Sagra Italia

My wife and I recently had dinner at Sagra Italia on St. Paul St., which opened in late 2025 in the former site of Fifth Frame Brewing in downtown Rochester. Sagra had been on my radar screen for a while, after I learned that they offer pizza made with house-made focaccia. 

 Sagra Italia doesn't accept reservations, but although it was Saturday, I hoped that if we got there relatively early we wouldn't have much trouble getting a table. Fortunately, I was correct. They were moderately busy at around 5:30, but we were seated within a few minutes after our arrival. 

 Sagra is a fast-casual operation, with the food counter and kitchen on the right, and bar at the left. After making our choices, my wife put in our food order while I fetched us a couple drinks at the bar.

Any time there's Margherita pizza on the menu, I'm probably going with that, and so I did here. Rather than order an entire pizza, we got a single square-cut slice, which allowed us to try a second variety, the La Bianca (white pizza). We also shared a bowl of Shellfish Scoglio, which the menu describes as comprising Italian bronze-cut spaghetti, mussels, shrimp, grape tomatoes, marinara, white wine, garlic, chili flakes, fresh parsley, and Parmigiano/Romano (both? either? don't know).

Not long after putting in our order, our food was delivered to the table. The Margherita was topped with marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil pesto. The crust was an inch or so thick (it's focaccia, remember), and though my predilections run toward thin crust, I very much liked it. It was airy and crunchy, which indicated good gluten development. The flavor was quite good as well, and I was happily surprised by the use of basil pesto rather than fresh basil. I don't think that would've worked quite as well on a thin crust, but on a focaccia pizza, the pesto added basil flavor plus a bit of olive oil that helped balance the thick crust, in a way that fresh basil alone wouldn't have done.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like the La Bianca, but I was again pleasantly surprised, particularly by the lemon ricotta. Frankly, I've never been a huge fan of ricotta on pizza. Maybe it's just me, but it's always seemed like a substitute for fresh mozzarella. And lemon on pizza? Giddouttaheah!

But this was good. It would be easy to overdo lemon, but this was subtle enough that with the other toppings, it worked very well. Whoever is coming up with these ideas clearly knows what they're doing.

Oh yeah -- our shellfish was good too, as were the wine, beer, and service. I was also happy to see them busy, and I encourage you to check them out.

Sagra Italia

155 St. Paul Street

Wed. - Sun. 11 am - 10 pm, closed Mon. and Tue.