antico pizza

we recently visitedanticopizza after a suggestion from a friend of ours. while it is located in western atlanta near other restaurant hot spots, it is somewhat off the beaten path giving it a hole-in-the-wall, down-home feel from the outside. the menu is strictly pizza but not your stereotypical american varieties. their pizzas are all unique but delicious. our pizza, topped with mushrooms and artichokes, was out of this world. no alcohol is served, but it is byob, so i recommend stopping by the grocery store and picking up your favorite brew beforehand. you can watch from your rudimentary wooden table and seats as your pizza made, but make no mistake, this is not a dirty, low-class pizza joint. it has a great atmosphere complimented by classy italian music. the service was fast, polite, and seemed to really enjoy their work. i recommend getting there early as they close when they run out of dough. overall, we were extremely satisfied with our experience and will definitely be returning.

callinganticothe best pizza i’ve ever had is dubious, but it’s certainly the best i’ve had in atlanta.

over the last two years,anticohas been named the “best pizza” in atlanta. that doesn’t even begin to do it justice. in september of 2010, at the international pizza awards (festa del pizza) in naples,anticowas named as the best us pizza in the contest. that’s getting close to how good it is.

the secret's been out for some time about the west side'santicopizza. nonetheless, it has taken a few months for lindsey and me to get over there and see howanticocompares to other top players on atlanta's pizza scene, such as varasano's and fritti .

good but didn't live up to the hype. i ordered the diavola which came with spicy sopressata, pepperonata, and bufala. it was very enjoyable. having authentic italian pizza is a real treat and i would suggest it to anyone who hasn’t tried it yet.

so what did i like about the pizza? in a country where the majority of pizza contains jarred sauce, processed cheese, and frozen meats, having a made from scratch pizza with all fresh ingredients really makes a difference in taste. anyone can tell the difference between low quality products that aren’t fresh and the stuff thatanticouses. the taste surpasses any pizza you have had in the past and promises to be a unique experience.

what did i not like? after everything i heard about this place, i was expecting the pizza to be carried out on a golden pedestal with angels singing. however, this was not the case. what happened was that there was a line out the door and a full restaurant so the workers were slapping the pizza together. as soon as it came out of the oven they slammed it into a box, the lady half way cuts in a terrible fashion, and between all the chaos my pizza didn’t cook evenly. the dough was burnt on one side and the other was about perfect. once i had my hastily put together pizza, it was shoved in my hands and i was shoved out the door soon thereafter. when i did dig into it the peppers were scrunched on one side, the bufala was spotty at best with a few bites being completely without it, and combined with a few burned bites of dough, it was just not the perfectly crafted pizza i had heard it was.

best enjoyed in the privacy of one's own home.. i had been looking forward to sampling this very special pizza since a friend told me about it. he was correct, it is probably the best pizza in the city. so much so that once tasted, every other pie will be anticlimactic and seem prefab. it will be a real struggle to have to back to eating any other pizza. this is the real deal and better or just as good as all of the hype surrounding it. that's the good news.

the bad news isn't so bad really, since the pizza is the most important part of the story. once ordered, get the pizza, put plenty of fresh chopped garlic and grated parmesan cheese on it, carry it out and enjoy it in the quiet comfort of you own home. the dining experience atanticopizza is a memorable one, for all of the wrong reasons.

table space is very limited and will undoubtedly be family style. you will be sitting in the kitchen and it will be uncomfortably hot and cramped. the combination of the room acoustics, blaring italian music and the multitude of voices, make the atmosphere absolutely unbearable. also be aware that there is a sink located near the front room dining table, were most customers go to wash their hands as well as to fill up their cups with drinking water. i do not know how this gets by the health inspector. the lone restroom isn't even marked so it is a bit tricky to find the first time.

service is less than polished. when i ordered two waters with my margarita pizza they charged me for bottled water that i did not request. i then received someone else's pizza and i mentioned this to the order person. by the time the one that we ordered arrived, they tried to assure us it was the same as the wrong one we were given. it was not. our correct pizza was noticeably larger and of course, fresh and hot out of the oven. they ended up making a new one for us.

i have no problem paying close to $18.00 for six, thin slices of pizza when considering the superior quality of the product. what i will not do is have my digestive tract jostled during the eating process by noise levels approaching that of a 747 during takeoff.

we generally do not like pizzas in the us. too much cheese for our liking and somehow it just doesn't gel with us. but going toanticowas a revelation that we could expect great pizza here, we ate the veg one and would have preferred if the guy at the counter would have told us about the free toppings. we ended up paying for the free ones which were available at the cutlery counter. 
service was excellent and so were the people. 
the environment is fun, the crowd very appealing. 
highly recommended place!

went toanticofor the first time yesterday and was very pleased. the pizza lived up to the hype. very flavorful and definitely my type of pizza. we had the diavola and was delicious. i'm a crust girl so i look forward to eating the crust and it was very tasty and flavorful as well. the only unfavorable thing i would say is that the crust is so thin it kinda droops down when you pick it up. but that's a minor thing. pizza comes out super quick. we just a found a seat in the communal seating and our pizza was ready. lightning quick! it was sort of hard to hear the servers call out your number amongst the crowd and music in the background. love the pizza though! will definitely be back!

fantastic!. i have always been told that when i visit atlanta that i need to tryanticopizza and it didn't disappoint. this location is situated right next to georgia tech university. i have to say that this is some pretty authentic neapolitan pizza. i ordered the san genero and found the combination of the san marzano-based sauce, the sausage and the red peppers to be pretty flavorful. the dining area is located next to the kitchen where you can watch the cooks work away as you listen to italian music. a great find and it met all my expectations.

internationally acclaimed pizza in atlanta, ga?  yep...it exists.  italy's own festa della pizza, held annually in the birthplace of pizza near naples , recognizedanticofor its award-winning take on tradition earlier this fall, naming it as a top in class pizzeria.  recommended by one of ud's colleagues (who lives in the area), we all converged on this renowned palace of pizza on black friday.  speaking of black friday, if you don't like fighting crowds for bargains, i'm guessing you won't enjoy fighting crowds for the limited communal seating in the "dining" room of this establishment (more than a couple of brawls were narrowly aborted as diners jockeyed for spots at the indoor picnic tables almost before they were fully vacated by their occupants).  i haven't had the stamina for that since my college days, but i will admit that the pizza was exceptional and extremely reminiscent of what we enjoyed when touring the amalfi coast (just outside of naples) a couple of years ago.  that said, i got a sense that the pies were being rushed out of wood-fired ovens to meet the demands of the relentless queue of gaping maws, as the crusts were not as crispy as i expected, nor were the cheesy centers as warm. since we arrived about an hour before our dining companions and i was already famished, we ordered a couple of beverages at the counter (yes, you place your order from the limited menu at a counter, you are given a number, and the food finds you when it's ready) along with what we thought would be a small snack to tide us over.  because it was barely noon (the overwhelming crush of humanity didn't arrive until after 1:00) we were able to nibble on the mastadoneon cheese calzone while perched on stools flanking a very narrow bar in the entry foyer of the pizzeria.  this monster was quite the rustic beast, with mozzarella, ricotta, and fresh basil oozing from its golden brown exterior.  marinara sauce for dipping was tangy and delish. once the rest of the gang showed up,

service so rude it ruined the whole experience.sitting outside at little italia was nice but the service to order the pizza atanticowas horrible and the service to order drinks at little itlaia was terrible. servers acted like they did not want to be there and i was wasting their time. food was okay but no different than digiorno pizza or at least fellini's pizza. not impressed.

pizza nirvana. took the opportunity to visitanticorecently when some friends were visiting from out of town. their favourite food is pizza and they had recently enjoyed john's pizza in ny (the one in the old church just off times square) 3 times over 5 days so competition was tight. we went there on a week day somewhere around 4:00 pm soanticowas pretty quiet. the girls at the front were fine, i don't "get" all the negative comments about them - i'm a big believer in you get what you give - we were friendly and polite and they were too. we were lucky enough to get a table right by the kitchen and enjoyed watching the boys make the pizza in front of us. we timed them, each pizza was in the oven for 90 seconds. we had the diavola, the funghi, and the lasagna pizzas. i can't talk about the diavola, i'm generally not a fan of processed meats, but the others said it was fabulous. the funghi and the lasagna were perfect, simple as that. some edges of the pizza were charred, personally i enjoy that. we didn't feel rushed or unwelcome, we finished our pizza, and packed up what was left to take home. by the time we left just after 5:00 the queue was just about to start buzzing. i can't even think about visiting our local suburban johnny's now, from this point on pizza night involves a journey into the city.

i’ve heard rave reviews aboutanticopizza for years. and despite visiting atlanta on a regular basis for the past few years, i’d never been there until our most recent trip, which included spending a day in atlanta. i think i first learned aboutanticoby following david o’brien, who covers the atlanta braves for the atlanta journal constitution and regularly gives out advice for folks who are visiting the city to attend a game. when people ask him about places to eat before or after seeing the braves,anticopizza always seems to be his top pick. along with o’brien’s recommendation, i’ve talked to locals who swear by antico’s pizza and the restaurant regularly finds itself on lists of the best pizza places in america, including this list from eater of the 38 essential pizzerias across america. the south may not be known for great pizza, but everyone seems to agree thatanticopizza isn’t an ordinary pizza place. it’s located between the georgia te

overhype!!. i've read a lot about this place asanticohas become one of the local media darlings within the atlanta food scene. went here with my wife and one of my kids on a saturday arriving to a full parking lot at about 12:10 pm. after finding a spot, we walked into a packed full place. the place is quite small and it was certainly standing room only. it was clear we weren't going to get a seat, but since we were here we were all game on trying the pizza so we ordered one to go. i wanted to order a simple pepperoni and sausage (due to child's palate) but they refused without reason, only saying in soup nazi fashion "one meat per pizza!" - i assumed that perhaps they felt more than one meat might make the pizza too greasy. i'll buy that train of thought, but i don't know since i didn't get a clear answer from them. so i ordered a margherita with pepperoni, which they allowed me to do. pizza was a pricey $23. ordered 3 cokes as well - stay clear of these! it will set you back $2.75 each for a cute, little 8.5 oz bottle of coke. so we stood in a standing room only place, filled mainly with 20 somethings, whom likely for many were ready and willing to addanticoto their already bulging credit card statements. our number is called quickly (it only takes 60 seconds for their pizzas to cook) and out the door we go, walking out with pizza raised above my head so that i could get out the door. at this point, we are still very optimistic about the pizza we are about to eat. opening the pizza box on the trunk of the car, standing up in the parking lot, we dive into the pizza. the pizza had good flavor, but not great flavor. the pepperoni (admittedly our choice) made it quite greasy. the pizza also could have been cooked another 15 seconds as the crust was just starting to tan. overall, i would give the following ratings: pizza flavor: average, experience: below average, prices/value: ridiculously high. it is always interesting to me how hype and trends blossom. i believe that many times people jump on board because they want to be with the latest trend and don't want to be on the outside looking in. but why convince yourself something is great when it really isn't? it's all about personal preference, but many people so often get caught up in hype (pet rock anyone?). and with most overhyped food establishments, like this one, i don't get it. and in the end, i don't care either. let those spend their money where they want. i'll continue to follow flavor and experience by voting with my wallet.

off my favorite list. until this last visit, i had regardedanticoas my favorite neapolitan style pizza outside of naples. when i walked in the door i was greeted by the rare scent of cooking pizzas that is rarely found in pizzerias.

the dining room that faces the ovens is great fun, but my margherita came out very quickly, and was quite haphazard in appearance. a scant amount of sauce and a very doughy pie really left me cold on this experience. the sauce dumped on in a swirl, and not evenly applied, leaving the a good third of the outside of the pie topped with nothing(i posted a photo). this isn't consistent with past pies, and is a sign of careless pizza-making.

i can get that you won't put any pecorino on the pie, and that garlic has to come with it, but antico, you need to get it together again. i'm not paying $22 for that anymore.