Dinner In @ Adriatico's

When Sarah and I want to make ourselves feel better we want comfort food. Pizza is comfort food. And in Cincinnati, if you want top notch, comforting pizza, you get Adriatico's.

The Food:  Let's keep this simple - Adriatico's is the best not-gourmet, fancy ingredient pizza in town.  When I call in an order they ask me if I want "thick or thin" crust, but with the thick being so delectable, I've never been able to bring myself to mess with a good thing.  If you've had Sicilian slices in New York, that's the closest equivalent I can think of to thick crust Adriatico's.  The sauce is a bit spicy and definitely not bland, and they are not shy with the cheese.  We always get green olives and pepperoni - they pile on the olives (as you can see from the picture) and the pepperoni adds a nice extra kick to the meal.

Note: The Bearcat, the largest pizza they offer is listed after personal (8"), medium (12"), and large (16"), as simply "Huge."  See below for a picture.  It is indeed huge.  $5 off on Monday and Tuesday nights, so mark those down as good days for pizza parties.

The Ingredients:  Nothing special here.  It tastes good.  Pretty sure they've got a Sysco truck pulling up on the regular.


The Story:  Unfortunately, they don't deliver to our home area of Northside.  When we lived in OTR, they wouldn't deliver there either, although they would go to Milton's bar in Mt. Auburn - a stone's throw from our old place.

Now, a story I must tell:  About 6 or 7 years ago now, my friend Megan drove me to pick up my order from Adriatico's.  She stayed in the car, I went in, grabbed the pie, and got back in the car.  The pizza was on my lap, and she set her purse on top of the pizza.  It was a hot summer day, the windows were down.  We were about to drive away when a young kid - probably 15 or 16 - came up and asked for a slice of pizza.  I said no, it was my dinner.  He then asked for a dollar, to which I also replied no.  Then, he put a gun to my chest and asked for the pizza.  I kindly set the purse on the floor and handed him the pizza as he ran off.

There are, of course, 2 ways to read this story:  1) That Adriatico's is in a bad neighborhood and shouldn't be trusted as a place to pick up a pizza (I do not believe this to be the case whatsoever).  Or 2) that Adriatico's pizza is so good it is worth risking jail time over if you can't scrounge for the dough.  I like to believe it is the latter.

We went back in, told the staff, they made us another pizza.  While we waited we walked down to the Cactus Pear, got a couple shots, and shook the whole thing off.