Dinner near a movie
Pizzeria Venti, across from Century Theaters, boasts delicious food and great ambiance
by Andrew MacLeod Doerschuk
As a local real estate agent during the roaring 2000s, Bella Awdisho did well enough during the property bubble to pursue her wildest dreams. So without a shred of professional experience in the culinary arts, she decided to open a restaurant in a remote corner of Mountain View.
It was a romantic notion that, by any normal circumstances, should have failed. Her only background in the restaurant biz was as a customer and foodie who took occasional cooking classes until, while traveling in Italy, she met the American family behind the burgeoning Pizzeria Venti chain, and liked what she heard.
They prided themselves on cooking with only with the highest quality ingredients, including oil imported from Italy to make their pizza crust. But Awdisho wanted to go beyond pizza, and convinced the company to let her to modify the menu with a host of original pasta dishes, appetizers and salads.
Then came a pivotal choice. Rather than clustering with the other restaurants downtown on Castro Street, she set up shop across from the Century Theaters on Shoreline Boulevard — a relative no-man's land, except for one important neighbor: Google. Her gambit turned out to be a shrewd one, and before long lunchtime was hopping.
As for dinner, Pizzeria Venti's spacious room — with its burnt orange and tan hues, faux roman columns and ornate mirrors — makes it a wonderful and relaxing destination. And then there was the delicious food.
Kids will love the playfully named bocce balls ($8.50), an inventive appetizer consisting of three cue ball-sized meatballs baked in pizza crust and topped with marinara and melted cheese. The meatballs have the magic ratio of breadcrumbs/meat/egg, making them firm yet juicy. I would have preferred more seasoning, but the dish was fun nonetheless, with a crunchy finish.
After the tomato tang of the marinara, a caprice salad ($9.25), a mosaic of glistening greens, reds, blacks and whites, offered a refreshing contrast. A study in simplicity, the salad's sliced roma tomatoes, black olives and lettuce set up thinly sliced mozzarella and a piquant balsamic dressing. Our palettes were cleansed.
All starters were winners, but the minestrone ($5.75) was over the top. Its rich broth merely filled the gaps between an abundance of thick-sliced carrots, zucchini, celery, onion and broccoli, all cooked to retain a degree of crunchy firmness. Served with several slices of bread, the minestrone exuded freshness, and would work nicely as a light lunch on a cool day.
Pizzeria Venti proved to be much more than just a pizza place, but we couldn't visit without sampling a veggie slice ($4.75). More fitting to call it a slab, its thin crust was disproportionately layered with cheese oozing into a jumble of sliced black olives, green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and Italian herbs. Each bite was stringy and decadent with an aftertaste of olive oil. You won't find better pizza in Mountain View.
We also tried the explosively flavorful linguini pescatore ($14.95). Served al dente, the pasta and light, mildly seasoned tomato sauce showcased shrimp, clams and mussels in the shell and bite-sized chunks of salmon and snapper.
In contrast to the loud and splashy linguini, pesto ravioli ($11.95) was understated and elegant. The dish is six large round raviolis stuffed with cheese and diced chives, and immersed in creamy pesto sauce featuring that irresistibly familiar nutty flavor. The color was a powerful mint green under the dim amber lighting.
Pizzeria Venti's lasagna ($10.75) was the most traditional pasta dish we tried. Served in a boat-shaped bowl, the dense, baked stack of flat noodles, marinara sauce and cheese was immersed in a deep red sauce, with only its upper extremity poking from the pool. Thoroughly drenched in sauce, the concoction was delicious.
Stuffed but determined to try a couple tempting desserts, we delved into the impressive gelato bar ($4.75 for two scoops). Thick, creamy and very sweet, the milky chocolate was a perfect foil for the tart blueberry. But the cannoli ($4.75) — the traditional Italian pastry that offsets sour ricotta and goat cheeses with sweet nuts, sugar and chocolate — had a shell that was far too hard.
Pizzeria Venti could have been a run-of-the-mill lunch joint for Google employees. Instead, it is a cut above — and the perfect place to round out dinner and a movie (or a concert) at Shoreline.
Pizzeria Venti -- Grosse Pointe Park
Excerpts
"The Grosse Pointe Woods restaurant Pizzeria Venti is one of the new genre of chains..."
"Freshness, tasty toppings distinguish this pizza chain…"
"Ultimately, it turns out, metro Detroit did need another pizza chain. We have high hopes for this one…"
Business Scene: Pizzeria Venti joins
Midland's Italian restaurant community
Mella McEwen
Midland Reporter-Telegram
01/26/2005
A taste of Italy has come to Midland with the opening of PIZZERIA VENTI in San Miguel Square, 3300 N. Midkiff Road.
Joel Fink and his wife Laura purchased the local franchise rights from the Geneva, Ill.-based company.
Fink explained that he was looking for a restaurant venture, but also one that local residents hadn't seen before.
"This was the best pizza I had ever had," he said of the restaurant's product, which is based on a recipe from Montalcino, Italy. In fact, the Finks were not only required to spend a week in Italy for a training session before being given the franchise but they import some ingredients - including the water used to make the crust - from Italy.
Pizzeria Venti features a glass case displaying 20 different kinds of pizza, which are sold by the slice or by the whole pie. They include cheese, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, roasted garlic, green pepper, tomato & basil, onion, Chicken Vesuvio, meatball and green pepper, broccoli and "everything. Also on the menu are stuffed pizzas known as timpanini, with beef and green peppers, steak and onion, southwestern chicken, spinach and ricotta cheese, vegetarian or chicken venti. Baked pastas include cheese and spinach ravioli, lasagna, mostaccioli, manicotti, and pasta gnocchi and salads include a house salad, chicken Caesar, field greens and apples, tuna and white bean. Soups are available October 1 through April 1 and include escarole with sausage, pasta fagiole and minestrone. Desserts, soft drinks, ice tea, espresso, cappuccino, coffee and milk and juice round out the menu.
Customers come in, place their order and then find a seat. Servers will bring the order to the table. Carry out is also available
Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
As featured in the on-line version of MyWestTexas.com.
Web Address: http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2288
FOOD NEWS BY DENISE I. O'NEAL
Buy the slice
Pizzeria Venti has uncovered the secret to a good pizza. It's all in the water. The restaurant uses only pure water imported from northern Italy for its crust… the mineral content and lack of chlorine provides a light, fluffy quality. The pizzeria serves 20 varieties of its by-the-slice pizzas.
Food News, Chicago Sun-Times Food Section, 401 N. Wabash, Chicago 60611.
Pizzeria Venti was once again featured in a dining review.
This time our signature food stylings appeared in West Suburban Living Magazine in the article entitled, "Pizzeria Venti...Pizza with Pizzazz!"
Nice Slice
BY DAVID SHAROS - Daily Herald Correspondent
Posted August 28, 2003
In the play "The Glass Menagerie," author Tennessee Williams wrote a scene where Jim O'Connor, the gentleman caller, refers to Laura, a girl he knew in high school, as "blue roses." Readers understand the author wanted to express how unique Laura was among all the other girls in her class.
Pizza restaurants these days are one times one million, as the playwright Williams might say. But in Geneva, Pizzeria Venti is a blue rose.
The owner opened the venue eight months ago after tinkering for months with an authentic Italian pizza recipe that uses flour and tomatoes imported from Italy. Despite baking it on a stone and finding it tasty, the persnickety owner still felt something wasn't right.
"We finally realized it was the water we were using to make the dough, so now we import pallets of it from Tuscany every month," he said.
"There's an incredible lightness to the dough you won't find anywhere else, and using that water has made all the difference."
Located on Main Street in downtown Geneva, Pizzeria Venti is the perfect spot for a quick carryout lunch or a simple evening meal. A small cluster of tables found just inside the entrance is flanked by a counter along a side wall with bar stools. The high walls are decorated with a few pictures, adding to a simple, yet neighborly feel.
Diners walk to the rear where a glass case displays a number of menu items and orders are placed. Cans of imported Italian tomatoes are on display and prices on the menu board read "4 ¨ bucks." All dishes are made to order, with a little head start on the pizzas. More about that later.
We visited during the dinner hour, about 40 minutes before closing. Our hosts acted like we were the first people they had seen that day.
Since the menu lacks appetizers, we ordered two of the pizzas, two salads and a pasta dish, plus drinks. After paying the bill, my two dining companions and I found a seat and waited to be served.
The salads came first and the three of us shared one called field greens and apples, which featured a tender leafy lettuce, dried cranberries, blue cheese, tomato and red onion slices, walnuts, and slices of crisp Granny Smith apples. The salad was bathed in the house dressing, a yummy Vidalia onion vinaigrette, which worked wonderfully with the fruit and cheese. It would have made a nice light lunch all by itself.
We also had a refreshing summer strawberry salad not found on the menu.
It featured the same leafy lettuce, slices of ripe strawberries, Spanish peanuts, star fruit and the same house dressing. Every food category on the Venti menu includes a "del giorno" option, which we figured out meant "the special." Since strawberries are still available, we gathered this salad was the current flavor of the week. And it was tasty.
The pizzas and pasta were next. We ordered a cheese and spinach ravioli, which, like the salads, was served on a silver rectangular platter with a handle. A piping hot plate of spinach pasta dough (yep, it was green) was wrapped around more spinach and cheese, and smothered with a chunky style tomato sauce and a generous portion of melted cheese. Two little rolls made from the signature pizza dough accompanied the dish.
The pasta was a little softer than most, al dente wouldn't describe it , but there was a savory quality to the cheese, spinach and tomato mixture that worked well together. It might be fun to give some other pasta dishes, like the lasagna or pesto gnocchi, a try to see how they compare.
The owner told us the pizza and timpanini were the signature dishes of the house, and we can sure see why. One of my companions ordered the "everything" pizza that included sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and onion. I went with a choice more outside the box, even for me: the chicken vesuvio, which did not include potatoes, but had chunks of chicken, mushrooms, olives and cheese.
Pizzeria Venti pre-bakes its yummy crust partially before customizing it with the toppings. The restaurant's name, "Venti," refers in Italian to the number 20, the minimum number of pizzas available there each day.
Think of a light croissant with about twice the bulk, and you might come close to the pizza crust the owner has brought here from Italy. Both the vesuvio and the everything pizzas featured a light coating of tomato sauce and a nice covering of cheese. Toppings were like any other veggies we've had a million times, but as our server told us, the crust at Pizzeria Venti provides more than just the foundation for the ingredients. The whole thing works magically, and we all agreed this place deserved a second visit.
Desserts change weekly and vary according to the season. My two companions split a cannoli, which was finished with walnuts instead of the signature pistachios. Walnuts can be a bit bitter, but the nuts on this Italian dessert weren't.
Blue roses aren't ingenious to any species of flower, and neither is Pizzeria Venti to others in its class. Evidently there's something in that imported Italian water after all.
