza place, I would not only forfeit my chances of getting a ping-pong table in the office, but I would face a similar fate to the nazi soldier who chose the ornate chalice in the Steven Spielberg classic film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 

Without hesitation I chose Bella Notte. Bella Notte sits in the middle of the strip and is surrounded by every ethnicity of food and the leading supplier of Italian goods. I had confidence that their ingredients would be fresh and the Italian expertise would have invaded their kitchen via osmosis. My pizza fantasy faded as we walked through the door greeted by “Top Forty” music that had as much business being in a pizza shop as a horse riding on an asteroid to Horseopolis. 

After looking through the menu my coworkers decided it would be best to venture in our separate directions, like officers of the law searching for an escaped convict, and order individual slices. The slices cost more than you’d bargain for in Pittsburgh, but you’re actually purchasing an “investment slice” (that’s what I call a slice of pizza so large that it keeps your stomach occupied until dinner).

The special that day was the margarita and who was I to turn down a pizza that claimed it was made with fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella? When the pizza arrived I was confused as to why the basil looked so wilted and forlorn. Whatever basil flavor once inhabited the leaf had evaporated in the ovens. Why they cooked the basil in the oven is beyond me. Shame on these people for treeing such a delicate herb with reckless abandon. I was then stuck with a pizza coated with thick mozzarella that was topped with weeds that my grandmother would be embarrassed to have in her yard. 

Supporting the cheese and sauce was a sturdy crust that crumbled with a single bite. The brittle and charred flavored of the crust wasn’t advertised, but certainly played a large role in the pizza. It was hard to taste the elements of the pizza while my tastebuds were dealing with the blackened debris that could just as easily exploded out of a volcano. 

My one partner, Justin, who ordered a slice of pepperoni, could not finish his. I’m not sure if it’s because of the stick of pepperoni they shredded atop his slice, or he wasn’t mentally prepared for the colossal triangle on his plate. 

I applaud their effort to provide Pittsburgh with “investment slices,” but the pizza fundamentals can use a bit of work. As far as the Strip goes, this may be the best in the area, but it’s not worth traveling away from Bloomfield or Squirrel Hill for a slice.

Three pizzas out of five.

Pizza Review: Graziano's in Bloomfield

“JF,” I shouted, “There’s this place up the street that sells a large sicilian pizza for $7 on Tuesday." 

"My lord,” JF replied, “You’ve got to be pizza-kidding me.”

“No,” I shouted, “I am not pizza-kidding you, and to be pizza-frank, I don’t think I can legally do that as a pizza-journalist.”

“As someone who’s not your lawyer, you’re probably right,” JF replied.

And that’s the motivation behind trying out Graziano’s in Bloomfield. You may also know this as a the pizza place that glares at the Brillobox across the street, jealous of their cliental. From the outside, it’s not the most welcoming pizza place, but that’s what makes going on pizza adventures so swell. A reason to go into those dank pizza spots hoping that their ovens contain that golden pizza that will unite your tastebuds in a utopian symphony. 

Unfortunately, the my tastebuds were barely inspired to whistle after eating Graziano’s pizza.

I’ve been meaning to try more Sicilian pizzas in the wild ever since Mineo’s put its spell on me, and when I saw that incredible deal on pizza at Graziano’s I couldn’t resist. Unfortunately, I had the deal wrong. When I called up the establishment I asked if they were crazy enough to be selling Sicilian pizzas for $7. It turns out they aren’t that crazy and I’d be paying full-price. 

Their Sicilian pizza is basic and unappealing. Never would you see this pizza in a Pizza Museum and it’s certainly not winning any awards for ingenuity. It is as banal as you can get. Pizza is a great medium to experiment with, and it’s too bad that Graziano’s is no longer inspired to put forth the effort to dazzle customers with their pizza prowess. I bit into this Sicilian and I could have sworn the pizza cried out, “Meh." 

By the time I got through two pieces the pizza had lost any semblance of heat. The pizza was so boring that its temperature couldn’t have been bothered to linger. The dough was manageable and the sauce was from a can and the pizza was a thing. It was the type of thing you’d purchase accidentally due to the amount of alcohol in your body. It’s not until you wake up the next morning and see the empty box would you feel the grease of shame working its way through your intestines. 

Graziano’s isn’t something I’d recommend you travel more than five blocks for. With a proximity so close to Fazio’s, it’s a wonder why anyone wouldn’t just go there. The hours? I’m not sure. Perhaps their regular pizza is better.

Two pizzas out of five.

Act 1: Pizza Conflict

Below we have a pizza conflict. A young lady is faced with a decision:Does she eat a lonesome slice of pizza who has no reason to live? Or does she let the pizza suffer in its loneliness. This is one of the many conflicts pizza eaters around the world face. It's often dramatic, but never ends well. Around the corner there's another fan of pizza who can smell that grease bubbling. Eating the last slice never ends well. It's tragic and comedic, not in the Two and a Half Men sense, but in the Shakespearian sense. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the exchange that brings out genuine human characteristics like cannibalism.
Me:WHERE DID MY LAST SLICE OF PIZZA GO?
Sister:I ate it.
ME:YOU WHAT? THAT WAS MINE NOT YOURS.
Sister:Geez, I feel like Cinderella.
ME:Cinderella was not asked if she would like pizza, said no, AND THEN ATE HER SISTER'S PIZZA.
Sister:Ok, just-
ME:IF YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN I WILL EAT YOU.
Sister:[runs]

Pizza Q&A with Fazio's Pizza in Bloomfield

John Fazio tell John Carman What’s What

When I created Pizza Walk With Me, the very site you’re reading, I wanted to focus not only on pizza culture, but the pizza creators. Behind every great pizza is a great pizza guy or gal. In this edition, I interviewed John Fazio, the owner and mastermind behind Fazio’s in Bloomfield. Without further ado, here’s the Q&A! 

Pizza Walk With Me (PWWM): How long have you been at your current Bloomfield location?

John Fazio (JF): Since June 2010. 

PWWM: So you’re newish to the area?

JF: Well we had a restaurant up the street years ago, the original Fazio’s. It was open for 15 years.

PWWM: How is the pizza scene been treating you?

JF: It’s fantastic here and the pizza speaks for itself. 

PWWM: How do you separate yourself from the crowd?

We have a white pizza that’s different than everyone else’s. Ours comes with tomato, ricotta cheese, and oil and garlic. The price is also just the same as the rest of our pizzas. We actually have a crown in our window that we won in a pizza contest thanks to our white pizza. There was a contest up in Bloomfield, at Moose Hall. All the locals brought a pizza from their area and whoever liked it put their initials put their bottom on the box. At the end of the night they came back to our shop and told us that out of 40 pizza shops, ours got the most votes. 

PWWM: Do you guys do anything new or different?

JF: We are a traditional pizza shop with hoagies, wings, fries and salads. 

Slicing up some of their NY Style Pizza

PWWM: I’ve heard your pizza is kind of New Jersey Style 

JF: Well, we got slices that are like a new york style. When we were younger we went to New Jersey to work at the pizza shops on the boardwalk. They’d call us up and a gang of us would spend the summer there making pizzas. Back then in grade school, we made money out there. After all those years, pizza just stuck. It was something I did.

PWWM: How are you enjoying it then? Is it something you’re proud of?

JF: Ah yeah, it’s a good thing to do, but you have no life in this business. You have no vacation, no days off, no family time. But it’s not something I regret, not at all. It’s just that you have to be dedicated to it because when you start something like this you have to stick with it. You have to be here. You can’t have other people doing things, everything has to be made by the same person so it’s consistent and reliable for your customers. 

PWWM: So you’re making all this stuff by hand?

JF: Yep, everything is made fresh daily. Nothing is shipped in frozen, we chop up our vegetables fresh, make the garlic every day, everything is done by hand here. 

PWWM: Do you have  a favorite pizza?

JF: The white pizza is my favorite.

PWWM: Have you ever tried another white pizza you like?

JF: I try them all the time, I can’t say there’s no comparison, but it’s pretty much the ingredients that make a difference.

PWWM: Do you think there’s such a thing as Pittsburgh Style Pizza?

JF: I guess it’s not as thin and not as thick. Chicago deep dish is that thick pizza and the New York style boardwalk pizza is usually really thin. I think that the pizza shops in Pittsburgh are usually in-between, not too thin and not too thick.

PWWM: Do you think that’s a good thing?

JF: It’s good, it’s different. People come from NY and they’re surprised to find the pizza is much different than it is there. 

PWWM: I’ve heard that you can’t find good pizza out west, I have a brother in Chicago who hates all the pizza there. You see that often?

JF: I get a lot of people coming to Fazio’s looking for that New York style pizza. There’s a guy across the street who orders it all the time. He wants that thin crust pizza. I have a lot of people on the phone who call up looking for that thin crust pizza. So what we do is use a smaller dough and stretch it nice and big. It’s by request only, but we’re happy to cater to our customers. Though, you don’t get the large slices, but you get the quality of it. 

PWWM: If you could sum up your pizza shop, what would it be? What do you want people to take away from Fazios?

JF: I think I want people to come to Fazio’s and leave here talking to their friends about it. I want them coming back saying, “I got such a great slice here, you gotta come.” That’s how it all works here, I would rather people come in here, try a slice and tell their friends because the advertisement side of this business is out of control.

PWWM: What do you mean it’s out of control?

JF: It’s $150- $200 a week to advertise, which adds up to about a $1,000 more a month. I’d rather someone like you come into my store, leave here saying it’s awesome which creates this chain reaction that brings people back to my store, bringing my business back.

This is the crown Fazio’s won for their white pizza. Excuse the blurriness.

PWWM: That brings up a question, is that why the Penny Saver is always dominated by pizza shops on the front and back?

JF: I mean, to me, I couldn’t afford to put an ad in that paper every week. What I want is to have a conversation with my customers like you and I are doing right now. Having the same customers come back is what keeps me moving. Anyone can come buy a pizza one time, and if they don’t like it they don’t come back. There are hundreds of other options in Pittsburgh. I have guys who come from Brentwood and Mt. Lebanon just to buy my pizza. I grew up on pizza right here in Bloomfield, and when I found out about Fiori’s Pizzaria in Capitol Avenue, it was awesome so I use to drive from Bloomfield to get that pizza. Now I have people coming from the outskirts to get my pizza which makes me feel good. Basically, I just want someone to say “Hey I tried Fazio’s it was good and I’d recommend it to anyone.” We try to do our best to make things the same to ensure our customers can depend on that quality.

PWWM: Do you think pizza places kind of live or die by their customer loyalty?

JF: I think so. I have a gentlemen who came in here not too long ago who put a ton of money into his own pizza shop and it didn’t even last a year. It’s hard especially since the location and the product are so important in this business. You can open a pizza shop anywhere, but if you don’t have a quality product no one is going to come back. We’re family operated with my kids so it’s more family operated which means our tradition and quality maintains. Once you have a family operated business everything stays the same. That’s the main thing I want to keep going, is the consistency. Not one person makes something different than the other. 

PWWM: What steps are you taking to maintain this quality and consistency?

JF: Well, only one person created the product. One person makes the dough, only one person makes the sauce, only one person does everything. I can tell you how to make the sauce, but it wouldn’t taste the way I make it. It’s always different, but when the same person makes the same thing you get that consistent taste all the time. 

At this point in the interview  John gave me a tour of his facilities claiming it was the cleanest pizza shop around. I thought, sure, okay, that’s what everyone says, but he’s not lying. The bathrooms are cleaner than mine at home and his ovens looked like they were just installed yesterday. His basement/storage area was pristine and could easily be rented out to a pizza journalist down on their luck. His storage space was well organized and filled to the brim with supplies. “I could make 500 pizzas for the Pittsburgh Penguins if they called me up right now,” John stated with a glowing smile. 

It’s a great pizza shop that’s filled with pride as much as their pizzas are full of flavor. 

If you have any suggestions for pizza places you want me to pop into next, don’t hesitate to leave me a message here.

Pizza Review: Fazio's Pizza

Fazio’s Pizza (pronounced Fay-Zios) rests at 4028 Penn Avenue where it’s been since 2010. This is far from a start-up pizza place, in fact, they use to have a shop further up Penn for 15 years before moving towards the border of Bloomfield and Lawrenceville. We’ll get more into their pizza philosophy tomorrow, but for now I’m going to examine the slice of pizza I snagged from Fazio’s. 

John Fazio, the owner of Fazio’s pizza, use to travel from Pittsburgh to New Jersey to work at the Jersey pizza shops in the summer time as a kid. I don’t know if this was part of some pizza-exchange program, but the time spent in New Jersey has certainly left a mark on him as a pizza maker. His pizza can be mistaken for a New Jersey import. Fazio’s pizza contains equal amounts cheese and grease that mix together to create that classic pizza surface; something that looks like the surface of an alien planet.

The pizza I tried, and is pictured above, was of the plain variety. I found out too late that their pride and joy is a white pizza that hosts the rich creamy layer of ricotta that’s populated with diced tomatoes. Another time, I hope. By the time I got to eat my slice, the grease had taken over much in the way that vines overtake an abandoned house. What was once a crispy crust was now a flimsy foundation that could hardly support the cheese and sauce located on its second floor. Not to worry, it would make devouring the slice that much easier.

Not that eating this pizza was troublesome. The cheese wasn’t a choking hazard, and the sauce was rationed in a way that it wasn’t spilling over and burning my skin and mouth like so many overly-sauced pizzas have. The ingredients were few, but their synergy should not go unnoticed. Separately, the crust, cheese, and sauce would seem sparse and desert-esque, but together they created a humble entity that begged to be eaten. 

Before I could write down any notes of significant, the pizza had vanished. I was left holding a sturdy crust that a bird of prey could land. Just as easily, a baby would have an easy time chewing through it.  The flexibility of the crust was perfect for a pizza-grip and also a pleasure to eat without the aid of a liquid to wash it down.

The staff at Fazio’s works diligently to create a pizza experience you can count on with the same certainty that you know the sun will rise. Tasks are delegated among employees so the same people are doing the same thing every day. There’s one person who handles the dough, one person who handles the sauce, so on and so forth. This ensures that your Fazio’s experience is replicated reliably. You’ll never have to worry about leading your friends into this shop, as though you were the pied piper of pizza, only to be served a pizza alien to your tastebuds and made a fool. 

Fazio’s is a delight to have in the Pittsburgh Pizza Community and they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Mineo’s or Aiello’s pizza. Their persistence of consistency is reassuring and they treat their customers like family. While eating my slice in their shop, I heard someone taking an order use the person’s name repeatedly. “Anything on that pizza, Bob?” “Anything else, Bob?” “Thanks so much for ordering, Bob.” It’s good to know that they care about as much as their pizza as they do their customers.

The Gifts of the Pizza

It’s not a Pizza Walk With Me Christmas until I amass a pile of gifts aimed to facilitate my pizza journey across the globe. One by one I opened presents hoping that the wrapping paper was hiding a state-of-the-art pizza cutter, or a codex that held ancient pizzas. In the case of the latter, I can imagine Indiana Jones would then jump through my window, punch me in the throat, scream that the pizza codex “belonged in a  museum,” then escape. I’m kind of glad I didn’t get any pizza relics this year, actually. I was lucky enough to receive a couple of key items that no pizza adventurer should be without. They are as follows.

Pac-Man Pizza Gloves

A little known secret is that the best time to eat pizza is within the first three seconds that it emerges from the oven. The heat guards the flavor, keeping away pizza sissies, but armed with this Pac-Man Pizza Glove, I can withstand any amount of heat up to 443 degrees fahrenheit. I’ll be able to grip and waka-waka-waka my way through a slice of pizza like it was an everyday power pellet. 

A Pizza Satchel

Many times I’ve been frustrated with my human limitations. With two hands that means I can only carry, at most, four slices of pizza. Unlike kangaroos, I don’t have the pleasure of stuffing pizza in my body to save for later. Until science finds a way for humans to develop internal pizza sacks, my pizza pal, Christa, got me this handy pizza satchel. There’s pockets for parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes, a cushioned slot for fragile sicilian pizza, and there’s space for grand New York Style slices. 

A Pizza Pointer

With this laser pointer I can point out faults in a pizza, highlight perfect cheese perfection, and enhance my pizza presentations. It’s a handy contraption that can help solve a lot of confusion when I say, “Hey, look at that circle of pepperoni that’s slightly undercooked and lacks the kiss of grease that the others possesses.” My pizza partner would usually stare at me, lacking her third pizza eye. But now I can simple shine a light on the pepperoni in question. Pizza progress!

Those are some of my pizza gifts and I hope your holiday celebrations was peppered with pizza tools and items to excel your pizza appreciation. It should be every day that we exchange pizza gifts, but I’ll take this one day out of the year for now.