Omnivore - Ammazza: another pizzeria opens

• Cliff Bostock’s iPhone
• Fried pizza at Ammazza

You thought the pizza wars were over? Think again.

The latest pizzeria to arrive on the scene is Ammazza (“amazement”) , a project of brothers Jason and Hugh Connery. Jason was involved for a brief time with Antico before opening this restaurant in the Old Fourth Ward.

The pizza is, naturally, Neopolitan-style, cooked in a wood-burning oven. Wayne and I sampled only a few items on the menu. As usual, I ordered the margherita pizza. It arrived too gooey to pick up at first, but quickly gained more density. I liked the tomato sauce, but the house-made mozzarella was pretty tasteless. The few individual leaves of basil on the pizza were completely shriveled by the heat.

These are not “individual” pizzas. They’re 16” with eight slices. After a huge antipasta plate, we couldn’t eat more than half the pizza and half the “semplice” fried pizza we ordered. The semplice, looking something like a giant crab, literally leaked white fluid from the three cheeses used — mozzarella, fior di latte, and ricotta. Crispy, chewy, cheesy, fatty.

The new restaurant is kind of weirdly configured. You order in a space upfront. The dining room and bar are located at the end of a surprisingly long hall. The look is woody and warm, with a view of the kitchen behind a window.