Branca, Bushnells Basin

If nothing else, the current trend of wood-fired pizza is giving local pizza lovers more options to choose from, and it's giving me more and more places to check out; sometimes more than I can keep up with. One such is Branca in Bushnells Basin, which opened this summer in what had been a Great Northern Pizza Kitchen location.
It’s funny how some new places get so much more buzz than others, but I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised when on a recent Sunday around 5:30 my wife and I showed up and were told that Branca could “not accommodate walk-ins until 8:30.” Branca was opened by the owners of The Revelry, a Rochester hotspot, and it’s in Bushnells Basin, which I described to my wife as “Pittsford on steroids.” Put those together and you’re talking about a place where you don’t just walk in and expect to get a table right away, even on what’s an off-night for many places. (We left and went to another place not too far away, which I’ll report on soon.)
Several days later, the opportunity again arose for use to go out for dinner, and this time I made a reservation. So with some smugness on my part, we sauntered past the ignorant masses waiting for a table and were quickly ushered to our seats.

We were seated not too far from Branca’s oven. I didn’t take a photo, since you can see several good views of the oven on Branca’s Facebook page. But the fire was blazing, and pizzas were steadily going in and out.
There was no question that I was going to get a pizza; it was only a matter of which one. Aside from the Tartufata (it’s got mushrooms - a no-go, for me), they all sounded good, but I went with my usual Margherita.
Initial impressions:  thick, blistered cornicione, very thin interior, some spotty charring on an otherwise pale underside. The cornicione was chewy, pleasant enough but a bit bland, and I found it a little wide and thick, relative to the overall size of the pizza. I like a good outer crust, but this was a little much for me.
The interior crust was supple, thin, and chewy. I understand that Neapolitan pizza is typically not crisp and crackly, like New York style pizza, but I found this pie just a bit soupy. Branca’s oven runs at about 900 degrees, which can evaporate some of the water in a sauce, but the sauce here was a little more liquid than I would’ve liked. 
But the sauce, which is made from San Marzano tomatoes, was flavorful, and the dollops of fresh mozzarella were nicely melted. I could’ve used a little more basil, but what basil there was had been added at the right time to wilt it and bring out some flavor, without drying it out or browning it.
I should mention that the rest of our meal was very good. I started with a Panzanella Toscana salad, with heirloom tomatoes, bread, cucumber, red onion, and red wine vinaigrette, which made for a nice combination. I think I may have set a personal record for carb consumption, between the pizza, that bread-based salad, and the crusty complimentary bread that we were given for starters. My wife enjoyed her salad with goat cheese, and her vegetarian, farro-based main course proved to be an excellent choice as well.
As long as this is turning into a full-blown review, I’ll say a bit more about the place in general. No complaints about the service; the staff did a good job at keeping up with the crowd, and our server checked in on us from time to time. The feel was upscale casual, but don’t go here for an intimate dinner. Tables are close together, and although my wife and I didn’t find conversation difficult, the noise level was fairly high. Branca claims to evoke the spirit of "Old Hollywood watering holes," but I'm not sure if I even know what that entails, much less whether it's an accurate description.
So is Branca worth the hype? Hard to say, after just one meal, but it’s certainly worth a visit.  I tend to avoid rating pizzas until a place has had some time to sort itself out, so let’s just say that at this point, I’d recommend checking it out, even if I’m not yet putting Branca on my must-do list. Just make a reservation first.

Branca, 683 Pittsford-Victor Rd., Bushnells Basin
585-310-7415

Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - midnight
Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m.
Sun. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Victor Village Inn

One of the labels I've created for this blog (on the left sidebar) is "bar." I figured people might like to know which pizzerias also have bars, and which bars also serve pizza.
Aside from that, in some parts of the country, "bar pizza" is a distinct variety of pizza, usually very thin, maybe oily, and probably crunchy. Kind of a bar snack while you're drinking.
Around here, the bars and bar/restaurants where they make pizza from scratch generally don't share a common style. Acme (which I need to get back to sometime) serves more or less New York style pizza, Canandaigua's Green Front does a pizza that's thin and supple, and of course there are all the wood-fired pizzerias, many of which have bars as well.
But a lot of bars in this area that serve pizza don't make it from scratch, at least not the dough. They tend to use premade crusts, to which they simply add toppings and bake.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, or that such pizza can't be good. I think the best pizzas nearly always start with fresh dough, but I've had some pretty decent pizza made with preformed crusts or pizza "shells." For that matter, I've had some pretty bad pizza that was baked with house-made, fresh dough. So the type of dough or crust - fresh, frozen or otherwise - is a factor, but only one factor, in the end result.
To get back to the subject of bar pizza, to the extent that there is such a style in the Rochester area, I'd have to say that it is characterized by those premade crusts. They tend to produce a pizza that's uniform in thickness, maybe a little crunchy, and sometimes oily underneath, depending on how it was baked.
A good example of this style, in more ways than one, can be found at the Village Inn in Victor. What I mean by that is that the VVI's pizza is typical of local bar pizza, and qualitatively, it is in fact pretty good.
I recently stopped in to pick up a small pepperoni pie. The crust was thin, crunchy, and rather dry. I don't know for a fact that it was premade, in other words not freshly made on the premises, but it seemed that way. There was a little oil underneath, but I think some of that had seeped down from the toppings.
Speaking of which, the sauce was quite generously applied, which was fortunate, as it added some much-needed moisture to balance out the dry crust. And I liked the sauce - it had a straightforward tomato flavor, and a medium consistency. Very basic, but flavorful.
The mozzarella was still hot when I first examined it, and was rather gloppy, though it did firm up a little as the pie cooled. It was nicely melted and just slightly browned. It was a little bland, but was certainly preferable to the cheap stuff that some places use, that turns to oil-coated, dried-out plastic in the oven.
The pepperoni was pretty good too. It was thin, slightly greasy, nicely crisped, and evenly distributed.
The Victor Village Inn offers a basic bar menu of pizza, wings, and burgers, and fried fish. Pizzas come in three sizes, with nine available toppings. Pizza is generally not available until around 6:00.
This pie was a little sloppy to eat, what with all the sauce and the melted cheese. And while the crust wasn't the greatest, it wasn't bad, and its shortcomings were to some extent compensated for by the toppings. All in all, this was a decent bar pie.
I don't think I can quite give this a B--I wouldn't go out of my way to get this--but a C seems a little low. So while I've been trying to stay away from pluses and minuses, I'm making an exception here and giving the Victor Village Inn's pizza a solid C+, for this pretty good bar pie
Victor Village Inn, 34 E. Main St., Victor
924-5025

Lucca, Victor, Revisited

It's been a long time since I last reported on Lucca in Victor. This wood-fired pizzeria has been around since early 2009, although I believe the ownership has changed since my December 2009 review.
As I did then, I ordered a small Margherita to go. I thought about getting it to eat on Lucca's front porch/patio, but I wanted to get home, so I changed my mind and got it to go.
The pizza that I got confirmed that it was a good idea to do an update on Lucca, because it was different from the one I had before. Most noticeably, this one had no tomato sauce, but used only sliced tomatoes. It was also considerably thicker than last time, and used shredded basil rather than basil leaves.
That's a lot of changes, so let's start with the crust and work from the bottom up. I was surprised, and a littl disappointed, to see a considerable amount of corn meal on the bottom of this pie. Corn meal does help keep a pizza from sticking to the peel, and I use it myself, sometimes, but it's a tricky thing. For one, it burns easily, and second, it can add a grittiness to a pizza that's not very appealing. And this pizza did suffer somewhat in both respects, as it had a bottom sootiness that detracted from the overall experience.
Corn meal can also add a bit of crunch to a crust, but not here. This medium-thick crust was pretty soft underneath, and more brown than charred. It wasn't unpleasant, in that respect, just not crisp.
And now we're getting into matters of personal preference. With most pizzas (there are exceptions, which I won't get into here), I like a crust that's crackly-crisp on the outside, and chewy on the inside. But I've had good pizzas that range from stiff as a board to knife-and-fork floppy. Still, when I get a wood-fired pizza, I'm looking for something to distinguish it from pizza baked in a conventional gas or electric oven, and I didn't find much of that here.
Up top, things started with a base of melted, smooth mozzarella, which was fine, as far as things went, but bland and not very noticeable. No real complaints though.
The tomatoes were decent, but ... they weren't great. A Margherita always has tomatoes in some form. It could be fresh sliced tomatoes, as here, a cooked sauce, or something in between, like crushed tomatoes with some herbs, that cook down a bit in the oven. But if you're going to go with fresh sliced tomatoes, they'd better be good. And these were just OK. I've had better. They just didn't have a lot of flavor.
The third component of the Margherita trinity (based on the Italian flag) is the green basil. There wasn't much of that here. A sprinkling of shredded basil added some aroma, but not much flavor. A few leaves of fresh basil added at or near the end of the baking process would've boosted the flavor quotient and made for a more visually appealing pie as well.
I also picked up a hint of garlic - could've been garlic powder - and some background saltiness in this pie. And the thickish cornicione, though not crisp, was pleasantly breadlike and chewy.
This wasn't a bad pizza, all in all. Individually, most of the things I've picked out here are minor. But cumulatively, they took it down from what it could've and should've been. It was of average overall quality for this area, and so it gets a C from me.
Lucca Wood-Fire Bistro, 90 West Main Street, Victor, NY 14564
585-924-9009
Tue. - Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 9 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sat. noon - 10 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Otto Tomotto's, Victor

There are a number of restaurants around town that offer pizza, but that aren't the kind of places you go to to get a pizza to go. Those tend to take me longer to get to, since I can't just get one at lunchtime or on the way home. But I do try to get to them when I can.
One such place is Otto Tommoto's in Victor. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was a chain restaurant. Something about the cutesy name, I guess. But it's not. It's an independent Italian restaurant, in a strip plaza on Rt. 96, a little east of Victor.
I had dinner there recently with my wife. Pizzas were listed as an appetizer, so I got one as such, although I could've easily made it my entree. With a pasta entree, another shared appetizer that my wife ordered, and a salad (which also proved to be superfluous, given the greens on my pizza), I had way too much food, and ended up taking some of the pizza home.
Otto's has five grilled pizzas on the menu - the original (basically a red-sauce pizza with four cheeses), a mushroom pizza, a "Tuscan Grill" pizza with olives, veggies, herbs and truffle oil, a clam pie, and a zucchini-crusted pie with veggie toppings.
Ordinarily I'd go for the most basic option, but the zucchini-crusted pie was the winner of Otto's 2011 Wooden Spoon Scholarship competition, submitted by Michael Piccone of the Finger Lakes Technical Career Center. Every purchase of this pizza adds another dollar to next year's scholarship fund. And it sounded pretty good, with a grilled pizza crust infused with shredded zucchini, and topped with sun-dried tomato pesto, Kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes (which are somewhat annoyingly, to me, spelled "tomottos" throughout the menu), Feta cheese and roasted peppers. So that's what I got.
The crust was soft, and reminiscent of pita bread. But it was enjoyable - I have nothing against pita bread - and had some added flavor imparted by the grilling, which was evident from the marks underneath. I didn't particularly notice any presence of the zucchini "infused" into the crust, but that's kind of how it is with zuccini. I mean, zucchini bread doesn't sound that great to me, but it's OK because it doesn't really taste like zucchini. Zucchini just seems to blend into dough without adding a lot of flavor or texture. It did leave me wondering, though, what Otto's regular, non-zucchini-infused crust is like.
With all the toppings on this pizza, it was a pretty "busy" pie, but the toppings worked well together, even if the total effect wasn't quite as flavorful as I'd expected. It was almost like a salad atop a grilled flatbread, but I enjoyed it well enough.
And I did like the restaurant in general. I should mention that our other appetizer, "Otto chips" (bottom photo) were downright addictive. These were homemade potato chips topped with roasted red peppers, scallions, Alfredo sauce, bacon, olives and Asiago cheese. As the menu says, they're essentially "Italian nachos." Not exactly diet food, but delicious.
And I must also mention that the service was good. It was good throughout our meal, but what stood out was that at the end of our meal, our server asked if my wife's entree was all right, since she left a lot of it on the plate. When my wife said that she wasn't thrilled with it, our server took it back to the kitchen, and emerged to say that it had been taken off our bill. That's good service, and I appreciated that.
This is one of those places I'd go back to, but probably not for the pizza. I am kind of curious about their regular pizza crust, but there are other things on the menu I'd like to try, and overall I was well pleased with the restaurant. This pizza was so different from conventional pizza - and it was pretty accurately described on the menu - that I don't think it would be fair to rate it. I will say that it's not a bad option, but there are other items on the menu that I'd probably opt for next time.
Otto Tomotto's, 300 Phoenix Mills Plaza, Route 96, Victor, NY
Tel.: 585-742-2070Hours:  Tue. - Thu. 11:30 - 9 p.m., Fri. 11:30 - 10 p.m., Sat. 4 - 10 p.m., Sun. noon - 8 p.m.

Naked Pizza, Victor (CLOSED)

I don't generally have much to say about chain pizzerias, for several reasons. One, most of them are so ubiquitous that I figure most people have a pretty good idea already of what their pizza is like. Two, readers of this blog, which has a local focus, are probably not that interested in chain pizzerias. Three, chain pizzerias, by their very nature, tend to promote uniformity, which to me is not a virtue where pizza's concerned. I like to think that a pizza that I get from a particular pizzeria is unique to that pizzeria.
But I have made an exception for Naked Pizza, which opened in Victor last fall. I did so because, so far at least, it's the only Naked Pizza in this area, and because it claims to be different from other chain pizzerias.
What's different about it? Well, according to Naked Pizza's website, their "dough is made from a blend of 10 whole grains and seeds with the addition of probiotics. Pies are topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella with no preservatives, sugar or trans fat."
Personally, when I eat pizza, I'm not thinking too much about trans fats, and I have only the vaguest idea what probiotics are. But I was curious to see what sort of product they put out. So I stopped by recently and ordered a 12" pie with tomatoes and basil.
I was a bit surprised when I walked in to see what a small place this is. There's a counter where you place your order, and a small counter where you could, I suppose, eat standing up, but that's it. This is really a takeout place.
The menu is posted on large video screens above the counter. Pies come in 10", 12" and 14" sizes. Prices start at $4.99 for a 10" cheese pizza, and go up to $16.99 for a 14" specialty pizza.
I was feeling like a Margherita, but Naked Pizza doesn't offer one, so I figured that tomatoes and basil would come reasonably close. After coming out of Naked Pizza's conveyor-belt oven, my pizza had a very thin crust that was dimpled on the bottom (from the pizza tray), with a dry, firm underside dotted with corn meal. It was not very crisp, and the individual slices were floppy.
The crust had a certain graininess to it, which was not unpleasant, though it was distinguish this from most other pizzas made with "ordinary" flour. It wasn't gritty, though, and there was still some chewiness to the crust.  The crust had a bit of crunch, although again with a certain background whole-grain bite.
This was a very saucy pizza, although given the thinness of the crust, it wouldn't take much sauce to make it seem that way. The sauce, which had a medium consistency, had a reasonably good tomatoey flavor, but I did find it a bit bland. Perhaps it's low in sodium, and while I don't crave salt, I'm probably used to saltier sauces than this one.
The mozzarella cheese was well melted, and was thinly applied, although it was in pretty good balance with the thin crust. (I didn't ask for this pie to be made with Naked Pizza's "skinny (thin)" crust, but I can't imagine it being much thinner, so either I was given the "skinny" crust without my asking, or the skinny crust is about as thick as a layer of filo dough.)
The tomato and basil were generously applied. You'd think I'd know by now not to order tomatoes in March, but these didn't have a whole lot of flavor. The basil was fine, although for as visible as it was, it had a surprisingly mild flavor; it reminded me more of wilted spinach than of the assertive herb I was expecting.
Naked pizza offers 15 "flora" (vegetable) toppings, and despite its hippieish image, five meat toppings, with a choice of three cheeses (mozzarella, feta or cheddar). There are also nine specialty pizzas, which will run you 8, 9, and 10 dollars more than a cheese pizza per 10, 12 , or 14 inch pie. Bread sticks and spinach salad are your only non-pizza options.
This was OK pizza, not out-of-the-park good, but certainly not bad. The crust was not as crisp as I like, but it's tough to get that kind of "bite" with whole-grain flour, and the added flavor and slightly grainy texture of this multigrain dough did at least partially compensate for the lack of outer crispness. And while the overall flavor did seem a bit on the bland side to my salt-jaded palate, it was reasonably good and well balanced, so I'll give this one an above-average, B grade.
Naked Pizza, 202 High Point Dr., Victor (across from Eastview Mall) 223-0088
Sun. - Thu. 10:30 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10:30 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Pizza Guy note:  effective June 6, 2011, this establishment is closed.

Bernardo's, Victor

I thought I was finished with Victor, after reviewing Lucca, Leonardo's, and Posella's, but then I received several comments from readers telling me that I'd missed what they swore was the best pizzeria in Victor, Bernardo's. I had never heard of Bernardo's, and it's easy to see why I missed it, as it's on a side street that I'd never been down before.
That omission has now been rectified, thanks to a recent midday dash out to Victor. I'm happy to say it was worth the trip back.
I got a pepperoni slice, which measured 8 inches along the side. It had a golden brown, screen-baked underside, with a somewhat crunchy exterior. The crust was thin, and folded easily.
The slice was topped with a generous layer of mozzarella, which was actually thicker than the crust in spots. (I found that folding the slice helped balance it out, as folding resulted in a more consistent ratio of crust to cheese with each bite). It appeared to have been dusted with parmesan as well.
The sauce had a basic tomatoey flavor and remained in the background, with the cheese taking center stage. The pepperoni, of the wide and thin variety, was moderately applied. The slice as a whole had something of a salty flavor, the source of which I couldn't identify. The thick lip was crunchy, chewy, and almost sweet, in a bready kind of way, and made for a rewarding finish to the slice.
Bernardo's pizza lineup is pretty basic, with eleven toppings and two specialty pizzas (chicken wing, and steak, peppers and onions). The rest of the menu is also relatively modest in scope, consisting of wings, hot and cold subs, and salads.
I was a little amused by the prominent proclamation, in boldface type, on Bernardo's takeout menu, that they are "Now offering Thin or Thick Crust Pizza!," as if that were quite a remarkable innovation. I don't point that out to poke fun - it's just suggestive that Bernardo's is not some trendy place where you're going to find exotic, bizarre, or cutting-edge pizza, and that's just fine by me. I can appreciate a pizzeria that doesn't try to do too much - better to do a few things well than a lot of things poorly. And based on my visit, I'd say that Bernardo's does what they do rather well. A lot of folks must agree, since Bernardo's has been in business for some 25 years now, under continuous family ownership and operation.
So, my thanks to the readers who let me know about Bernardo's. This was very enjoyable pizza. Its overall flavor was basic and straightforward, which, when you're talking about pizza, can be a good thing indeed. The components blended well, and it had a well balanced profile, the somewhat heavy cheese layer notwithstanding.
My one quibble would be over the use of a screen, which almost always seems to result in a crust that's not quite as crisp and toasty as I would like. This was a pretty good crust in spite of that, though, and unlike a lot of screen-baked pizzas, it had some crispness.
Well, actually, I've got a second quibble, though not about the pizza itself. At Bernardo's, you place your order at a small counter just inside the front door, and there's a large, informal dining area beyond that. On my visit at least, the slices (which, by the way, are available only at lunchtime, according to Bernardo's menu) were not visible from the counter. Had I seen the slices, I might've been more likely to order a couple instead of just one, which I ended up wishing I had done. Next time I'm in Victor, I'll see to that. In the meantime, I'm giving Bernardo's a B+.
Bernardo's Pizza, Subs & Wings, 160 School St. 924-3960
Mon. - Fri. 9 a.m. - 8 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m. - 7 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Lucca, Victor

Lucca is a wood-fired pizza place in Victor. If I have my facts straight, it used to be Slice of Napa, which was the second location of Napa Wood Fired Pizza. Napa is now back to just one location, in Fairport, having sold the Victor business to new owners, who changed it over to Lucca in May 2009.
You can get slices here at lunchtime, but to my way of thinking, wood-fired pizza is something that needs to be ordered as a whole, freshly baked pie. A NY-style slice can actually improve when it's been out of the oven for a while and then reheated for a minute before serving, but not so with this kind of pizza. That's especially true of a margherita, which is what I ordered, since it's typically made with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil, neither of which is going to get any better once the pizza comes out of the oven.
The crust on my 10" pie was very thin, which is typical of wood-fired pizza. It was dry, crackly, and crunchy, which was pleasant enough as far as that goes, but it had almost no interior chewiness.
For a wood-fired pizza, it was also not particularly charred. The underside was fairly pale, with just a few scattered charred spots, and the crust had a more doughy than toasty flavor. The outer edge was also thin, dark brown, and crunchy.
Sauce was optional on the margherita (I suppose everything's optional on a pizza, but the person taking my order asked if I wanted sauce), and I opted for it. It had a straight-ahead, concentrated tomato flavor that was reminiscent of tomato paste.
I don't mean that as a putdown, and the menu describes the sauce as San Marzano tomato sauce, which is high-quality stuff. It's just that it was very tomatoey, meaning it didn't have much in the way of herbs or sweeteners, and it had a strong, concentrated flavor, as if much of the water in the tomatoes had been cooked out.
With that assertive flavor, the sauce might've been better left off this pizza, as it tended to dominate the other components, but then again the slices of fresh tomato weren't all that great. I can't fault Lucca much on that one, I mean, try to find a decent tomato around here in December, but if I had it to do over I think I'd ask for them to go easy on the sauce.
The fresh mozzarella seemed a tad overcooked. Rather than liquefying into little pools of creamy cheese, it was a bit browned and somewhat rubbery. (This was no more than a few minutes after I picked up the pizza, so I don't think it was simply a matter of the cheese having cooled.)
The basil here was applied with whole leaves rather than shredded, which was pleasing to the eye, although it meant getting a real mouthful of basil flavor on some bites and little or none on others. That was OK with me, though - it's nice to get some variation as you work your way through a pizza.
According to the menu, the margherita toppings include garlic, but I really didn't notice any here, either visually or on my palate. The pizza appeared to have been lightly dusted with parmesan, although I didn't pick up much of its flavor.
Lucca offers ten different pizzas, which generally are more high-end than you'll see at your average pizzeria, without venturing into the bizarre category. For example, the funghi pizza is topped with garlic, roasted red peppers, spinach, prosciutto, white and portobello mushrooms, truffle oil and Italian cheeses. That sounds awfully busy for any pizza, much less one with a very thin crust, but if you're more of a minimalist, you can design your own pizza, choosing from among four sauces, eight cheeses, eight meats, and fourteen vegetable toppings. They also serve salads, soup, wood-fired chicken wings (which can be ordered with one of six sauces), panini sandwiches, and the intriguing-sounding wood-fired pork shanks, "seasoned Sicilian style." Oh, and they have cannolis, too. There are some tables, but the dining space is limited.
I liked this pizza, but to me, it didn't live up to its full potential. One problem that I sometimes have with wood-fired pizza is that the crust can be too crackerlike, all crunch and no chewiness. My ideal pizza crust has a contrast of crisp, crunchy exterior and chewy, doughy interior. I know a fast-baking, thin crust is not going to have a lot on the inside, but there ought to be something there besides just that crackly exterior; otherwise, it's just an empty shell.
This pizza came pretty close to that line. That may be how some people like it, but I want a little more chew in my crust. And as crisp as this was, I'd like a smidgen more charring as well. It's all too easy for a wood-fired pizzeria to take things to extremes and turn out what amounts to a burnt crust, but this was really rather pale. So I'd like a bit thicker crust, baked, perhaps, at a somewhat higher temperature for a little shorter period of time.
But that's just my personal preference, and I can't say that this pizza was poorly made. If you like a super-thin, crackly crust, this should be exactly what you're looking for. So while I can't give Lucca a top grade, I will give it an above-average B.
Lucca Wood-Fired Pizza, 90 West Main St., Victor 924-9009
Mon. - Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Pizza Guy Note, 7/6/11:  Lucca is now under new management. The owner informs me that the pizza recipe has not changed but I have not tried it yet since the change.

Leonardo's, Victor - CLOSED

Leonardo's, a/k/a Leo's, a/k/a Uncle Leo's, is on Rt. 96 in Victor, just down the road from where 490 meets the Thruway, about a mile and a half or so west of the village. According to their website, they've been in business since 1968, an impressive 41 years, although I think there may have been some moves over that time. For one thing, the building they're in doesn't look that old, and I also found this reference to Leo's having started out as "Joe's" on Thurston road in Rochester. Hmm.
Anyway, they're in Victor now, and that's where I headed for a pepperoni slice, which came very fresh out of the oven. The relatively thin crust bore faint but unmistakable pizza screen markings underneath. It was rather pale - just very lightly browned - and despite a slight outer crispness, quite soft overall, without much "backbone."
Flavorwise, I would describe the crust as more doughy than bready. The tomatoey, somewhat tangy sauce stayed mostly in the background, and the cheese, though not applied particularly heavily, was uniformly distributed across the surface, forming a single, melted layer of stringy, chewy mozzarella. No pockets of sauce poking out here, except at the tip, where the cheese had slid off a bit.
The wide and thin slices of pepperoni were applied fairly generously, and were OK, unremarkable but not too greasy. The outer edge of the slice had a thin lip of dough with a bit of crunch and a smidgen of stray, browned shreds of cheese.
Leo's has a pretty big menu, with a long list of specialty pizzas that include a potato skin pizza and a veal pizza, neither of which I recall seeing before. There are also wings, hot and cold subs, sandwiches and wraps, plus salads and appetizers. The weekend menu expands to include fried haddock, clams, and shrimp, as well as spaghetti and ziti dinners.
Leo's also boasts that it's the "Home of the Bomber," which is described as a homemade dough turnover, filled with your choice of meat and cheese, which is then baked and stuffed with your favorite sub toppings. I'm not sure how they can stuff something that's already been filled with meat and cheese (maybe it kind of cooks down in the oven) - but it sounds like a meal and a half in itself.
Leonardo's also deserves mention as one of the few places I've seen around here that offers gluten-free pizza (and bombers, too), the other being Nick's out in Chili (which I'll be getting to soon).
Leo's has takeout and delivery service, and plenty of tables for dining in. The large dining area doesn't have much in the way of atmosphere, but they do have a decent TV (I don't recall if there was more than one), which I assume is generally tuned to sports, and they offer both draft and bottled beer, so while it's not a bar, you could catch a game here over some pizza and brews.
I can't honestly say that I was crazy about this pizza, but I can't say it was bad, either. A little too soft and "medium rare" for my taste, with the chewy, melted-not-browned cheese taking center stage alongside the thin but doughy crust. On the other hand, the overall flavors were good, and by no means would I turn my nose up at this if you put a Leo's pie in front of me. In a word - and this isn't meant as a putdown - this was average pizza for around here, so I'll give it a C.
Leonardo's Pizza, 7387 Pittsford-Victor Road (Route 96), Victor. 924-1480
Mon. - Fri. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sat. noon - 9 p.m., Sun. 4 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Posella's, Victor

This week we'll take a look at a few places in the Victor / Farmington area. A bit outside my general geographic range, but I wanted to check out Jason's in Farmington, which I'll get to later.
First up is Posella's on Rt. 96 in Victor. It's in a small plaza just east of the village. You can tell we're in an affluent suburb by the discreet appearance of the place, with just a small sign over the door. It looks more like an accountant's office than a pizzeria.
Posella's serves up a thin-to-medium slice that at first glance resembled a NYC pizza. But a peek at the underside proved otherwise. It had that certain shade of brown that comes from cooking in the presence of oil, instead of the more toasted/charred appearance of a NY pizza.
And while these slices were easily foldable, they lacked outer crispness. Except for the narrow, crunchy lip, the crust was soft throughout, a little spongy, and slightly greasy to the touch. I noticed while eating it that there was also a persistent aroma of fried dough.
The sauce, which was applied fairly thickly, had a nice balance of tomatoey and herbal flavors, and the cheese also hit the mark between melted and browned.
Posella's pizza comes with your choice of red, white, pesto or alfredo sauce (the latter two for an additional charge), and there's a fairly modest list, by current standards, of toppings. Specialty pizzas include eggplant parm, steak, and one that's simply described as "Posella's Pizza," with salami, cappicola, sausage and pepperoni. They also offer a "Sicilian" with chunky tomato, fresh basil, olive oil, "italian spice," and parmesan, but I don't know if that's on a traditionally thick Sicilian-style crust.
Other menu options include wings (with a variety of available sauces - jalapeno lime sounds interesting), "plates," calzones, hot and cold subs, wraps, grilled burgers and chicken sandwiches, appetizers, salads, and pasta dinners. There's a small kid's menu.
Posella's does deliver, and there's some seating, including a (very) small outdoor seating area. If you dine in, you can enjoy a bottle of beer with your food.
This is one of those pizzas that I could really love, but for the crust. They were nicely thin and foldable, the sauce and cheese were good, but ... that oily residue on my fingertips, that smell of fried dough, and the complete absence of exterior crispness just combined to keep this pizza from living up to its potential. I don't want to create the impression that these things were oozing with grease; they weren't. I've had far greasier pizza than this. It's just that the use of oil here prevented this pizza (which I'm guessing was cooked on a steel deck) from developing that razor-thin bottom layer of crispness that can give a pizza a nice, bready aroma and a pleasing little crunch with each bite. So while this pizza was, on the whole, not too shabby, I'm putting it at just one click above average, with a C+.
Posella's Pizzeria, Phoenix Mills Plaza, 6385 Rt. 96, Victor. 924-1560.
Mon. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.