Ogliastro

It’s difficult not comparing this place with Barboncino — they’re in close proximity in the same neighborhood and serve the same thing: brick oven pizza. Furthermore, Barboncino is the big brother of all the brick oven pizzas in the area since it was first, and arguably, the best. Yes, it’s unfair to compare them. But it’s hard not to. My apologies to Ogliastro. I hope you understand:
* Both menus are mostly just pizza with just a few high quality mouth watering appetizers.
Ogliastro has slightly more items on the menu.
* The staff at both restaurants are as friendly as can be. Love the people at both places.
* Barboncino is a slightly more minimalistic pizza. Ogliastro is slightly more busy.
* Both pizzas sure are pretty. These are pizzas you can be proud of taking to the prom.
I dunno. Although both pizzas are phenomenal, for me Barboncino just works better. I think the cheese is tastier. I like the dough a bit more. Don’t get me wrong — I am definitely a fan of Ogliastro, and I wouldn’t hesitate coming back, not for a second, but Barboncino is as good as it gets, while I’m a «fan» of Ogliastro.
What would make Ogliastro 5 stars? I’m not a chef, so I don’t know how to express «make the cheese more delicious and dough tastier» in a helpful way. Perhaps it should research putting even more tastier /​gourmet small side items, like a gourmet Italian tapas. I’ll tell you, that Carciofo is one of the best things I’ve eaten in months, and I would come back for the meatballs alone! I think this is an area where Ogliastro can really compete.
Carciofo: A+
Delicate, yet delicious. You would be doing yourself a bad disservice not trying this gourmet delicacy.
Polpette (Meatballs): A+
Somehow this isn’t on Unilocal’s menu, but it had my 1.5 year daughter asking for meatballs all day long.
Bufala: B–
Nice, but a bit too bland for me. I didn’t feel like it was savory. The flavors were a bit too weak. I think the sauce should stood out more. Same problem as the carbonara, except the carbonara was a blanket of spiciness instead of a blanket of blandness. Too homogeneous, which makes it uninteresting.
Vongole E Gamberi: B+
I didn’t care for it. It wasn’t savory: the flavors were all too muted; they blended with the crème fraiche, and the whole thing was just too homogeneous. However, my wife and step father liked it, so I’m giving it their rating, not mine. I’d give it a C-​.
Carbonara: D
I don’t mind spicy, but the whole pizza just tasted the same no matter where you ate it. Spiciness doesn’t work like that for me. Picante flavors should be used tastefully, to punctuate something interesting, not as a blanket to hang over the entire dish. The bufala has similar, except with bland flavors instead of picante flavors.
Margherita with sausage and shaved Parmesan: A–
My favorite of the bunch. It had distinct flavors which I could enjoy — definitely more sophisticated and less homogeneous than the other pizzas. I wish the Parmesan was stronger — perhaps they should offer Romano? The sausage was fantastic. Savory, soft, delicious.

I’ve eaten here Many times and this pizza restaurant is outstanding. The menu is not big but all dishes are very well made, service is great and pizza is amazing. Better than many pizzeria in Italy. The ambient is warm and cozy but not pretentious, just a cool good place.

Great kale salad, excellent tap and bottle beers. Have had all of the pizzas. Delicious. Fun place for a group, nice garden, too. Community minded, diverse customers reflecting our neighborhood!

I really liked this place and will definitely be coming back. That said, our experience with the food was a little uneven…
The space is fabulous (best outdoor garden seating around, hands down) and the service was really excellent.
As for the food, totally mixed bag. Some things were incredibly and some were not very good. And some were half of each, all in one dish. The meatballs, for instance: the meatballs themselves were tough and dry, but they were tasty and the tomato sauce is really good.
We had two salads, and both were pretty decent, but nothing great.
We had four or five pizzas (!!). The dough is GREAT. That’s for sure. The best dough around, I think. (I like it much more than Emily’s!!!) It’s perfectly salty, has great tooth, is thin enough, browned enough. Yum. And the sauce is perfect — tangy and tasty. The pizzas with mozzarella were just okay, though. In fact, the margherita was one of our least favorites. The mozzarella is the kind that doesn’t really melt. So you end up with a bunch of discs of mozzarella on the pizza (which slide right off whole) – you can see this in people’s photos posted here. I wish they would use different mozzarella – something softer, fattier maybe, that melts much better and can get a little bubbly! –or at least slice it a lot thinner and spread it out a tad. (Next time I’ll try the buffalo mozzarella instead. Most of the pizza’s are topped with for di latte, technically.) The fungi and the salsiccia (sausage) pretty good, though same issue with the cheese. Coppa was shockingly bland (coppa, artichoke and???). The artichokes seemed straight out of a jar (though I can’t imagine they were… but maybe!), totally unseasoned, too chunky, bland. A great pizza requires that each topping be tasty and well seasoned in its own right (or naturally delicious and then thinly sliced so as to be perfectly well cooked in the quick hot oven!); this was a great example of how not to do that.
The two things that were amazing: The grilled octopus and the Carbonara pizza. I will go back just for those two things! Interestingly, even though the menu says the Carbonara is topped with fior di latte (same as the others), the whole thing was creamy, maybe from generous pecorino, making it more melty and creamy. It was delicious. The egg yolk was perfect, too, and the guanciale was wonderful. Yum! I’d give the place a five based on the octopus and the carbonara pizza!

Came here one late Saturday evening after enjoying 1^st Saturday at the museum. Many of the other restaurants in the neighborhood had stopped serving dinner but Ogliastro was still going strong.
We were promptly seated though the restaurant was seemingly packed. The waitress was very kind and quickly arrived with water and menus.
If you are not into pizza, you should probably skip this place, but if you are, it’s worth a visit. They offer many varied toppings. In fact, the menu actually includes many bundled topping options. However, you can always create your own. These will arrive as pies, so if the depth of your pizza love is for individual greasy slices (one of my favorite NYC guilty pleasures) again this place won’t be for you.
If a pizza topped with prosciutto and guanciale are more your style, look no further.

Good food, bad service — so slow, not rude. But seriously, brunch shouldn’t be 2 hrs.

Apparently I am one of the last animals in Brooklyn that still eats gluten. For the rest of you, this place has damn good gluten-​free pizza. As a consumer of wheat, I have to say, it doesn’t feel like a trade-​off, it’s just good pizza. We almost always get the Spinaci pizza, and add prosciutto or some other sort of meat. The Carbonara is also great, as is the burrata appetizer.
They cocktails are really good, and they have a fantastic wine selection. If there’s anything better than drinking dry Lambrusco in the gorgeous backyard of this lovely place in the summer, don’t tell me.

Good pizza, cute place and a nice outdoor space in the back but I have to give it 1 star because they have a bad habit of allowing parents to use the back as some sort of day care/​playground/​screaming child free for all.
Not pleasant to be around as a customer, and I’m sure the neighbors don’t appreciate it either.

Excellent. I see pizzas full of clams pass by and see exotic pies on the menu and swear that, next time, they will be mine. Yet I can’t help but order the margarita and salsiccia every damn time I go in, which is at least once a week. So don’t follow my example — experiment like a drunk college freshman and report back, because I can’t break out of my middle aged rut.
But seriously, everything’s great and the service is totally friendly and attentive. Go here lots.

Wow. I came here once for drinks back in August 2015 and always wanted to come back but never got around to it. I came back last night with my girlfriend after a day at the nearby BK museum, and this place is still a great bar/​restaurant. From the ambient lighting to the cozy atmosphere to delicious pizza and charcuterie is what makes this place a must visit.
We came during happy hour and all draft beers were 4 dollars. And the selection of craft is way above par compared to most bars.
We ordered the large meat and cheese plate which came with 4 cheeses and 5 meats, homemade bread, pickled veggies, and fig jam. This was absolutely mind blowing. The pancetta was crisp, speck was smooth and tasty, spicy capocola on point, and they had your usual parmigiano romano and other italian cheeses.
We also ordered the bar special of the night which was clams and shrimps on a bed of fennel with breadcrumbs. Delicious!
I would definitely come back all the time if it were closer to me, but i will keep it in my list of places to impress with. Cheers.

— came for lunch, there was pretty much nobody here
— large and spacious, good for gatherings
— pizza was alright
— I’d come more for a hangout than for the food itself

Overall: I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the pizzas were very tasty.
The atmosphere is simple but romantic with a dimly lit mood and candles on the tables. The music ranged across various genres and at times didn’t necessarily match the mood of the place.
We ordered 5 pizzas. Most of them were very tasty. The least impressive of our choices was the sausage and olive and the best was probably the prosciutto and arugula. Thin crust that’s tasty.
The chocolate mousse was rich but the salt was a tad much for me. The tiramisu was passable for NYC standards.
I thought it was a bit expensive, but I enjoyed myself.

Solid pizza joint in Crown Heights! Perhaps not my favorite pizza in all of Brooklyn, but they have some good combinations and the crust itself is really good. We split 4 pizzas with 4 (starving) people and still had plenty of leftovers. We tried:
+ the margherita & salsiccia: nothing out of this world on these ones, but they were still good
+ rucola e prosciutto: the prosciutto melted in your mouth like butter, so this one was a good choice
+ giardino: I thought this one was going to be my favorite, and it was good, but all the vegetables were a bit watery/​under-​seasoned.
Best part about eating here though? The massive wood-​fired oven in the dining room, so you can smell all of the pizzas on their way to being devoured.

I went here early on a Saturday night and it wasn’t too crowded. We walked straight to the back where there is a gorgeous outdoor space with lights and trees that makes you feel transported.
Looking for a relatively light meal, my two friends and I ordered two pizzas and drinks. They have cocktails for $ 12 and most beers on tap range from $ 5-​$ 8. We ordered the Gorgonzola pizza ($ 15), which was beautifully topped with arugula and truffle oil. The pizza was thin-​crusted, light, and delicious. We also ordered the Angello ($ 22) which was almost like a Mediterranean wrap, topped with lamb sausage, a light yogurt sauce, pistachios, and spicy honey. All of the flavors complemented each other and it was quite wonderful. I’m a little surprised it was priced so high but it was delicious. The meal overall was impressively good. I will definitely go back.
The service was fantastic. Our server kept refilling our water and came by several times to check in with how we were doing. Great people, great food.

What a pleasant Unilocal find! My friend was in from London and she happened to arrive right around lunch time on a weekday. I found myself starving and playing unexpected host to an equally hungry traveler but all the good places in my neighborhood were yet to open. In a pinch, the Unilocal app (shameless plug but whatever) came in handy and we went one neighborhood over to try out Ogliastro.
WIN! It was great! It was quiet during lunch, there were about two or three other parties there, so my friend and I could linger over our meal and catch up. The waitress (doubling as bartender) was lovely and attentive. She also graciously allowed us to alter our pizza (I hate mushrooms, my friend loves them) without charging us for the substitution.
I love when a pizza is well advertised! In other words: when a pizza has equal parts of all toppings throughout. The Patata was just that (including the mushrooms we substituted for the pancetta). The crust was crispy and thin. I might have liked it a liiiittle bit crispier, but this is totally personal preference and I’m not enough of a pizza aficionado to dare judge this minor point. What I can judge however, is the fact that both my friend and I inhaled our slices without regard for breathing. That Patata was very very tasty!
Dessert was the surprise home run. (And on this I CAN judge from here to eternity) The chocolate mousse is marriage material. Is it legal to marry a dessert yet? It should be. It was rich and decadent without being over powering and simultaneously light and airy. That dessert alone would get me back in the door.
I’ll likely be back. Probably not soon enough, but hopefully in time to enjoy the lovely looking backyard patio too.

Service wasn’t great, had to walk all the way inside before seeing the waitress/​hostess behind the service wall, just not a friendly atmosphere. After much deliberation, we decided to order the chorizo and seafood pizza, unfortunately the waitress tells us they ran out. I think that should have been told to us while we were dissecting the menu. Anyway we went with the wild mushroom pizza, which was very lackluster. It didn’t taste wild at all, the «fresh» ingredients didn’t have much flavor.
I can say that I loved the chili oil that came on the side. You can taste the olivey goodness with a little kick, it made the pizza tolerable.
They have a really nice outdoor seating area though!

Upon entering Ogliastro, we stood awkwardly at the front for 6 or 7 minutes waiting to be acknowledged by someone. There were at least 3 employees hanging out behind the bar, 2 or 3 hovering toward the back of the restaurant, and 1 who was actually working, serving tables. Most of them made eye contact with us at some point, but not one of them even as much as said hello or asked us if we needed to be seated.
Eventually we walked to the congregation in the back and asked if we were supposed to seat ourselves. We were told no and then were escorted to a table in the back patio.
The back patio is nice. It’s large with plenty of tables and string lights for when it gets dark. If it hadn’t been completely riddled with screaming children running around, it would have actually been a pleasant atmosphere.
Our server was okay. She was timely, which I appreciated, though wasn’t particularly friendly. We ordered the salciccia pizza which has tomato, fior di latte (i.e. mozzarella), housemade sausage, and olives. I liked it. Not outstanding in any way, but pretty solid. Barboncino on Franklin is better.
The army of tykes filed out by the time it got dark, around 8pm-​ish. So if you’re coming with friends or a date, go later in the evening. And if you’re coming with kids, keep the little sh*ts in line!
If Ogliastro hires a host and gives their servers some Danny Meyer hospitality training, they’ll be great.

After our adventures at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, we wanted to grab something quick and light to eat before heading to the Brooklyn Museum. We didn’t want to stray to far from the area, so we walked up Washington ave hoping there’d be a place nearby. And by nearby, we meant a block away. We ended up walking up a few blocks. There weren’t many places to grab quick bites so we decided to not walk up any further and to just head on into Ogliastro for some pizza.
We went in and were seated immediately. There was only one other person at the bar and I guess a few patrons seated outside in the back of the restaurant. We decided to split a pie. We didn’t want to get too full because my friend wanted to take me to a hotpot place that she had been to and really enjoyed. We decided to order the Salsiccia, which was made mozzarella, homemade sausage and olives. We decided on ½ sans olives. My friend isn’t a fan of olives. The pie came out about 10 mins later, expeditiously. I really enjoyed the pizza. The flavors of the sausage and olives paired well together… To my friend: girllll, you don’t know what you’re missing.lol. Our waiter was very attentive. We wanted to come back to try their other pies.

This pizza bar was comprised of a speak-​easy type of environment that was a clear standout in an area where the Jamaican Pattie Deli and the Bodegas were not yet open at 12pm on a Sunday. After hours of walking through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this restaurant represented salvation and it absolutely delivered on its bright, shiny promise of a better tomorrow.
My compatriot & I split a Salsiccia ($ 15), typically with olives but we were able to get half of it without because my mouth is an olive-​free zone. The pizza’s sausage was homemade, the mozzarella tasted extremely fresh and the wood-​fire nature of the crust really highlighted the ingredients while the crust was thin, crunchy and light. My friend appropriately stated while we were eating, «I’m a ninja turtle, I love pizza.» I love pizza too and this was some of the best I have ever had, so we are specifically going back to that part of Brooklyn just to see what else this pizza bar has to offer.

I wish we could give half stars because this really should be a 3 ½ star restaurant. On the other hand, we had a great dinner and the staff was friendly and helpful. It is a very cozy place with a beautiful marble bar. The pizzas were great. The crust was perfectly done and there were interesting combinations. They specialize in a seafood pie that looked beautiful and delicious but the clams are in their shells. That makes it a bit difficult to eat. We had the mushroom white pie and it is good for two people plus apps. We shared the Kale and bacon salad which was huge and had a really nice dressing. We also had the fava bean, peas and mint appetizer which was a nice size and very tasty.
The drinks were inventive but a bit pricey for Brooklyn. I also ordered a glass of red wine and it was served very warm. That was a bit disappointing but on the whole a nice place.