Arthur Avenue, Antonios Trattoria Review

If I'm in the Bronx, I need pizza. The brick oven place I wanted to try, Zero Otto Nove, was closed so I found a new place called Antonios on Crescent Ave, just behind Arthur Avenue.

The place was nice, only open a year. The ideas were good, menu was great, but execution was poor.

We got two pizzas, Vesuviana (smoked mozzarella and roasted peppers) and Arugulata (Fresh mozzarella, no tomato sauce, topped with arugula, prosciutto di parma, and grated locatelli romano.) The arugula, prosciuto, and locatelli were put on after the pizza was fired in the oven.

Let's start with the good. The pizzas were piping hot. You could see the steam pouring out of the crust when they emerged from the oven. The combinations on the pizza were outstanding. All the pizzas, not just the ones we ordered, matched flavors very well. Our waiter was knowledgeable, a major plus in any restaurant. He gave us some good advice on our pizzas. The tomato sauce on the Vesuviana was nothing short of beautiful. Definitely a San Marzano sauce that I am trying to replicate. It was naturally sweet, not a hint of added sugar or residual acidity. Truely beautiful in its simplicity.

As for the arugulata, the flavors could have come together so much better if the toppings were cooked with the pizza! So frustrating because the concept of the pizza was so damn good. Argh! I don't want a salad on top of pizza bread! I wanted a pizza! I love arugula, my favorite green, but if I wanted the arugula salad I would have ordered it. The toppings were loose, disjointed, out of place. Just imagine the arugula cooking and wilting down into the cheese with some of the bitterness cooking away. The prosciutto would have crisped slightly and rendered some of its fat out into the greens and the dough and it would have all been held together by the melted locatelli. As a salad green I love the bite of arugula, but it is not the center of attention on a pizza. Pizza is about balance and this one was not balanced as it was. The waiter did give me the good tip to top it with some extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. This improved the flavor overall, cooked toppings or uncooked toppings, and no doubt should have been done right out of the oven.

Finally, I've seen it in a few "brick oven" places, but what gives with the crispy crust? (Unless of course it is a grilled pizza but thats a different animal) These places brag about thin and crispy crust. Thin is good, yes, under a light arrangement of toppings, but crust should be puffy, yeasty, chewy, alive with the goodness that comes with well made, freshly baked bread. This crust had no bounce. It was thin, dense and crispy. Not bad at all, but not what I want in my pizza. I don't even understand how crust like that is possible if you use a decent amount of yeast and let the dough proof and I don't plan to find out. I like my poofy, soft, and delicious crust.