Adrienne's Pizza Hut

A couple weeks ago, I ventured down to Wall Street to eat at Adrienne's Pizzabar. I had read about the restaurant on roadfood.com and had to try it. I love pizza, especially New York style. So I was really excited to go, plus I have never been down to Wall Street. I went on a late Sunday afternoon and was pleasantly surprised by the quiet charming area. The buildings were tall, yet still adorable and unique, and the streets were narrow, crooked and cobble stoned. I was pretty enamored.

When I arrived at Adrienne's, I was taken aback. First off there were children inside, it was bright (but not in a natural sunlight sort of way), and overall the place felt more like suburbia than the city. To be honest, I had my reservations about going to Adrienne's. After reading a variety of reviews, most of them said that the service was terrible. Yet, when Adrienne's got a good review - the pizza sounded downright delicious. I mean the New York Times said it was their "favorite place to eat pizza" and the Zagat Survey said, "best pizza in New York, hands down." I was tempted just to order carry-out and skip the sit-down part, but carry-out is never as good; the crust always gets soggy.
So we sat down and ordered. I had seen a picture of their old fashioned pizza and knew we had to get that for sure. The old fashioned pizza is what is known as the grandma style pizza, which has a thin crisp crust and is rolled out into a rectangle and sliced into squares. My friends and I got roasted peppers as a topping. When the pie came out, the cheese was still bubbling and the crust looked a rich golden brown. The red, yellow, and green peppers were cut long and were placed about two on a slice. When biting into the pizza the crust was thin and crispy - a perfect texture. The sauce was spicy and flavorful and the peppers were a nice touch to cut the heavy flavors. I felt nostalgic and comforted, and then my friend said, "this kinda tastes like Pizza Hut." I didn't want to admit it, but it did! The crust had the greasy flavor of Pizza Hut, but the cheese and peppers thankfully did not. I hate to admit it, but I like the taste of Pizza Hut's crust so overall the pizza was fine by me.
The second pizza we got was a 10 inch round pie called the Vesuviana. It was topped with anchovies, olives, capers, and spicy red peppers. The pizza's flavors were delicious. Super savory, briny, and a good amount of heat, but the crust was pathetic. It seemed practically uncooked. As soon as you grabbed the slice, it flopped and you had to be careful not to have all the toppings slide off. I was not interested in having another piece after I finished the first one.

As soon as we had swallowed our last bite, the waiter was ready with our ticket and hurried us on our way. As we got on the subway to head back uptown we discussed our lunch. Both friends gave the pizza a 6 out of 10, specifically saying they have had better pizza in New York (Gotham Pizza-which I hope to try soon). I probably would have given it a higher rating, but the Vesuviana pizza's crust was terrible and the service was (as expected) not friendly. If you are by Wall Street I wouldn't deter you, but I definitely wouldn't make a trip down there just for this pizza.