ANTICO PIZZA NAPOLETANA

He says:
How does a city with such a terrible pizza scene end up with the best pizza parlor on the planet? Atlanta never ceases to amaze me.

After years of Johnny’s, Little 5 Points, and Cameli’s, I had all but given up on pizza in this city. Everywhere I went the slices were too cheesy or too saucy or too mealy. Topping overload was rampant. I’d given up -- better, I thought, to cure my pizza fix on my annual jaunts to New York City. But now Antico Pizza Napoletana has arrived in the grungy West Side like a thunderbolt, and pizza in Atlanta will never be the same again.

If this sounds like hyperbole, then you haven’t tried the pizza at Antico. It is revolutionary: worlds better than anything else I’ve tried in Atlanta – and NYC for that matter. For those who have never eaten a true Neapolitan pizza before, the crust is baked thin but remains softer and chewier than a standard New York pie. It’s blistered and puffy and sublime. The Margarita pizza (pictured above) comes with San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh basil, and buffalo mozzarella so silky and buttery it’s like tasting mozzarella again for the first time. Even better is the lasagna pizza, which comes adorned with gobs of creamy, homemade ricotta and meatball chunks. I don’t recommend the Pomodorini as highly because the extra cherry tomatoes bleed too much water into the crust. In general you have to eat Antico’s pizza very quickly, or else that wonderful crust will get soggy. But that’s a small price to pay for a slice of perfection.

She says:
Dishing out great pies is Antico’s singular focus. The place is like a well-oiled machine, with a battery of dark-haired men tossing dough into shape, applying toppings, and shoving the pizzas into wood fire ovens as opera music blasts through the kitchen. None of this is a mystery, since you can sit at a foldout table in the kitchen and watch them work. Your pizza is delivered by one of these men on a huge jellyroll pan, and then you eat. No plates, no forks, no knives, it’s just you and the pizza.

We say:
Pizza perfection.




Antico Pizza Napoletana
1093 Hemphill Ave NW Atlanta, GA 30318
www.anticopizza.it