In a typical suburb, the neighborhood pizza joint has red-checked vinyl tablecloths and meatballs in red sauce. This being tasteful, slow-growth Flower Mound, Pazzo Woodfired Pizza instead has a rippling wall of Venetian plaster, blue as the Adriatic, and upscale pizzas topped with arugula, scallops, and the like. Here’s where Flower Mound’s Coach handbag-toting, Lexus SUV-driving young families can linger for an hour or two, as if in Venice itself.
Helping maintain that illusion is owner David Ianni, an ex-TI-er who moved here from Italy. With Pazzo (which means “crazy”), he’s re-creating the foods of his youth: thin-crust pizza, pasta, and paninis. To that end, he installed a showpiece wood-burning oven, clad in shiny copper.
The pizza’s high point was the quality of its toppings. The luscious Bistecca, for example, touted Angus sirloin steak, blue cheese, and grilled onions, conjuring visions of tender, red strips of meat with edges charred black. Too bad some maniacal soul in the kitchen diced the steak so precisely that it cooked up into jerky bits.
The crust, while nicely thin, was pale and wan, a letdown given the la-dee-da oven. The dough seemed immature; it needs to sit around a while to develop some yeasty chew.
Sandwiches, however, gave the pizzas a run for their money. It’s the bread: Ianni imports Ecce Panis bread from New York, which he final-bakes at the restaurant. Crunchy and substantial, it elevated every ingredient it touched, from the prosciutto in the fresco panini to the goat cheese and pesto on the bruschetta appetizer.
Pazzo’s wine list is about drinking affordably, with modest though likeable selections, such as Rancho Zabaco Zinfandel. Modest and likeable sums up the service, too, as delivered by a crew of fresh-faced, hyper-gelled suburban kids—maybe not Italian, but undoubtedly Flower Mound’s finest. 6101 Long Prairie Rd., Ste. 700. Flower Mound. 972-355-9886. $-$$. —T.G.
