We were pretty excited to see a Neapolitan pizza and pasta restaurant in Moab. The reviews looked…read moresolid, and from what I remembered from our last visit many years ago, there were not many pizza options in town.
We ordered the Salsiccia e Funghi, a sausage and mushroom pizza, along with the mussels in white wine sauce appetizer, homemade Italian cream sodas, and one additional limonata soda.
The pizza was okay, but not the quality I would expect from a polished Neapolitan-style pizza place, especially at this price point.
The mussels appetizer had potential because white wine sauce is exactly the kind of dish we usually enjoy with bread. Before ordering, I specifically asked about the bread because we like having enough to sop up the broth, the way you would expect at a good Italian restaurant. Our waitress said she would bring as much bread as we wanted. There were three of us, and the appetizer came with three pieces of bread. Given the earlier conversation, we later asked for three more pieces. The request seemed to bother her. When she delivered the extra bread, sensing her frustration, we said she could add it to the bill, and she told us she already had. That was frustrating because we had just discussed it before ordering. We were attempting to be more gracious, and she missed the mark with her response. She could have said ok, or thank you, or "no it's ok I told you could have as much bread as you wanted for the mussels"
The mussels themselves were also uneven. Several had not opened during cooking, which is generally a sign that they should not be served or eaten. With mussels, the usual food-safety rule is: if they do not open during cooking, do not eat them. The FDA's consumer seafood guidance says clams, mussels, and oysters should open during cooking, and the ones that do not open should be thrown out. That made us question the quality control and preparation of the dish.
The cream sodas were mixed. The berry version was delicious, but the mango version missed the mark. It was not sweet at all and tasted like the mango may not have been ripe. A little simple syrup, or ripe mango, would have helped a lot. The unripe mango soda ends up tasting a little like pine sol smells.
We were also disappointed because the prices were more in line with what we would expect from a higher-quality meal. For the items noted above, plus one additional limonata soda, the meal came to over $60. I typically tip over 20%, but I took the extra bread charge off the tip, and the tip was still over 17%.
Overall, this was not a terrible experience, but it was disappointing compared with what we were hoping for. The food had some good ideas, but several details felt off, and the service created a communication gap that left a bad impression.
