La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria Review

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria Review

Today I will review La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria, which is considered by many to have the best Philadelphia pizza. My overall response was a green light which means go try their food. I highly recommend their pizza and will elaborate below on my reasoning why.

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria is located at 636 South Street, Philadelphia, PA. Established in 1994, La Fourno (translates to oven in Italian) has become a very popular and trendy pizza place. They are known also for their various Italian foods that they serve including the following: Veal Parmigiana, Fresh Pasta Dishes, Daily Fish Specials, Home Made Soups & Salads, Gnocci Gorgonzola, Lobster Ravioli, Al's Mom's famous Linguini & Meatballs, Chicken Valdostana, Farinatta Bread, Penne alla Vodka, Grilled Calamari & Tiger Shrimp, Stuffed New Zealand Mussels, and Artichoke Romano.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the ambience here. La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria is a very small, yet cozy, restaurant. There is some form of European appeal all in the convenience of the most popular street in Philadelphia, South Street. There are all types of people that eat here including locals and tourists.

I was very impressed also with the respect that was given to me from the minute I walked in the door. The waiter and the manager (owner?) greeted me with welcoming arms and were very polite and hospitable. This is rather unusual for a Philadelphia pizza place, which usually has the indifferent approach: I don’t care if you eat here or not. The waiter was also consistent the whole time with his manners. La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria is a small business run by two owners. With this kind of size, an Italian restaurant such as this can focus on the customer more.

The main attribute of this place, which has helped contribute to its popularity, is its wood burning brick oven. This pizza oven greets you at the door so you can actually watch your pizza being made. That may have helped with their CitySearch Best Pizza award for 2004-2009 amongst many other awards. Well, they can add another award to their list: Voted one of the BEST Philadelphia Pizzas Award by Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog. Let me elaborate.

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria’s pizza was excellent. As usual, I ordered a standard Neapolitan Margherita pizza. I order the same pizza for all reviews for consistency plus it is the true original pizza.

The crust was not black at all (this may be considered a negative). It should have been cooked a little longer but it still was very good. The crust also was very soft and not crackly like the pizza at Slice.

The sauce was very basic tomato (deep red) sauce. There wasn’t much spice to it, which is the style preferred by many. I like a little more spice to it but I was content.

The mozzarella was fresh and equally mixed with the sauce. This is the way I like my Margherita pizzas: not too much sauce and not too much cheese.

The basil leaves were sprinkled evenly throughout the pizza. By the way, the pizza size was a 10 inch personal pizza (a good sized portion). Even though the crust was thin it is still very fulling when combined with a salad and an appetizer.

The thing that I didn’t like is that I originally ordered a Margherita pizza and an American pizza came out. When I questioned the waiter he said that this is the way they serve Margherita pizzas there (rather strange). If you want a true Margherita pizza then you need to specify exactly what you want or an American pizza (cheese on top and all over the sauce) will become your meal.

The waiter did correct the order for me and was very polite in his approach to bringing me out a new true Margherita pizza. This is the reason why I give them two thumbs up for excellent service.

Aside from the Margherita pizza confusion, when the real pizza came out it was really tasty. I validate all of the positive reviews this place has received. La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria has the total package: a great atmosphere, great pizza, great Italian food, a full bar, warm staff, all on a hip street in Philadelphia.

I hope that you have enjoyed my review from the Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog on La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria!

Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Review

Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Italian Pizza Review

This article will provide a review of Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Italian Pizza located in Philadelphia. This is my first major review of Philadelphia pizza on this blog. For those of you who don’t know the affiliation, the owners of this blog also run Blog Pizza, the premier pizza blog. I have decided to set this blog on Philadelphia pizza up because this is the area that I live and believe that the Philadelphia community needs some recognition in the pizza world. Who would be best to do this job other than Blog Pizza?

In order to determine who has the best Philadelphia best, I would like to start at the top of the chain. I am going after the so called “Philadelphia best pizza” joints through public recognition. Eventually I will be targeting the pizza places that us locals know of. Keep in mind that what I am doing is letting out Philadelphia secrets. Philadelphia pizza is not known to be famous like New York or Chicago for a reason.

Philadelphians choose to keep pizza a secret as when their foods get well know like in the cheesesteak scenario, our town becomes flooded with tourists littering our streets with Geno’s and Pat’s Steak dirty rappers. This issue will be dealt with another time.

Why am I letting the cat out of the bag? I would prefer our city to be known for pizza than cheese steaks. Pizza parlors can contain traffic indoors and have a better system to deal with tourists. The major Philly cheese steak places have lines 24 hours a day in the public’s way. What do I mean? If you ever drove by Geno’s or Pat’s on a Friday night you will see lines blocking the street because the sidewalk cannot hold them. This is a public nuisance to most Philadelphians. At least famous pizzerias are usually indoors with crowd control procedures.

Anyway, welcome to our new Philadelphia pizza blog called Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog. The first review will be of Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria. Pietro’s is a family style restaurant owned by one family. They have several locations in the Philadelphia area. Pietro’s South Street is located at 121-123 South Street, Philadelphia Pa 19147; Pietro’s Marlton, 140 West Route 70, Marlton, NJ 08053; and Pietro’s Walnut Street, 1714 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

The location of my review of Pietro’s is based off of the South Street location. First, let’s take a look at the positives. Pietro’s South Street pizzeria is beautiful. Aesthetically you could not ask for more from a pizzeria. The building is two commercial buildings wide with the party walls knocked out to form a giant restaurant. The inside is mesmerizing with refinished brick all along the walls. Pietro’s are truly demonstrating that they are serving gourmet Italian food and pizza.

Second, the staff at Pietro’s pizzeria was very friendly. The waiter was courteous and that says a lot.

Third, the atmosphere was soothing. You feel like you are in a fancy restaurant yet with a twist of a calm welcoming that only a family run business can provide.

Fourth, I have eaten there before and can attest that most of their pasta dishes are very good. This visit I was focused solely on the pizza though. The menu includes family style for all of your dishes including the salads. By the way their salads were very good too.

Now the fun part…negatives. I don’t like their pizza. Let me tell you why. First, the cheese that they use on their pizza is a buffalo mozzarella style. For those of you who need to watch what type of cheese you eat...all I can say is “be careful.” This type of cheese is of a stringy, curdled format. To some it is the best in the world but not for me.

I ordered two types of pizza: a margherita pizza and a pizza with sun dried tomatoes and roasted peppers. The crust on both pizzas were very good. They have the formula down for crust well: thin, lighted darkened, but not burnt. The sauce was ok but here is the problem. If I had to quantify their pizza into parts I would say that their pizza is two parts cheese and one part tomato sauce. I don’t know about you but I would think that most people would rather have more sauce than cheese on a traditional pizza such as a margherita pizza. I love the taste of tomato sauce. If the sauce is made really well a pizza chef should be highlighting it on the pizza.

The toppings were good and plentiful on my second pizza. But the issue keeps coming back to their lack of sauce and more importantly, the cheese. There was too much cheese on this pizza and of the wrong kind (for me at least).

My final conclusions on Pietros… if you go just proceed with caution. This equates to my yellow light from our stop light system at Blog Pizza. Be careful of the cheese on the pie and be forewarned about all mentioned above. I don’t want to give this a red light because I know that others may not of had the same results as me. When I give a red light (which means don’t think about going) I am serious.

Thanks for visiting our article on Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Italian Pizza Review.