Jodi on 
Erin on 
Eric on 
Bill Evans on 
Pulcinella used to be Stromboli’s, the type of Italian joint with red and white checkered tablecloths. Now, the family’s younger generation has turned it cool and chic – shiny white banquettes, oversized black and white photo boxes, and a $30,000 wood-burning oven made with stones from Mount Vesuvius.
We arrived on time for our dinner reservation, only to be met by a bit of confusion. The host eventually said our intended table was just getting their bill.
Fair enough. But there was no apology, no invitation to wait at the bar, no offer of something to tide us over. In fact, when the rest of our group of 7 arrived, we were rudely asked to move back even further into the waiting area – to make way for a walk-in couple.
Things got much better once we were seated. Our server was wonderful, patient, and friendly even though she had been working since 7 a.m. at her first job.
Pulcinella is one of only 20 restaurants outside of Italy that gets the stamp of approval from the Associazione Pizzaioli Napoletana, which stringently guards the historic Neopolitan pizza tradition.
The thumbs up is given after training with the group in Italy, and after it’s approved the restaurant blueprints and equipment lists. Flour and toppings have to pass the standards of Italian governing bodies. Them’s some hard core pizza rules.
So I’ll get right to it. Pizza from Napoli is thin-crust with a charring on the underside that’s supposed to add to the flavour. I love Pulcinella’s very fresh simple toppings, sauce of crushed tomatoes and the thin crust – but the burnt part I guess is an acquired taste.
The Quattro Stagioni ($15.95) has different toppings in each quarter of the pizza: mozzarella, ham, mushrooms, artichokes, anchovies, basil, and parmesan. We add grilled eggplant.
The ham is pedestrian but it’s because Christina and I thought we had ordered proscuitto for some reason. We keep looking over at Dave and Tara’s Crudo: mozzarella, cured proscuitto, parmesan, and basil.
The server graciously pities our pitiful proscuitto sad faces and brings us a side plate of the pork. It’s paper thin, and salty, and perfect.
The appetizers were quite unique. I liked the textures of my arancini ($11.95) – a ball of saffron infused arborio rice, stuffed with mozzarella, breaded and topped with fresh tomato sauce – and I was impressed by the tasty Campania buffalo mozzarella in the Caprese salad ($13.95).
Christina loved her fennel and blood orange salad ($11.95) with toasted walnuts drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.
The wine list is exclusively Italian and very interesting. The room is laid-back enough for large groups but intimate enough for dates. But it’s hard to get over first impressions, so the proverbial jury is still out on Pulcinella.
But for our great server, and for the proscuitto, I’ll give Pulcinella another try.
UPDATE – August 2007: Yeah, Pulcinella’s pizza isn’t for me. I’d go back for drinks and appetizers if the service at front of house wasn’t so atrocious.
Pulcinella, 1147 Kensington Crescent NW, Calgary, (403) 283-1166. Menu here.
Hey, have you tried Tesoro in Oliver Square in Edmonton? It is new-ish, with similar type of pizzas…I was there for lunch today and had a spicy salami panini. Very tasty food, authentic lattes and exceedingly gracious owners…
My friend who lives across the street mentioned it… now I’ll have to try it for sure next time I’m in town.
I stopped in this summer, just to grab some Illy at the bar. I really liked it, and promised myself I’d come back some day. I’ll have to make another visit when I’m back in Alberta in a few months.
I spent a few months in Italy when I was in highschool and managed to eat my weight in pizzas during my stay. The Quattro Stagioni was one of my favourites, second to the one that came with four simply huge globs of ricotta cheese. So when Pulcinella opened I couldn’t wait to get in the door. I was so disappointed I have never gone back. The pizza was more than just a little burnt and the cheese was a bit thick. But more to the point I could NOT believe they used ham instead of prosciutto. Perhaps I’ll go back and get the Crudo… or better yet go back to Italy.
Probably one of my favorite Pizza Places in the city, I liked Stromboli’s but I have less guilt with these pizzas.
Plus the Illy espresso is SO good.
I can’t really understand why people don’t like this place all that much.
I suppose it’s their loss though
I love the title! How many spams or queer requests did you have to fend off?
My favourite pizza is gorgonzal cheese with pears topped with plenty of basil!
Cheers,
Robert-Gilles
Hey azlebert! Check that ham again.. it IS prociutto. It’s called Cotto. Cured Prociutto. You might want to check the place out again. I go at least twice a month and there’s never been any “ham” as you call it.
PS – if you ordered the quattro stagioni and were expecting raw prociutto, that’s where you went wrong. Try the crudo.. meaning raw prociutto. It’s covered in the prociutto you’re expecting.
My experience there was pretty awful. I could not get an explanation as to why my pizza was loaded with soggy canned mushrooms.
This made eating it difficult – I couldn’t pick it up and I couldn’t cut through the rubbery dough with my serrated knife I was given so I ended up tearing if off piece by piece and spilling those unwanted (unnecessary!)canned mushrooms on my lap.
I enjoyed the arancini, and I’ll definitely have to try some of the other appetizers.
However, my experience with the pizza hasn’t been great either, and I’ve been back a few times just to see if I caught them on an off day. I love Italian food and I understand their dedication to simplicity, but to me, the pizza dough was burnt on the bottom and quite soggy on top in the middle. Plus, the pizzas with ham (cotto) on them seemed like they were just diced up, sliced cold cuts. No, I wasn’t expecting proscuitto. Just not sliced ham from the grocery store. I didn’t have mushrooms but I’m not surprised they would come from cans, which is disappointing.
Anyway, I’d go back for appies, but not pizza…
I think Pulcinella was great when it first opened, and now it seems that it sometimes is completely off the mark with exceedingly terrible service.
However, it is normal for a busy restaurant to wait until an entire group has arrived before seating them. Who knows – maybe there are only three of you – when they have reserved for more. A reservation isn’t really a guarantee…especially if the entire party isn’t present. A little rude, but then again, you did reserve, so you should be on time too, no?
Sure, I agree with being on time for reservations but we were missing one person out of seven. And the subsequent two visits weren’t any better in terms of host/hostess service.
[...] Italian pizza (and specifically in Calgary) and came across a blog on WordPress.com, “Are you gonna eat that?“. In a February 2007 review of Pulcinella, the author writes: Pulcinella is one of only 20 [...]