Nicole in Rome

Occasion: Saturday Night Dinner with a friend! There is more than one location, which are marked on the map below!

Initial Impressions: I was craving pizza. Last week we went to a terrible place that I will write and post about (heck I’ll even link it here). I needed to have pizza again for redemption. Pizzium is a place I have wanted to try because the location looked very cute and nice every time I passed. When we came the restaurant was full but I was able to make a last minute reservation for 9pm an hour before, when we left the restaurant was still about full. It is a bit tight, but handicap accessible. There is space in the front of the restaurant for wheelchairs. There is a bathroom that Paolo and his friend used but I did not use. It was easy to spot. We were seated quickly and menus were given to us in only Italian (I think they have English versions of the menu, but by now I can read the Italian ones fine) I also liked the concept of having pizzas with cool names from each region of Italy! Paolo was also very interested in this and excited to try the pizza named after his region of Marche!

Once Seated: The dining room is really nice. It is very cute with a touch of some more vintage or rustic details (the lights for example are covered in cute cloth fabrics). Even the floor tiles you see in the photo are cute and done in good taste! I could tell the restaurant was newer or very well cleaned. I would say that they could look into paying more attention to the decorative shelves, but the most important thing was that chairs were clean and the floor did not feel sticky. The restaurant was alright in the part we were seated. The door in the front was opening and closing often, but I didn’t feel so cold because we were seated about three tables in, but this draft of cold air would have annoyed me if it were any closer to the door. The lighting was good! It wasn’t too dark or bright. I thought it was perfect for an upscale pizza restaurant.

The Food: We ordered two sodas. I ordered the Molise and Paolo ordered Marche. Sadly they didn’t have French fries here or any appetizers we wanted. Next time we’ll try the bruschetta and I’ll update this post!

4/5 Molise: I love a good diavola pizza. In the US I know and call it Pepperoni. Lately I’ve been craving pepperoni with hot honey but that has to wait for when I get back to the US. This did the trick after last weeks fiasco. See, when you order a pizza with salame piccante, the salame should be thinly sliced. They did a great job here. However, my critique is that my pizza did not come out so hot, but warm and the middle of the pizza was a bit undercooked. The pizza could have also been just a tiny bit thicker. I love thin crust and thin pizza, but this was sheet thin and I was using my knife to separate it by force without about to use sawing motions. The sauce was not too sweet, salty, or acidic. It was one of the first times I’ve finished the entire pizza by myself. I would order this again. The portion size was just right.

4/5 Marche: I’m not a fan of mortadella, but Paolo liked it. He seemed to be a bit hungry after probably because of the thin dough. He didn’t complain about the taste though and seemed to be satisfied with the pizza named after his region. Likely this is good news because I was expecting him to be highly skeptical and critical if anything was off.

Service: The service was fine. There was nothing that stood out or was terribly good or bad. I would say they seemed about one staff member too short and were running around for most of the night. However, there was no one at the door to greet us and we had to flag the server down who was deep inside the restaurant.

Payment: The total bill was about 35 euros. I don’t know if they accept Amex because I was paid for. The bill was like this because we split it three ways with Paolo’s friend, so it wasn’t very accurate. I was a bit annoyed the waiter didn’t just ask his friend what his friend ordered and charge him and then charge us the rest. Paolo’s friend ordered a different speciality pizza pictured and also a beer (above), so his would have been slightly more expensive than ours. I will give an update next time we go alone and give you guys the exact amount! Paolo seemed bothered at this price. However, we paid just about the exact same at the other horrible pizza place so I was satisfied and happy. Overall, I would come back. I really think this is a great place to have a nice pizza dinner with friends. It is a bit more on the expensive side for Italians I guess, but not a bad place for a group to go and have a clean well lighted place to sit with a cool pizza region factor since most of Paolo’s friends are from different regions of Italy.