Pizzeria Seven Twelve - 3.8

Dear Pizzeria 712,

I see what you’re getting at. You’re trying to catch the wave of the culinary revolution of our day! Fresh ingredients, daring seasonal menu's, modern atmospheres. I’m sure it all looked good on paper, but can I tell you something? Between you and me--you’re trying too hard.

The atmosphere you’ve created doesn’t seem very original, and it’s definitely not sensible. The wood slabs you serve your food on are extremely hard to pick back up. They stick to the table! Do you realize how awkward that is for your servers? They have to slide it around until they can finally catch an edge to pick it up! Then on top of that (even though it looks cool) having your brick oven right there leaves little room for error. One burnt crust = entire restaurant smelling burnt food. You don’t want that, right?

Also, you’re a little pretentious.

Your menu is ridiculous. I have a degree from the Food Network Culinary School (watching Food Network on my couch) so I’m fairly versed in culinary terminology. But even I found myself googling some of your ingredients so I didn’t accidentally order something I didn’t want. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT SOPPRESSATA IS. Just call it salami, for the commoner’s sake.

Don’t get me wrong though! You make good food.  The panna cotta with strawberry rhubarb topping I had a few months ago was one of the most bad A desserts I’ve ever had. I still think about it all the time. Plus, I took my leftovers home both times I’ve come and I love your hummus!

But I don’t crave you.

The problem is most of your food lacks passion. Anybody can make good food if they have good ingredients. Your food seemed to be….lacking. It was like watching a basketball game from row 206 vs. row 15. Same game, different experience. You see, great food isn’t just great ingredients. Great food is when all the different flavors of a dish dance together and create a culinary masterpiece in your mouth. Yours left me wanting more than one-note in the melody. There should be high and low flavors, ones that sing and ones that hum, flavors that hurt and flavors that heal. (Too much?)

I’ll probably come again, you do have occasional gems. But, I’m not going to go out of my way to come visit. I guess I just wish you would stop trying to be something you’re not. Do a little soul searching and when you find yourself, let me know. I know you’re in there somewhere.

Respectfully,

Kayla

p.s. maybe we were just both having a bad day