Pittsburgh: Pizzaiolo Primo (September 2016)

Pizzaiolo Primo – Neapolitan Pizza in Pittsburgh

My spouse and I dined at Pizzaiolo Primo for lunch on a Friday afternoon in early September 2016. In July of this year, the restaurant made a slight name change to its downtown location from Il Pizzaiolo to Pizzaiolo Primo; the original location of Il Pizzaiolo in Mt. Lebanon remains open. Plans for a third more casual-dining restaurant called Pizzuvio are under consideration. The restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner. Pizzaiolo accepts reservations by telephone, although they hold a few tables for walk-ins. Seats at the bar are available first come-first serve.

Pizzaiolo Primo, which opened in 2013 in Market Square, is located close to the Hilton Garden Inn, where we were staying. The restaurant offers seating in several areas: outdoors on the sidewalk facing the square, on the ground floor/street level at tables or at the bar, or upstairs at the bar or at tables. On the ground floor, marble-topped tables with wrought-iron legs are positioned on a tile floor along walls that feature wainscoting and exposed brick with a view of the wood-burning pizza oven.

Pizzaiolo Primo serves authentic Neapolitan cuisine. The restaurant’s showpiece is its pizza oven, which is made of volcanic stone from Sorrento, Italy; in fact, masons from Italy came to Market Square to install it. The oven cooks a pizza in about 90 seconds because of its 1000+ degree temperature! The restaurant also offers a mobile pizza oven for offsite events. The menu features appetizers (which we almost missed because they are listed on the bottom of the front cover, below the info about the restaurant), salads, pizzas, pastas, and meat entrees. Pastas that are listed on the right side of the pasta page are made in-house. The restaurant imports ingredients from the finest artisans, cheesemakers, and salumerias. The 11” thin crust pizza dough is hand-rolled twice daily. Pizzaiolo Primo won one of the “Best of Pittsburgh” awards in 2016.

As a starter, we shared the calamari (served classic or arabbiatta style). Next, we ordered the DOC margherita pizza, made with tomato sauce, parmesan, basil, olive oil, and mozzarella di bufala (which is imported weekly); the regular margherita pizza uses traditional mozzarella cheese). For dessert, we shared the vanilla panna cotta with fresh berries.

We enjoyed our lunch at Pizzaiolo Primo, and we plan to return for dinner sometime so that we can try some of their homemade pasta dishes. The food and service were great!