Pizza Azzurro Review
Gourmet thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas in a low-key, casual dining environment. Locals favorite.
Pizza Azzurro / Azzurro Pizzeria and Enoteca
1260 Main St
Napa, CA 94559
(707) 255-5552
Google Maps to Pizza Azzurro
Azzurro Pizzeria website
Hours:
Mon-Fri 11:30am-9pm | Sat 5pm-9pm | Sunday closed
Pizza Azzurro food
Pizza Azzurro's claim to fame is their thin-crust, gourmet pizzas. The ingredients consist of more traditional Italian or Mediterranean flavors. So, you won't see stuff like Pineapple, shrimp in a Thai peanut sauce, chicken, etc. You also won't see things that are more like your typical American pizza which has a much heavier sauce, crust, and toppings. They're wood fired, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside but still very thin overall. Nor do you build your own pizza. You pick from the 8+ pizzas that they have on the menu. For some people this is a bummer, especially if they are expecting more American favorites (ie, pepperoni with a heavy sauce, heavy cheese, etc.)
If you're looking for more than pizza, they do have other dishes like spaghetti, baked rigatoni with spicy Italian sausage that we get every now and then. Salads. Can't decide between pizza or salad for dinner? Well, fret no more, since you can get both, as a "manciata," a pizza-salad hybrid wrapped in their thin pizza crust. Pretty tasty and light if you want to go that way.
Let's see...some favorites. Well, there's the salsiccia which is a spicy sausage with a red sauce. The funghi is a favorite. Come to think of it the spinach and ricotta one is pretty good too. Roasted eggplant one is pretty yummy. Come to think of it, the only "bad" pizza I've had was one that was quite salty but that's more to due to my taste than the pizza. The pizza did, after all, have capers, anchovies, etc. so it's not like I should have been expecting a tame pizza. Different strokes for different folks. They've recently added a chicken pizza which was much better than I thought it was going to be as I'm just not a chicken pizza kind of guy, but this one was delicious.
(Melanzane pizza - Eggplant, Peppers, Tomato Sauce, Oregano & Parmesan)
Formaggio pizza (Mozzarella, Parmesan, Goat Cheese & Ricotta Salata)
They've added appetizers and desserts to their menu in their new location which they didn't really have before. We tried their grilled artichoke, but it was a bit on the dry and under-seasoned side. The grilled artichoke at Rutherford Grill is much, much better. The only dessert that they had on hand was a Strauss Family organic soft serve ice cream with either a chocolate or caramel topping. You can go crazy and ask for chocolate and caramel together. They add a bit of salt to the caramel topping to give it a bit of tasty zing, but I've just never been big on soft serve ice cream.
But they're still trying to figure the appetizer and dessert side of menu out; I'm sure they'll figure something out.
Pizza Azzurro setting and service
Pizza Azzurro is one of the more popular places for the locals which I've alway found surprising as it's not that cheap at $60 total for two people (then again, it will be cheaper than other higher-end restaurants with similar pizzas.) Pizza Azzurro left their longtime location of Second St. and moved to Main Street. The old location was very casual, but they've obviously sunk in some good money for the new location which is definitely much hipper. Gone are the simple chairs and tables in what kind of looked like an ice cream shop. In are lots of stainless steel or chrome looks, little lamps cleverly placed in wine bottles hanging from the floor, much nicer furnishings, etc., and it's much larger than the old location. I'll be honest; I miss the old one in a way because it feels like it lost some of the casualness. But we'll see. When we went there a few days after the move, and it was packed.
The old Azzurro would have trouble with peak loads sometimes. Not enough wait staff to handle high loads, but at the new location, they were out in full force. And the service was much better than I was expecting for that kind of increased traffic load. The owner and chef, Michael Gyetvan, has done a terrific job of transplanting the core of his restaurant and giving it an uplift in every way.
One downside of their location is that it's closer to where the residential area meets downtown. Your parking options will be better on the side closer to downtown. The streets of the side facing the residential area is crammed with the residents' cars as most of the parking for them is street parking. Good luck on finding a parking spot there after people get home.
Price for the meal
2 glasses of wine, 2 pizzas, 1 dessert, tax, tip = $60
Links
Napa Valley Register's article covering the new move
