Critic's Review
*** Bellini's is closed ****
Bellini's Coal Fired Pizza (aka Bellini's Brick Oven Pizza) is a new venue located in the "Lime Green" shopping center (where Houston's and Bucky's used to be located). The handsome corner space has a shiny counter with a big coal oven in the center where you can watch the pizza maker do his thing. There are pub tables with a sleek metallic theme; italian tile adorns the walls.
They have a full Italian menu leaning towards expensive for a pizza place. $15. for a plain large pie and $12 for a small. Part of their menu plays like an Anthony's clone; they have specialty pies, make your own, small and large for what seemed to be slightly less than Anthony's charges. Also "traditional" coal-fired chicken wings with italian spices and caramelized onions.
We ordered a small cheese sausage pizza.
The first impression was that it seemed small. Measuring the pie; it was exactly 11". Usually a small pizza is 12". Now that might seem trite, but if you remember your geometry, (Area = Pi * r squared), an 11" pie is 15% smaller than a 12" pie. The slices are very small as a result. The crust is very, very thin, so its not that they didn't roll it out enough. Unlike Anthony's, the crust is not crisp and burnt; its so thin that the sauce keeps it very soft underneath and its crisp around the edges. The sauce is very good, and the sausage is spicy italian.
An order of 10 wings are not as well done as expected, but good. If you're used to buffalo-style wings, you might appreciate the difference. The wings are dryish, with an Italian seasoning that's quite good.
On another visit I tried the wings with chili sauce, and I was roundly disappointed. First, the sauce was just too thick and sweet. But most importantly, the wings weren't cooked well enough. The entire point of coal fired wings is the charring, and these wings weren't even cooked well enough, much less charred.
They didn't taste any different than something you'd get at a bad chinese restaurant. I ended up rinsing off the sauce and throwing them on my grill.
All in all, the pizza here is pretty good, even if it is a bit expensive for what you get. I'd certainly come here for my coal fired pizza before the "other" place.