| rev:text
| - I only ever went to Bianco at its original location once. I vaguely recall a pizza that was pretty darn good - but that eating experience was so overwhelmed by the ridiculous 3-hour wait to be seated (and what can only be described as the "deeply unconcerned" attitude of the waitstaff) that I vowed to never go back.
Sometime between then and now (many, many years) I found Jeff Varasano's Neopolitan pizza website and fell in love with the pizzamaking process. I've had a lot of good Neopolitans too - and in Phoenix! Pizza a Metro, La PIazza - even Grimaldi's is fantastic if you ask me.
Also during this time, Bianco made national headlines as the "Best Pizza in America." Over and over and over. For my part, I did NOT care - wild horses could not have dragged me back to Bianco after my original experience there.
Recently though, I was shocked to realize that Bianco had opened up a second location near me! And it wasn't busy! I made a mental note to myself, and the following weekend the wife and I went for a visit. After all I have been through I know a lot more, I'm more prepared to love this pizza, and I don't have to deal with the ridiculous wait! Fantastic!
What a shame to have to report that the experience failed on every single possible level.
We arrived for a late lunch at about 1:30 on a Sunday figuring we would be past whatever rush might exist. It seemed we were right. There was one table with two very noisy people seated at it. Naturally, we were seated immediately next to them in this otherwise empty space. Mere minutes later, a family came in with three screaming children, who were promptly seated next to us on our other side. Because of the screaming kids, I could no longer quite make out the other table's noisy conversation! An excellent start!
The menu is sparse. Most restaurants do overkill. Bianco does the opposite of overkill. Four pizzas (five?) and if you don't like those, there are half a dozen toppings that you can add - or can you build your own? It wasn't clear. Appetizers? None of that. I asked the waitress if all they offered in the way of appetizers were the three salads on the menu, and she attempted to explain to me how the salads were in fact appetizers. Yeah, I already said that. But that wasn't the question. So three salads, five pizzas. I think a few pastas, but who wants pasta with pizza?
While we waited, we were brought some crusty bread and olive oil, the bread was too crusty and the olive oil could have seriously used some balsamic to go with it - but we were glad to have something to nibble on while we waited for everyone else in the restaurant to get drinks before we were even asked if we wanted any. When we did get our drinks, they came in cans, with dental office sized drinking glasses filled with ice. Just like being on an airplane! Genius!
We were (eventually) asked what we would like to order. We opted for the Sonny Boy (there is only one size pizza, naturally) and something called "simple local greens" or something similarly pompous. We received them both at the exact same time (so much for that appetizer theory!) and we were equally unimpressed by both. The salad consisted entirely of chewy, bitter greens dressed meagerly with olive oil and vinegar. Seriously dry. I love salads. I could barely choke this down and it went largely uneaten. Seriously, my wife will tell you. I'll murder an entire salad plate. Not this one.
But the pizza! The glorious, "Best in America" pizza! Right? This has to be a joke. Am I being punked? Unsubstantial, salty to a fault and completely forgettable. It was more like eating a cracker with pizza toppings than an actual pizza. The tomato sauce was good - just tomatoes really, very simple - which is OK with me. But every other aspect of this pizza was a complete and utter failure. No such thing as too thin? Wrong. This pizza was hardly there. This ain't a Neopolitan thing. This is just stingy. And it's not good! No chew to it at all. Very little in the way of cheese but both the sopresatta and olives were way too salty in any case.
I wish this could have gone way differently. I wanted to believe. But there is a lot of good pizza in Phoenix now and wait or no wait, there is no need to try and find it here. This place has a lot of name cache - but that's it. I have no idea how it has sustained this level of interest for this long. The menu is weird, the food is barely mediocre and the staff do not seem to have adequate training.
What I can say is that despite their obliviousness in seating us, the waitstaff at this location were at least pleasant. I could not say that about the experience at the original location I had years ago, so that at least is a step up.
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