When I was in kindergarten, my best friend Geoffrey and I would spend our afternoons at his house pretending to be Westley from
The Princess Bride and loading up his
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle van with
Hook action figures. We knew everything about the snapping turtles and crayfish that lived in the creek in his backyard and ate a lot of Chuck E. Cheese pizza when our parents decided that creepy robots made for great babysitters. We knew nothing of pizza. I've eaten a lot of pizza since. Atlanta has some decent 'za for a city that is not Chicago or New York but I don't want this to be another Atlanta food blog and I really don't want to dog on a place when I think it could be good. Let's just say as a Neapolitan pizza joint,
Ammazza has some
serious competition.
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| Not pictured: Inconvenient, long-term construction projects on Edgewood Ave. |
Ammazza
A few weeks ago, J invited me to crash one of her friend's birthday parties. We spent a few hours playing volleyball in Piedmont Park with
Dio blasting on a boom-box. And then we wasted some precious time and money that could have been spent on
Korean karaoke having lackluster pizza at Ammazza over on Edgewood Avenue. This street is home to my favorite vampire haunts. But so far, I haven't ate up any noteworthy grub on this stretch of concrete and my experience at Ammazza hasn't changed my opinion that Edgewood is a pit of despair when it comes to dining options. And no, I haven't tried
Illegal Foods yet because
Turtles In Time takes up too much of my damn time.
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Table numbers.
The reason so many 16-year old girls use their parents' credit cards.
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Ammazza is located in a beautiful brick commercial building on the Inman Park end of Edgewood Ave. The decor is urban chic. Concrete floors, dark wood, and sexy lighting help offset the sparseness of the space. You order at the front counter bar and get a number to place on your table. Ah, the new and wonderful trend of casual restaurants to eliminate the pointless hostess station.
The website for Ammazza claims they want to ball-out with good beer and good 'za. The beer list does have some really great brews on it, both local and international. My biggest complaint on it is that almost every beer on the list is $3 more than I'm used to paying for the same damn beer a block down the street. Great you have craft beers! But I'm not happy paying Buckhead gas-station 6-pack prices. Cut some of the beers off the list, or rotate them monthly so you can pass us some savings and watch your customers' beer consumption sky rocket.
The pizza menu is all Neapolitan or NY-style pizza. I'm okay with this. I've been to Naples a couple of times. I loved it. The pizza was amazing and I kind of understand the hype of New York pizza but aside from folding my pizza, I try to stay away from the oily mess of grease and tradition that is a NY pie.
Ammazza's pizza is easily identifiable as pizza but I'm not sure if it falls into either the Neapolitan or New York camps. It has a crust, cheese and toppings, -staying with me here? The meat toppings are provided by
The Spotted Trotter and are F'n A. The cheese, veggie and herb toppings are all fresh and delicious. I don't remember what kind of pie we ended up ordering because we sat with a large group and everyone ended up sharing like an epic Ninja Turtle Feast. (I would've been Casey Jones, not because I hate Raphael, but he's a mutant turtle and can't really get the girl, just FYI.)
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Ammazza's 'za
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The Ammazza website talks about the special process they use for creating their pizza dough, which is pretty typical and shouldn't need to be talked about but-IT'S THE WORST PART OF THE PIZZA! It looks like
DiGiorno crust that has been burnt a little bit in their wood-fired ovens and was really dry and bland tasting. I'm a crust-eater because I love carbs and one day hope to assume my natural-state of being an obese American. But I couldn't finish this crust. It really is a crucial part of a great pizza that most people overlook. I want it crunchy. I want it blackened by real flame. And if it's not thin crust, I want it to have just a hint of a gooey center, like a baguette served right out of the oven. Ammazza, ya'll please look into this and we can be best friends.
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The Scumbag Steve of pizza crust.
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So. Ammazza. Great beer list. Not great beer prices. Exceptional pizza toppings. Not a bad topping made it to my mouth. A wonderful flavor on the main body of the pizza. Terrible crust issues. I'm willing to give it a few more chances but it made sense as to why it wasn't packed out on a Saturday night-
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| BECAUSE THEY'RE MISSING THIS!!! |
Creative Loafing Atlanta just published an article on Ammazza's archnemesis, Varuni Napoli.
I hate that the CL writer whines about the charred crust and says has become the new pizza cliche. Naw, that's how you make good pizza in a real oven. CL hates on everything but I still love 'em.
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