With La Trattoria on Second Avenue, NYC being a block away from the hotel I was staying at during my time in the city - I thought it'd be a good shout to visit to get a pizza, as I hoped to try the authentic pizza experience while in NYC but sadly unless authentic NYC pizza means cheap, tacky and knocking me sick then this for sure isn't that authentic experience. I really wish I'd have checked reviews before visiting this place rather than being excited by their gluten-free pizza sign as I passed!
Inside, the place is a little small but there is limited seating - they do deliver on various platforms.
I ordered the gluten-free Margherita, the price was a lot higher than expected as they charge a surcharge for gluten-free compared to the menu - one thing which puzzled me was the overhead menu didn't even state pizzas so I had to request a tacky one - come on it's a pizza place,e, why isn't pizza listed on the overhead menus?
The staff didn't seem too friendly either - one of the pizza men actually was emptying and sorting out the rubbish bins (ew) while he was preparing my food and waiting for it to cook - which surely isn't good for hygiene.
When my pizza was served, it was served in a box in a weird type tray, similar to a pie - I presume that's how they do things in NY and if it stops pizza grease going onto the board, that makes the pizza box recyclable so that's a good thing! I also liked how they gave me a separate gluten-free cutter to minimise cross-contamination.
The base was okay at best (again a little bland and uninspiring), it was a little rough and hard around the crust area making it difficult to eat and cut but it was ruined by the poor, low-quality toppings, not only was it overloaded with cheese, it wasn't seasoned and just didn't taste fresh nor authentic of a pizza experience which one would surely expect from the price.
To make matters worse, a couple of hours after eating (I could only stomach half the pizza as I would give the taste 2/5 anyway), I began to feel rather ill, which makes me think there was a chance of cross-contamination or perhaps other methods here (such as cleaning the bins while making food) could have had an affect.
Bad pizza which made me feel ill which had a negative knock-on effect on my trip to New York makes this the first place I visited in NYC to deserve a place on my "Avoid at all costs" list from bad service to hygiene practices and mediocre, bland, unseasoned food with bad quality toppings which even make Domino's look gourmet La Trattoria is surely a disgrace to NY eateries to warrant a one-star rating. read more