Seasonal Feast

In a town where it seems like one out of every three restaurants serves Italian food and half of those are pizza joints, you have to be pretty good to even consider entering the market. The eagerly anticipated Pizzeria Molto Wine Bar opened last month in Fairfield, CT and judging by the wait for a table and crowded bar, it is a hit.

My husband and I decided to try Molto last Friday night, knowing we were facing at least an hour-long wait. (We waited an hour and 10 minutes, to be exact.) Molto’s ambience is quite nice. It features deep, red leather booths, low lights and tons of dark wood everywhere. A gorgeous black and white marble bar runs about 2/3 the length of the restaurant. Finding a spot at the very end of the bar behind a couple eating dinner at the bar and close to the open kitchen, we grabbed a wine list. Not having much room to read it (the bar was three people deep the entire length and servers were running up and down behind us), we went with a Cabernet Sauvignon recommended by the very patient bartender. Two delicious glasses later for each us, our table was ready. The wait went by quickly, aided by the bartender’s heavy pours and interesting people watching.

The dinner menu was more extensive than I thought, featuring not only pizza but also other classic Italian specialties. We went for the pizza. After all, this was a pizzeria. We ordered the fried artichokes and calamari mediterraneo appetizers to start, a Caesar salad to share, a veggie pizza with cherry peppers and spinach for my husband and a burrata pizza for me. Burrata is a fresh, sweet, creamy Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. The name means “buttered” in Italian. The artichokes were lovely and crispy, a perfect little bar snack. The calamari mediterraneo, which consisted of grilled calamari, white beans, tomato, olive oil, garlic and chili pepper, was okay. Honestly, it was neither here nor there for me. I would not order the Caesar salad again. We were served a plate of limp, chopped romaine lettuce and croutons with what was clearly bottled supermarket dressing on the side. I am not the type of girl to ask for dressing on the side and especially for a Caesar salad, it needs to be properly dressed. The salad really doesn’t matter, though. The brick oven thin crust pizzas were amazing. They were well worth the wait and getting through a sub-standard salad. These pizzas, each sized at 12” to serve one person, arrived piping hot and bubbling over with melted, gooey cheese. Both pizzas had red sauce and the burrata one also had fresh basil sprinkled over it. The crusts were divine and incredibly crispy and chewy at the same time, even after sitting on my plate for 20 minutes (I am a notoriously slow eater). We were stuffed with appetizers and salad, so neither of us finished our pizza. And we like leftovers so no issues there. We eat pizza quite frequently. It is my husband’s favorite food and if he could, he would eat it morning, noon and night. Our in-town favorites are Nauti Dolphin and the legendary Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana. Kumar’s comment about Molto’s pizza, which should not be taken lightly, “This is going to be my new place for takeout pizza.”

My only complaint is that Molto does not take reservations for large parties. Side note: Molto is open for lunch and even then, the restaurant appears to be busy. Prices are comparable to what you’d find in other restaurants of the same caliber in Fairfield. The staff was friendly, efficient and accommodating. I was happy about this because some of the reviews I read said otherwise. Perhaps the restaurant just needed a month to work out its kinks. Overall, we truly enjoyed dining at Molto, wait, crowds and all. I suspect, and hope, the buzz continues for a while. I’d like to see Molto succeed so I can return for another slice of their mouth-watering, perfectly baked thin crust pizza.