Pizzaiolo

Unusual salad of a good helping of Bellwether ricotta with chewy farro, marinated artichokes, radishes, and black olive ($10), very nice, especially with the bread.

Rigatoni with chicken and pork ragù ($16), we were expecting a ragù of chicken and pork, but it was actually pork ragù and shredded / chopped braised chicken. The pasta wasn't exactly rigatoni, either. Whatever, it was delicious.
...+READ Unusual salad of a good helping of Bellwether ricotta with chewy farro, marinated artichokes, radishes, and black olive ($10), very nice, especially with the bread.

Rigatoni with chicken and pork ragù ($16), we were expecting a ragù of chicken and pork, but it was actually pork ragù and shredded / chopped braised chicken. The pasta wasn't exactly rigatoni, either. Whatever, it was delicious.

Meatballs with polenta and rapini ($15) and rapini with hot pepper and garlic ($7) very good, similar to previous visits.

With all the bread, we were too full for dessert. Damn, that bread is good.-COLLAPSE / REPLY (8 Replies) (by Robert Lauriston, created November 8, 2011)

»outstanding

Great pizza. Excellent service. Very nice wine list and quality booze (not a huge variety but all quality choices) (by DonZ, created July 30, 2011)

First big improvement: reservations. I happened to look at the menu because of a Chowhound thread about good places for squid (thanks, chocolatetartguy), and noticed that they had cotechino with lentils, which sounded very appealing given the cold rainy weather. I called around 6pm and got a reservation for 7:45.

Second big improvement: there's now a host station and a charming and professional...+READ First big improvement: reservations. I happened to look at the menu because of a Chowhound thread about good places for squid (thanks, chocolatetartguy), and noticed that they had cotechino with lentils, which sounded very appealing given the cold rainy weather. I called around 6pm and got a reservation for 7:45.

Second big improvement: there's now a host station and a charming and professional hostess who seemed to double as sommelier.

Third big improvement: better music (or at least more to my taste, a mix featuring Cuban and classic jazz) at a reasonable volume. Some chill techno kicked in just before closing time but even that was relatively unobjectionable.

The server was as usual quite good: unobtrusive, professional, and helpful. The two antipasti and two secondi we ordered were well paced as four courses with share plates swapped as necessary.

I tried the gin and housemade tonic ($9), which I'd heard a lot about. At first I thought I'd gotten the wrong drink, as it tasted like citrus and some many-herb thing like amaro or vermouth, but the server said that's from all the herbs etc. in the tonic. Delicious apéritif, though not terribly food-friendly.

The cotechino with lentils ($10) was great, small portion, five slices about 1/4" thick and less than 2" diameter. It came with frisée and salsa verde which overpowered it a bit but were nice separately as a salad.

Spaghetti alla carbonara with English peas ($14), the guanciale was the star here. Pretty damned good, I don't think I've had better in a restaurant since Little Italy closed.

Pizza ($17) with tomato sauce, sausage, hot pepper, and panna (heavy cream) was easily the best pizza I've had at Pizzaiolo and one of the best Neapolitan-style pizzas I've had anywhere in the past few years. Nice char but not too much, dough had good flavor and a soft crunch, not floppy or soggy, excellent balance of flavors, good spice.

Buttermilk fried chicken with ceci ragù, roasted winter vegetables, and chile oil ($24) was really great: nice leg and thigh portion, moist, crisp batter, with a surprising touch of cumin and coriander in the chickpeas, giving it an Indian spin.

Grapefruit and blood orange sorbet ($7.50), if you ask me this was a granita. Right up there with Zuni's, great balance of bitter, sour, and sweet, a perfect ending for the somewhat rich meal.

Overall, just the right amount of food.

Drank Domaine de Fontsainte 2008 Corbières Gris de Gris ($8 glass), nice; La Cappuccina 2008 Madégo (70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc) Veneto IGT ($9.75 glass), very nice (it's not easy to find good Veneto reds around here), Georg Mumelter 2008 St. Magdalener "Griesbauerhof" (Schiava with a little Lagrein, $35 bottle), just stunning, as lovely a light-bodied Alto Adige red as you could ask for, perfect with the rich pizza and chicken; La Favorite Rhum Agricole Blanc ($7) is like a very earthy grappa with molasses overtones, awesome stuff.

This was in several ways the best meal I've had at Pizzaiolo. Yay for reservations.

Full disclosure, I'm opening a restaurant up Telegraph in Berkeley and Pizzaiolo is arguably our most direct competitor. If I hadn't had a great meal, I would not have felt it appropriate to post.-COLLAPSE / REPLY (2 Replies) (by Robert Lauriston, created March 9, 2010)

»Pizzaiolo 01/23/10

Last night we went to Pizzaiolo for the first time. We had tried coming here once before about 6 months ago but the wait was too long. Let me start by saying I grew up in NY, am very picky about pizza and pizza crust, and am more often than not disappointed by pizza I eat in CA. We had a great meal. Here is what we ate:

Arugula salad sliced fennel, beets, almonds and baked ricotta. Very fresh...+READ Last night we went to Pizzaiolo for the first time. We had tried coming here once before about 6 months ago but the wait was too long. Let me start by saying I grew up in NY, am very picky about pizza and pizza crust, and am more often than not disappointed by pizza I eat in CA. We had a great meal. Here is what we ate:

Arugula salad sliced fennel, beets, almonds and baked ricotta. Very fresh tasting and well balanced. The ingredients went very well together.

Wood oven baked Manilla clams and mussels in broth with rouille and grilled bread. Excellent. Often when you order dishes like this, they taste good but are drowning in butter and leave you with a heavy feeling. The thing I really liked about this version is that it was very tasty but not overly heavy. The rouille provided the perfect amount of richness without overwhelming the dish, and the toast was great dipped in the sauce.

We got the potato, fontina, pancetta and rosemary pizza with two eggs on top. The pizza was great, bordering on excellent. The crust was perfect, absolutely spot on. The ingredients of the toppings were tasty and high quality. Two things prevented me from saying the pizza was excellent. First the pizza seemed very under salted to me. Once you added salt it was much better. More importantly the balance of toppings was unbalanced so that the potatoes dominated and it was difficult to discern the pancetta, and I could not even taste rosemary at all. Had there been slightly more and somewhat larger pieces of pancetta and a touch more rosemary the pizza probably would have been excellent instead of just great.

For dessert we had a pecan pie like tart with very tasty vanilla ice cream.
We will definitely go back again to give the pizza another try.-COLLAPSE / REPLY (4 Replies) (by Ridge, created January 24, 2010)

»Oakland: Pizzaiolo- donuts, frittata and awesome apple turnovers … awesome and amazing apple turnovers.

The turnover goes straight to the top of my list as best apple turnover in the Bay Area. It is so far ahead of the pack in the apple turnover world. It is like Mine that Bird at the Kentucky Derby, a standout winner.

The turnover is like the best croissant ever, buttery, flakey, and crunchy. There were two types, regular and caramel.

I bought the caramel reluctantly. I’m a classic apple...+READ The turnover goes straight to the top of my list as best apple turnover in the Bay Area. It is so far ahead of the pack in the apple turnover world. It is like Mine that Bird at the Kentucky Derby, a standout winner.

The turnover is like the best croissant ever, buttery, flakey, and crunchy. There were two types, regular and caramel.

I bought the caramel reluctantly. I’m a classic apple turnover person but it sounded interesting. The filling was great. It was more like a regular turnover with brown sugar which upped the deliciousness.

There was the right amount of filling not too little ... each bite had filling ... not too much. There were tasty chunky apples that were the right texture.

Be warned this is rich. It is difficult to close your mouth because your lips keep slipping apart from all that butter.

Here’s a report by Jasmine G about the buttermilk and pumpkin donuts
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/658473#5116300

She wrote

“each doughnut came with a doughnut hole, which was a nice touch. These are big fluffy cakey doughnuts, sprinkled in sugar, for $2 each, and they were pretty delicious. I didn't taste that much pumpkin in the pumpkin one, though -- I mean, it tasted good, just not particularly pumpkiny. They were fresh when I bought them, but I didn't eat both of them that day, and they were still pretty tasty reheated in my toaster oven for breakfast this morning.

I also had Dream Fluff doughnuts on Sunday (it was a doughnut kind of weekend) and their old fashioned still have my heart.”

They have different donuts every day with the buttermilk served everyday. I’m guessing the pumpkin is the donut of the month. Yesterday they had raised donuts with chocolate topping and custard filled donuts covered with chocolate.

The people who don’t like the rich Artisan Bakery custard-filled might like these which are toned back. For me, not so much. They were good … who dislikes a custard-filled donut … but something was off.

Actually two things … the donut is more like brioche. The chocolate tasted lovely with a bittersweet edge, but is tpo runny. Eating it is messy but not in a good way.

Ditto with something being off about the buttermilk donut. I only had a donut hole so I’m not sure what that was. However, covering them in cinnamon sugar was wrong. It overpowers any buttermilk flavor. I need classic plain, glazed, maple or chocolate.

I’m not sure about the donut hole policy. I asked and got a uncommitted reply … tho it did score me a free donut hole. Not everyone gets one who orders a donut. I think it would be nice if they served a plate of each flavor of donut holes.

I’m not sure what donuts are served on other days. I think they have an apple fritter.

The frittata was good with lots of veggies in it.

They still have toast with a choice of Blue Chair jam. Blue Bottle is the coffee. Hot chocolate and organic tea (black, jasmine or Gemaicha) round out the menu.-COLLAPSE / REPLY (6 Replies) (by rworange, created October 30, 2009)

»Delicious, friendly, good cocktails

Great cocktails, delicious calamari salad appetizer (when it's on the menu), and super tasty thin-crust pizza. Also, very nice service. (by balabanian, created September 30, 2009)