Upon arrival, we were met by a boisterous waiter who yelled a greeting at us in Italian, then passed us off to another extremely loud waiter who checked our booking then roared at yet another very deafening waiter who took us to our seat.Unfortunately, we were seated in the little room, down the ramp, away from the restaurant, right in the doorway, in a tiny corner. I was extremely annoyed with our seating, and to make it worse, all the excessively loud waiters kept roaring at us that we would have to leave before 8pm.
Before we had a second to really look at the menu, the waiter was back waiting to take our order. He didn’t go away when we asked for another minute so we made a frantic decision and chose some buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto to start, then gnocchi and a salami and ham pizza to share, plus a few drinks.
A blink later and there was some dry bread on our table, and blink, blink, the prosciutto with a perfectly round ball of buffalo mozzarella had appeared. The serving was quite generous and more than enough for three of us to share as a starter. The prosciutto was full of flavours and slightly salted, not as much as I would like, well balanced with the mozzarella. We were down to our last few slices of prosciutto when the waitress appeared, pushed the leftovers onto SMC’s plate, then took the plate away. There’s really no hiding that they want you out of there the first chance they get.
Blink, blink. Gnocchi has magically appeared by my side, presented in a large pan. The gnocchi was 70% sauce, 30% pillows of too soft potato mash that held together in a relatively round shape to pass off as gnocchi.
Blink. The pan is gone and in its place is a very perfect looking pizza. It’s got a puffy crust, pools of cheese and more salami and ham than I expected. The crust has just enough crunch amd the melting pools of cheese are delicious mixed in with the tomato sauce. The salami is spicy though and the more I eat, the more the fire in my mouth grows.
The pizza, cut into quarters, was an awkward share between three so there was a single quarter left when the waitress stopped by, slid the remaining slice onto W’s plate and took the pan. I mean, really, was that necessary? We spent 40 minutes at Via Napoli and though the pizza and our prosciutto with buffalo mozarella were both delicious, I don’t know if I’d be back for that service.
Christine Thai 