Antica Pizzeria Co

02/15/09

Pleasantly Surprised

by TrendyMommyx5 at Citysearch

My husband and I found a last minute babysitter last night (Valentines Day) and decided we had only enough time to see a movie, a much needed break away from the kids! We bought our tickets at the AMC but had an hour to wait and we were hungry! We walked around the strip mall and saw Antica and a soup plantation, antica it is we said. We got inside and were a little put off when we saw a heat lamp and some not so fresh looking food...uh oh we thought. We get escorted to the dinning area and are surpised by the nice warm decor and polite staff. We sat down thinking since it was Valentines, we would have to pick off a pre-fab menu of only a few items, wrong. We picked from the menu and waited (kinda long) for our food. Out came our meals piping hot and delicious. I had the gnocci and my husband had the chicken marsala. He (who is very picky) was very satisfied with his food. I liked mine as well. I would recommend this place because 1. its tasty and 2.its a casual place with a nice environment and 3. they have a friendly staff. I was also thankful that we didnt need to worry about the reservation on one of the busiest nights out. We didnt have to wait to be seated and another plus was they wrap your food up for you to go. I cant tell you how much I hate places that throw you a box to pack it up yourself. I would recommend however, that they get rid of that heat lamp case in front, Im not sure what it was for and I know our food wasnt under it...its a little off putting. Thanks Antica, we'll be back!

• Pros: Ample parking, nice staff, good food, fair prices, casual but nice setting
• Cons: heat lamp display case in front as you walk in.

01/13/09

Awesome

by ironchefjeff at Citysearch

Love their pepperoni here. Veggie pizza is phonomenal also. This place has great service most importantly

06/23/08

Just coasting on old reveiws - food is longer worth the attitude.

by bookwichy at Citysearch

I have enjoyed the food here for years, since Antica first opened. But the service has gotten progressively worse over the years, as has the food. The waiters and managers are always in a bad mood. Somehow the only people that understand the concept of customer service are the hostesses.

Two years ago we stopped eating in the restaurant itself due to the horrible service. However, we continued to stop by for take-out on a regular basis. As of last night, we will no longer order food to go either. I ordered over $100 worth of food to go, four pizzas, pasta, salad, dessert, etc. I ordered a glass of wine to drink while waiting, paid for it, and went to the bar for the wine. The manager came over, asked if I was with a party of four people waiting at the bar for a table, and when I replied no, I was just getting the glass of wine I had already paid for, literally took me by the arm and escorted be to wait in a crowd of people next to the hostess stand. When I asked why I couldn't wait at the bar for my order, he ignored my question, and said he was sorry if I "misunderstood" his actions. He then handed me a bag with a free piece of stale cake.

The food was not worth the aggravation. Chopped salad: flavorless and limp; pizza: hard crust; pasta: overcooked. The prosciutto pizza had too much meat, overpowering everything else on the pizza. The pizza with radicchio and some kind of cheese was dry on the edges, soggy in the middle and the very large lumps of cheese resembled dry, flavorless feta. Pasta bolognese had no sauce, just the occasional piece of ground beef here and there and some olive oil with a bit of spinach or something to give it color.

This place is coasting on its reputation as an authentic Neapolitan pizza place. Go to Mozza. Worth the drive from the Westside, with a much better wine list. And, if you order judiciously, not much more expensive. Also Mozza loves children, unlike Antica as we learned on previous visits.

• Pros: Food used to be good, maybe will improve in future.
• Cons: Bad service, rude manager, food not worth the price or attitude.

03/14/08

Fake fancy with awful meatballs, pizza, pasta, etc.

by bronicello at Citysearch

These guys put up a facade of authentic Italian. Let me tell you something and lean in real close: FRAUDS! The meatballs will remind of your childhood days slopping up Spaghetti O-s. Uh-oh is right. Grab a Zantac, STAT! Cheese that melts like hot tasteless rubber is bad for you. The sauce clearly comes straight out of a large can. Would love to have a hidden camera record these guys prepare the vast vats of food that seem appealing enough at first sight, on the other side of the counter, but when the stuff goes down, ugh. As with many, many restaurants today, these guys are using inferior, low-cost, indigestion-inducing ingredients for quality products. Shameful.

• Cons: All of the food

05/26/07

Great pizza but service is terrible.

by youniverse at Citysearch

I used to order from this place all the time. Their napoletana pizza and walnut & gorgonzola salad were great and I don't recall having problems with the service until recently.

The first problems arose when I took my parents there. When we arrived, there were no tables free so we asked if we could sit at the bar and get some drinks while we waited. We sat, and sat, and sat for about 15 minutes, being actively ignored by waiters, until finally we had to go talk to the hostess and ask her if someone was available to serve us some drinks.

We ordered a bottle of wine and it was corked. After tracking down the guy who opened it, we told him it was corked and he replied "oh, it's supposed to smell like that". He wasn't receptive to our complaints at all and my Dad, who was a wine waiter in his younger days, was extremely aggrovated by this. We didn't ask for the manager because we just wanted a low key evening without too much hassle.

Skip forward to last thursday night, when we ordered the usual napoletana pizza and walnut & gorgonzola salad. The person taking orders must have smoked some good stuff before she went to work that night because I had to tell her my phone and street number at least 5 times.

90, yes 90 minutes after I placed the order, I got a phone call asking for directions to my house. I guess she didn't write it down when I told her what my cross streets were. 15 minutes later the pizza arrived. i paid and opened up the box to find a cold pizza. To be fair, they did send a replacement and it was a great pizza but I think I've had it with this place. I don't know whether they need more staff or different staff but something has to change because I can make my own pizza in less time and with less annoyance.

• Pros: Good traditional neopolitan pizza. Calamari is crispy and tasty.
• Cons: Service in restaurant it slow. Ordering and waiting for delivery is an exercise in patience.