Pizzeria Vetri - Dinner with a Show
Finally back from his beach vacation, A was officially off keto and ready to go all out. He had been talking about Pizzeria Vetri for pretty much the last three weeks of his diet, so we knew where we had to go for his first carb-tastic meal out.
Pizzeria Vetri is the casual pizza-focused sister of Vetri. Atmosphere is extremely casual with cafeteria style longer tables and ample counter seating. The most striking feature of the space is the large marble counter where the two pizza makers (technically pizzaiolos, I just googled it) are furiously stretching dough, topping pizzas, and arranging the quick cooking pies in a massive pizza oven.
Usually we come with more than two people and get sat at one of the longer tables, but since it was just the two of us this time, we chose to park ourselves at the pizza counter. Watching the two chefs work is definitely a mesmerizing thing. Each movement is a study in efficiency and all pizzas in the oven are meticulously tracked. There was definitely a head chef and then maybe an assistant? I couldn't tell how new the assistant was, but it seemed like some of the pizzas were maybe getting a tad overcooked, which I'll come back to later.
Pizzas come in 2 sizes here, the smaller one can definitely be eaten by one very hungry person, but could be shared. The larger one is a rectangular pizza and is definitely good for at least two people.
A ordered a pepperoni pizza and added both prosciutto and an egg. I love pepperoni, and the pepperoni here is especially delicious, and god knows I love prosciutto (I can eat an entire Trader Joe's pack in about 10 minutes), but together on one pizza was a little bit of a salt overload. The egg was definitely a great choice though. Real pro move by A. I was sopping up the egg yolk with bits of pizza crust the entire dinner.
I got the classic margherita. Always a satisfying pizza. A few things I'll note though was I did feel like the tomato sauce base was also a little salty, and the cheese pieces pulled off in one bite, making topping distribution in each bite lopsided. It could be argued that these things are inherent to a margherita pizza, so my one real issue was the crust.
The consistency of the crust was great, good chew and taste, but it was definitely too charred. I normally don't mind a little bit of char, but there were areas that were straight up charcoal, and since it was on the bottom, you couldn't really avoid it. Definitely created some off flavors.
Though 2 small pizzas would have definitely been enough for us, the night we went, Pizzeria Vetri was doing a collaboration with Shake Shack and offering a shake burger themed rotolo, so of course we had to try it. The rotolo was filled with ground beef and topped with cheese sauce and pickled peppers. It wasn't great. The original rotolo on the menu is definitely better. With this special the dough seemed undercooked and the cheese sauce was too goopy. The pickled peppers offered a nice contrast to all the thick textures but not enough to save it.
In general, though all the ingredients are very high quality and the dough is tasty, due to all the small things I mentioned, I wasn't won over this time. The price tag didn't help, I think with two pizzas and an appetizer, we spent about $50. We'll probably be back at some point, but not anytime soon.
TL;DR - Fancy pizza at fancy prices; worth trying at least once. Sit at the pizza counter if you like cooking shows.
