"Charcoal Guido's" to bring brick-oven pizza to Waltham
There's a new brick-oven pizzeria in the works on Moody Street in Waltham! Unfortunately, it won't be open until January or maybe even February.
http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/brandnew...
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L2k
Jan 29, 2013 11:24 AM
Just back from lunch there with two colleagues from work. Place was pretty empty at 12:45, maybe 3 parties? Stood at the "wait to be seated" sign for a couple minutes, man at the bar told us to "sit anywhere".
Place smelled great from the oven, and the look of the restaurant was very nice and clean. Sat down at a 4 top, waitress brought over the menu pretty quickly, and took orders promptly.
Food took nearly 20 minutes to come out (one panini, one burger, one pizza) which is rough when you're on a tight work schedule. We didn't ask, but expected that with a limited menu (10 or so pizzas, 3 burgers, about 6 paninis) that food would be ready more quickly.
Food was tasty, even though the place remained empty we never got a "how is everything?" or water refills. Had to ask the bartender to get the waitress to get our bill. She apologized, she was "working on something on the side in the basement" (not sure what that means). Paid, left.
Normally I'd give the place a second chance, with good food and weak service. But it would have been impossible to get back to the office in an hour even if the waitress had been more available, so I may be one and done here.
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This review claimed "authentic Italian cuisine" at Charcoal Guido's!!!
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Guido in Moody st. is now open and I went to try it last night.
Food is good. I had a very nice pizza ( If Gran gusto is a 10 I would give them a 8), some arancini, arrosticini ( lamb skewers) with a very good spicy oil and a bruschetta with Polpo that was very good. I tried the cannelloni (ok) and the gnocchi semolina (a little bland). There were a few problems with the service but I talked to one of the owners and he was happy to have a client that could tell them how to improve things and not simply walk away and never come back. He brought to the table some delicious biscotti made by his mom and even offered at no cost some limoncello or sambuca. Very nice addition to Waltham! -
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re: Pappabuona
Science Chick
Jul 9, 2012 09:51 AM
Here is an article published in March that says it is going more slowly than they had expected, and that they are shooting for June......so maybe soon? Thanks for bumping the post up....I had forgotten about this and now I'm excited!
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KWagle
Oct 1, 2011 12:33 AM
Brick can't magically make up for an oven too cold. By which I mean any oven whose cooking surface is under 729dF. I haven't tried cooking on anything other than a Hearthkit a those temperatures, but I'm told a steel plate works fine if you can get it hot enough. I do plan to test that claim eventually.
(Ideally, you want your cooking surface about 750 degrees and the air above it 200 degrees hotter. That's why beehive ovens are shaped the way they are. Making your home oven do that is somewhat trickier, but as Jeff Varasano has shown, it can be done.)
If you want to make your own oven hot enough to make pizza, put a resistor and a swiitch in parallel with the thermistor. Then your oven's controller will think the oven is too cold and run it until it gets hot enough. (With an older oven, you can just use 'broil' and let the element run continuously for a few hours, which broilers will do.)
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re: hyde
KWagle
Oct 1, 2011 04:37 PM
The oven we hacked cost $25 on Craigslist. I don't know how much the resistor and the switch cost. It runs on propane now, and costs a bit less than a buck an hour to run.
I concur that $40 is a lot to spend, but if you can't get your oven up to real pizza temperatures, I think you should find a local pizza joint that will still be using the same low temps, but will have much more skill in pie making and probably better ingredients.
And, if you don't mind the tiny size of the pies it products, the G3 Ferrari tabletop pizza oven is available for about $200 from a Canadian distributor. You'll have to email them to get the info, it's not on the website. It easily gets into the pizza oven range--mine had a broken thermostat for a while and when I ran it it maxed out my IR thermometer which happens at 932dF.
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re: KWagle
i believe two large pizzas at most of the places i have been to in the boston area will run one around 40. i know picco, reginas, even any bertuccis will. an exception is a well done garlic sicilian at imperial pizza in brighton is 13 bucks and will feed four.
my point was ( with no room to hack a second oven), i would still rather make fair pizza at home then pay 30+ for the dreck they dish out in all but a handful of places in the boston area. they may have more skill but i would raise an eyebrow about the fact that they have better ingredients.
i HAVE been trying to find a local joint that makes a decent pie and does not feel the need to charge 20 dollars for 2.50 worth of ingredients, i have been looking for quite a while. my favorite is luigi's in brooklyn, but its kind of far....
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be nice to have a decent pizza in the area. much disappointed in NY pie, the people are nice, they seem to take great care in their food, i just dont like their pizza. and i have tried.
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Science Chick
Sep 27, 2011 03:47 PM
Thanks for the info...........looking forward to this addition to Waltham!
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CocoDan
Sep 27, 2011 05:56 AM
Thanks for the update. I reported this back in June after having met 2 of the 3 partners. As previously stated, they ordered equipment from Italy, and originally expected to open around September. They don't move to fast in Italy. It will happen. These guys are a bit of a hoot.
Hopefully We'll Enjoy,
CocoDan
