Forno Rosso Pizzeria and Its Half-Pizza-Half-Calzone

I’m writing pizzeria reviews as Examiner.com’s Manhattan Pizza Examiner. I know it shows that I have the palate of a 5-year-old, but pizza’s easily my favourite food, so you can count on me for plenty of fangirling over crust and sauce in these articles.

I had to order the Forno Rosso, figuring they wouldn’t name it after the restaurant itself if they kind of didn’t want anyone ordering it, and also figuring that the best situation one could ever encounter in a pizzeria is a half-pizza/half-calzone on the menu. The Forno Rosso is part classic calzone (house-made tomato sauce, imported smoked mozzarella, ricotta, imported soppressata, EVOO), part Primavera pizza (house-made mozzarella, imported Gorgonzola, mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli rabe, EVOO). And I don’t mean that you get one thing on one side of the plate and one thing on the other side. They’re fused seamlessly, like beautiful meaty conjoined twins. The acidic tomatoes meet the bitter greens, the sweet sauce mingles with the sour Gorgonzola, and everything is made cohesive by the crispy-chewy crust. I loved the salty slivers of cheese that added a savory element and a different texture on the pizza side and then the creamy, oozing cheese on the calzone side. It was basically all of the things different people could want from a pizzeria in one dish, making it the perfect thing for people with different tastes to share. (Read the complete review here!)