ottawa foodies

Art-is-in pizza oven was down so we found ourselves at Roberto to no disappointment. The pie here is, for me, still the best in this style in Ottawa. The crust is the real winner; nice char, light and airy enough for me to eat a whole pie without regret. Great toppings as well. Pictured is the Enzo, aka pepperoni pizza. Still looking forward to trying art-is-in pies.

Finally got around to trying this place out Friday evening. Limited selection of beers with three on tap, two local and one imported. Small place with an open front to the street for the claustrophobic among us. I got the Enzo my wife had the rapini, sausage, pecorino special and added sauce to it. Crust had the right amount of char with plentiful tasty toppings on both pies. Traditional Italian pizza done in a wood fired oven at a reasonable price. Certainly will be back when the craving arises.

I stopped by for my first visit and tucked into an Enzo. Sopprasetta, sausage, and pepperoni on a great wood fired crust with a delicious sauce. My only quibble, and it might entirely be down to my gluttony, was that I could have used a little more of the toppings. Great za.

Had the Enzo which was generously topped with sausage and pepperoni. Excellent thin crust that had a salt content I really appreciate. All this with saucy sauce and salty cheese make this a great pie in a nice little joint. Indeed, it is a good time to be alive.

Fair point fairly made, but the menu reads....

"MARGHERITA / TOMATO SAUCE / MOZZARELLA / BASIL 12.75"

...and to my eye that marg' is the equivalent of ordering a pepperoni pizza and receiving exactly one slice of pepperoni located in the centre, as opposed to the reasonable amount on the 'za in the background.

It may be the bestest cheese and sauce pizza in the city... i'm going there next week so i hope it is..., but i'm glad i saw your review because had i gone there and ordered a marg', it would have gone back. I mean' c'mon... two of those slices...50% of the pie... don't even have basil on them.

OSoloMeal, I will happily send back a product if there is a non-obvious problem with it, but in this case both the cook and the server could easily see how much basil was on the pizza. If I had complained and they put more basil on there, I'd be a happier diner, but my comment and photo here might be misleading to future customers. If there were some hidden problem, like if the crust were black and burnt underneath, I'd complain for sure. Actually, they served me Big Rig Gold (in a Kichesippi glass) when I asked for Kichesippi 1855, and when I mentioned that it didn't seem right they discovered that their taps were swapped. They happily replaced my beer with the correct one, so nothing needed to be said. I'm just sharing that example so you know what I complain about and what I don't. :-)

In summary, I complain about certain defects but never about anything I could chalk up to personal preference.

My mind is kind of blown by the two perfunctory basil leaves on that margherita. I would have sent that back.

This is a smaller, more casual, pizza-centric subset of a full Fratelli restaurant. The pizza menu seems identical to what you would find at Fratelli but with slightly lower prices in keeping with the more rustic ambience.

I had my first choice in traditional pizza: The Margherita ($12.75). This was delicious and is certainly on par with the other 5 or 6 places in town that now make authentic Italian pizza. It's a good time to be alive.

You'll note the presence of just two small leaves of basil on this pizza. The one I had at Fratelli for $1.25 more had eight pieces of basil with at least one per quarter. Worth the extra money if you ask me! Caveat emptor... if you find yourself at Roberto Pizza craving a Margherita, you may want to request that they not skimp on the basil. I'm quite convinced that Queen Margherita herself would have shared my disappointment at the scant herbal content of this otherwise magnificent pie.