Nashville Restaurants and Food
Italia Pizza and Pasta
1600 Woodland St.
Nashville
615-262-5001
http://www.italiapizza37206.com/
Ah, the neighborhood pizza place. Grab a pie to go, or dine-in and say hello to people you know. Italia recently changed neighborhoods just a bit, moving from one side of east Nashville to a new location in the 1600 block of Woodland. It’s a beautiful area with cozy bungalows and grand brick homes. We’ve heard that some folks really appreciate having Italia as their neighborhood joint. We visited and unfortunately it left us flat.
The menu has some fun options: spinach pesto pizza, Mexican, and the “Peace in the historic east Nashville” pie, which features hummus, feta, peppercinis and mozzarella. The owner has a Middle Eastern background, so Mediterranean classics like hummus, baba ghanouj are served alongside the pizza, subs and calzones. This seems perfectly natural: pizza joints in the northeast usually end up mixing Greek or Lebanese in with the Italian selections.
We ordered hummus to taste the Middle Eastern side of the menu. The pita bread gave us great hope: warm, toasty and fresh. Sadly it was wasted on the hummus, which had a curious and unpleasant tang. That combined with a genuine lack of flavor meant we were not off to a good start. A salad came with fresh greens, but blue cheese in squeeze packets and not a very good dressing at that.
Our White Pizza looked pretty on presentation. The dough was nicely done: a little crisp, a little chewy. The topping though was rather bland: plenty of garlic but lacking real flavor in the cheese. It’s kinda strange to find a place that gets the bread right and fails in other areas. Usually baking quality is one of the harder things to pull off. We thought about all of this and came to one guess: perhaps the ingredients are the problem? If you don’t use high quality ingredients all the skill in the world won’t help you in the kitchen. That white pizza looked perfectly cooked. It just lacked flavor.
Veggie Eater: The kindest thing I can say is everything was mediocre. Meat Eater discussed the issues with the various items; I’ll chime in with some additional details. The hummus was gummy, in addition to the off taste. The salad lettuce had browned edges, indicating it had been sitting in the fridge for some time. The menu touts “Gourmet Pizza” but it was essentially blah pizza.
Meat Eater: The place is nice inside and the staff friendly. You know we could have just hit the only duds on the menu. So, if you have a differing opinion please let us know with a comment. We paid $24 with tip and a drink.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Italia Pizza and Pasta
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10 comments:
Can't say you're wrong. You want the good pizza join on the East Side - hit Castrillo's. Great stuff.
You crazy! Their veggie sub rocks! I have always enjoyed their sandwiches and pizzas as well as the friendly service.
Let the food speak for itself. Branding it "gourmet" is the role of the consumer not the producer. This is similar to kids - no good parent would (should) tell you their kids are "good" or "best". Instead, they let them be who they are and let those who see them let you know.
Love their Yahoo hosted website with the picture of the supermarket 5 pound bag of "pre-sifted" bread flour and misspellings (ingrediants?). What is a "backed sub"?
3 to 11 pm?
Thanks for an honest review; your reputation proceeds you.
I've eaten at a number of pizza houses in Nashville and the majority are good, if not great. I had yet to try Italia Pizza, and after reading some stellar reviews, I decided to place an order for delivery. I saw the prices listed online and I thought they were high, but I was willing to pay the price for a good experience. I ordered a medium pizza (which is approximately 12'' in diameter) with two toppings on half the pizza and the other half just cheese. When the pizza arrived, I was surprised to see the bill was just under $15- BEFORE tip. The pizza was large, the toppings fresh, and the delivery fee was $1 which is not specified on their menu. Truthfully, They have the best pizza in town. I really like that their pizza comes on a thin crust. The dough is crisp and also tasty, not like that of other pizza chains. After I started eating their pizza, i never ordered from other pizzerias anymore. When you're in the mood for pizzas or even for chicken wings, you should try the scrumptious, comforting and pleasantly addictive food Italia has to offer.
quoting anonymous"
"not like that of other pizza chains"
They are a chain??? :-)
That previous comment reads like an infomercial!
Am I on Citysearch Nashville? :-)
I live very close to their old address, and I NEVER saw customers in there. Despite their convenient location, I wasn't going to risk eating somewhere that despite serving an easy, popular food had no patrons. How have they managed to stay open for so long?
It may just be true, best pizza in Nashville?
pizza perfect is the only other place I like in this city, seriously Nashville pizza sucks.
Don't come after me either, I am from Philly, Port Richmond, where legendary Tacconelli's is located, and I haven't had their pizza since I was a child and before the whole reserving dough thing.
But back to italia...
Large pizzas, they may be like 13 bucks or something, but it is just about the size of XL, and its got the crispy crust that is an absolute must for good pizza. fresh ingredients, cool combinations and a small but decent beverage selection. 3 blocks from home so it is officially better than Castrillo's to me.
Thanks for chiming in everyone. I think pizza tastes are like burger tastes...it may all seem similar, but everyone has their favorite style. next up we may do a dive bar burger segment...and I'm sure that my inspire quite a bit of debate. As always if you see a review you don't agree with, please post a comment, it's what keeps the blog interesting.
I don't usually review restaurants but this pizza is the best! I have shared it with a hand fun of friends already and they too agreed it was very good. I just hope by sharing my opinion won't cause too many people to go there making my wait time longer
Decided to stop in after reading your review and the fact that it was right around the corner from me. Had a few different pizzas over 2 weeks and the hummus and Garden pizza is definitely worth a visit. Can' wait to try some of the Mediterranean !
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