Sylvia’s Brick Oven

While in town for a wedding, we came across this place on Unilocal and thought we would try it. So glad we did. I don’t rave about pizza but this transcends pizza and is a true dinning experience. If I ever find myself back in Lafayette, IN I will be back.

I still love the food, but the service has declined. We have encountered a very snotty attitude from servers and people on the phone, our past few encounters. There is no need for this.

Yay! Sylvia’s brought back «Build Your Own Pasta» after a long hiatus. So many great options! My favorite is penne pasta with basil pesto and their fresh fennel sausage, with peas, spinach and wood-​fired mushrooms. Oh my! What a fabulous dish! Thanks, Sylvia’s! Can’t wait to come back again and again!
PS – the service and prices are great, too!

We love this place. Located in downtown, it has a pretty cool vibe. The owner is nice and will often stop by the table to see how you are doing and chat for a few minutes.
Sometimes the front host can come off aloof, but the wait staff are normally polite and attentive. I have been there, though, when one of the people we were sitting with waiter FOREVER for her water refill. Now that I think about it, I don’t know if she ever got it?
The food is great! My absolute favorite pizza is the Fungi. You have to like the taste and texture of mushrooms to appreciate this pizza, but I think it is to die for. The brick oven truly does make a difference in the quality of pizza you are get. We have also tried the Peppadew & Bacon Formaggio – both good choices as well. They also have great starters in the Garlic Knots & Meatballs. Their desserts seem to rotate, but we have had good luck with those as well. It is pretty inexpensive for the amount of food you get & they do have take home bags!

Garlic knots are good but the suace that you can order with them are what takes them from ordinary to special — I recommend the $ 1 add on
We had four different pizzas, the meatball seemed to be the favorite.
Mozzarella that they make in house is outstanding, really makes the pizza.
Service was helpful, refilled drinks and sought ways to ensure we enjoyed our meal.
We will return and I have already recommended it to others.
Reservations for large parties only

Such a casual, nice atmosphere. Loved the large windows letting in natural light. The servers were attentive and polite. I thought it was kinda weird that they took the order on their phone and typed in your credit card number. Anyways, the food was GREAT! The pasta tasted handmade and fresh. Not starchy like the dried pasta you buy at the supermarket. The chicken breast was kinda dry though. Kinda pricy at $ 14 per plate, but the serving size was pretty big. Garlic knots were to die for. Would definitely recommend for a casual meal out!

Fresh ingredients, a full menu of Italian food, cozy décor, and a friendly wait staff help make this a must try. With so many options to choose from and daily specials, the hardest part is coming to a decision on what to choose. I love the build your own pasta and pizza selections and their Italian Chop Salad is filled with fresh greens, house-​made mozzarella, salami, pepperoni and olives. Whatever you choose, don’t forget to start off they meal with their AMAZING garlic knots. There is a reason you see these mentioned in several reviews, they live up to the hype.

3.5
I haven’t tried the pizzas, but the pastas are pretty good. The Sylvia’s fettucine ($ 14), which is sauteed chicken, onions, tomatoes, peas and artichokes in a cream sauce, is very tasty. On Monday they have a special of chicken meatballs, which is very exciting for me, since I love this dish and not many restaurants offer 100% poultry, pork-​free meatballs. Unfortunately the $ 7 special is only for meatballs and sauce. If you want it over pasta you have to pay $ 15, which isn’t that bad a price but when you think of it as paying $ 8 for pasta, it’s kind of annoying. The meatballs were pretty good, if a touch on the garlicky side, and I’ll certainly return for this dish. As for the much-​talked about garlic knots: on our first visit they were absolutely excellent, but on our second visit they were noticeably stale. I would have given this place 4 stars based on our first visit, but only 3 based on our second visit.

I have eaten lots of pizza. When we travel we try to find the best in town and this is by far the best I have had in Lafayette. The crust was perfect. I had the Chicken Alfredo and it was perfect. Portion sizes were large enough to take for lunch the next day. It was a little tight and luckily I had a stroller because they do not have high chairs.

Delicious!
We were greeted and seated immediately. Our server was very knowledgeable and friendly. One of the best we have encountered in a long time.
The environment was a bit on the loud side. It was a weekend evening though, and they were really busy.
Our meatball & bacon pizza was awesome. The meatballs had great flavor and were homemade. The sauce had a great taste. The size of the pizza was perfect for two people to share. It was so good that there were no leftovers. We would gladly return.

Good food, priced on the higher end, but still good. Pizza is good, the kids like watching the guys work the dough and cook it in the brick oven.

Over rated. No one greeted us as we entered. That was the beginning of their very poor service. We asked what was good, as it was our first time, and she said «The pizza is what we’re known for.» Then, she walked away. The wine was rancid and I had to ask for another glass. That should have been when we left. Only really bad restaurants save their wine until it goes bad. The food was not good, and the whole evening was a waste.
No one was at the door when we left either.
I will never go back. You shouldn’t either.

This is our first time here, and we are very pleased. We ordered garlic knots, a side salad, and «the veganista» specialty pizza. All of our food was very good. It is nice for us to have another option when we want to go out. The atmosphere is very nice as well. We are glad we decided to try this place.

This was my second time to Sylvia’s in the last month. Once again the food was great. This is a definite place that I would keep going back and I always recommend it to people when they are looking for somewhere new to go. Just wish they would get the parking lot finished

The homemade mushroom soup here blew me away. It was outstanding… don’t miss it if it’s available. We also ordered the prosciutto and melon appetizer which would be better if they selected a sweet, ripe melon to wrap that lovely ham around. The garlic knots are doughy treats here, but they were way too carbohydrate dense for me, so I skipped them. Both the antipasto platter, which offered a nice assortment of meats and the individual pizzas our group ordered arrived promptly and were served with a smile.
The lemon cake dessert was a big hit at our table. Everyone liked the wine as well. The interior of this restaurant is quite pleasant with red checkered table cloths and big windows, the perfect place for a special occasion date. Seated in the dining room you can get a clear view of the brick oven behind a large pane of glass.
A few negatives: I objected to the excessive amount of cheese on my custom individual pizza and wasn’t a fan of what I thought was a rather bland tomato sauce base. Every ingredient however, was fresh. Pass on the garden salad as a side dish – it’s mostly iceberg lettuce, a relatively flavorless salad green even with Italian dressing.

My party of 5 came here today following the Purdue football game. For a post-​game day this place was not too crowded; we were second in line and didn’t wait too long.
I like the kind of thin-​crust pizza they serve here, and they have some unique creations. The smoked salmon was a bit too salty but not bad. The veganista was great. The antipasto platter was generally pretty good, but the olives were way too salty, to the point of being borderline inedible (I know that’s how olives are supposed to be, but there has to be a reasonable limit).
My biggest gripe with this place was the host (elderly guy with glasses). He was grumpy, impatient, and generally seemed like he didn’t want us to be there. When our table was ready he told us, in an almost lecturing tone, that he already called us earlier (none of the 5 of us heard). They were short staffed for some reason, which seems rather unusual for a Saturday evening, but our server Jerry did a good job and was pleasant.
I’ll probably eventually give them another try, but until I get confirmation that today was just an anomaly, they get 3 stars.
As of September 2015 there’s construction on Columbia right in front, so nearby parking and the restaurant itself may be a bit hard to find. During busy hours you might have to look for street parking up to a couple blocks away.

I was meeting a party of six for a dinner on a Friday night. You can only make reservations if you have a party of eight or more. My husband and I arrived about 15 minutes before the rest of the group was expected to arrive. I told the host that there were going to be six of us, but he told us he would not seat us until our entire table was there. He said that even though there was space to seat us now that if enough other parties came before the rest of ours that we may have to wait. When the rest of the party arrived, the host said he had to figure out where he was going to put us. I found this seating system or be irritating and rude. I understand the business model of wanting people to get in and out as quickly as possible, but I am not a fan of how the seating process works.
On to the meal… the food was really good, especially the garlic knots & meatballs. I ordered a calzone for my meal. I was surprised when it was not served with marinara for dipping. When I ordered the marinara, it was a game changer – yummy!
My suggestion for dessert is either order the lemon cake or skip it all together. We also ordered the tiramisu and s’mores calzone, but we’re disappointed.
Overall, I would go to Sylvia’s again, I would just hope for better customer service and skip the dessert!

Very decent fare in the city of Lafayette.
The dining space is much larger than I expected. I like the use of the old building downtown. There’s a nice bar near the front door, where we chose to dine.
You know what rhymes with dine? WINE! They have wine, but not Chardonnay. Not that night. I was bummed. Would have gone well with my custom made pasta dish.
They were not out of beer or pinot grigio. Phew!
The menu has pastas, sandwiches, pizza, soups and salads. There’s something for the non-​dairy and non-​meat eaters. Thank goodness for variety! I was really worried I would be stuck eating a giant ball of cheese like at most Italian places.
I decided on a make-​you-​own pasta dish. You chose the pasta, meat, sauce and three toppings. My creation was a pesto fettucini with artichokes, mushrooms and garlic. It was yummmmmy! It came with what I will call a knot made in heaven… a garlic knot or ‘roll’ of butter, garlic-​y goodness that you will devour and then lick your fingers.
Because the four of us are all so creative, the entire table crafted their own pastas. Everyone chose something very different. There were raves about the house made sausage for sure. Everyone left full and happy.
Sylvia’s may have bumped South Street Smoke House out of my spot for ‘go-​to’ restaurant in Lafayette!
(It was the heavenly knots that did it! So good!)

Best quality pizza in Lafayette area. It might actually be the only brick oven pizza in the area. We’ve tried many of their different pizzas, but we especially have loved Son of Jimmy (special), Jimmy’s favorite (pesto and caramelized onions) and Bianco Formaggio (five cheese).
They use fresh ingredients and grow many of their own vegetables and herbs. AND the prices are not bad at all.
Somehow though the restaurant partially missed the mark with the décor. Despite good food and nice servers, the dining area feels a tad uninviting, kind of like a workplace cafeteria which turned me off from going as much as I would have otherwise (combined with my unreasonable love for hotbox). I must say though, when people from out of town have wanted to go out for pizza, this is where I’ve taken them. Hey, great pizza in a megh dining room is better than megh pizza in a great dining room.
Sylvias is more like a 4.5, but the high quality of their pizzas, friendly servers and bartenders (and pretty great owners too!) make me round up to 5.

Popped in here for dinner while traveling with a group of friends. We wanted something local and away from the college students. This came up as a Unilocal recommendation, and it wasn’t wrong. So, thanks Unilocalers!
We started with the garlic knots, a midwestern favorite. They could have used a little more time soaking in the garlic butter to give them that soft burst of garlic flavor that everyone loves, but they were still tasty.
I ordered a margherita pizza and it was perfect. The basil was fresh, the tomatoes were flavorful, and there was just the right balance of mozzarella.
Service was fantastic. Servers take your order and send it to the kitchen on an iPod Touch. They also take payment that way, which meant splitting the check at the end super easy.
Great little place — definitely worth stopping in!