New pizza joint good for all but the pizza

Service: mostly friendly and well-versed on menu

Best dishes: sausage and peppers, fried cheese ravioli

Vegetarian selections: pizzas, appetizers, pastas

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Price range: $$-$$$

Credit cards: All major credit cards

Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sundays

Children: yes

Parking: street parking or shared lot across the street

Reservations: no

Wheelchair access: yes

Smoking: no

Noise level: moderate

Patio: yes

Takeout: yes

Address, phone: 1409 N. Highland Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-809-2979.

Website: www.timonespizzaatlanta.com

Fried chicken, burgers and pizza — combustible seeds that blaze into some of the most spirited debates in food. Everyone is an expert. Chances are, you aren’t doing it right.

That might make some restaurateurs reluctant to open a fried chicken/burger/pizza shack. Not chef Ron Eyester, owner of the new Timone’s pizza in Morningside. He forged ahead with his third restaurant in the area even though he admitted it has been “a challenging project.”

Eyester established himself in the Morningside neighborhood when he bought Food 101 and rebranded it as Rosebud in 2008. Three years later, he opened the Family Dog pub in the same area.

Timone’s, named after Eyester’s mother, pays homage to the chef’s New York roots. At Rosebud, he embraces all things Southern. Timone’s now affords Eyester the opportunity to dabble in foods reminiscent of his upbringing.

Eyester calls his new pizza parlor “New York inspired,” but is careful to avoid calling it “authentic.” Indeed, you’ll find oversized maps of the city lacquered on the tabletops, themed posters and weathered pressed-tin tiles lining the comfortable space. What you won’t find at Timone’s is a perfected pie, authentic or otherwise.

With a little effort, you’ll figure out how to make this your local hangout. Timone’s can be your spot for what my friend calls “marinara Italian,” a restaurant serving many comforting, traditional red-sauce-based dishes.

Carb it up with a steamy bowl of locally made Uncle Dom’s spaghetti ($16.75) with those same juicy meatballs from the pizza. If you’re all in for a calorie bomb, indulge in the fried cheese ravioli ($15). These greasy little glorified mozzarella sticks come shaped as handpies in a cloud of vodka sauce kissed with the spice of cherry peppers.

Use Timone’s to meet the neighbors while lingering over house-made Italian sodas ($3.50) or a carafe of malbec ($34) from the tap. Share a round of appetizers like the chickpea salad ($7), a healthy serving of the Mediterranean-style dish loaded with feta crumbles, chopped shallots and sliced banana peppers.

Add a couple of orders of the traditional rice balls ($8.50), a firm mixture of Carolina Gold rice, sweet green peas, bits of Berkshire prosciutto and heaps of licorice-y basil encased in a crunchy, dark golden-brown bread coating.

Or, get your Italian comfort food fix with a perfectly good chicken parmigiana sandwich ($9.50), one where the coating on the Springer Mountain chicken cutlet gets nice and smudgy as it melds with the melty homemade mozzarella and tangy red sauce.

Try the sausage and peppers ($8), a dish that will become your go-to selection with its long slices of seared sweet Italian sausage layered with soft braised peppers in a spicy San Marzano tomato sauce. Stay here rather than venturing into the land of the pizza pie.

Pizza serves as this restaurant’s calling card, but whatever your preferred style, this one will likely rouse your ire. It’s still a work in progress and won’t yet be the place to savor the therapeutic goodness of a well-made slice. Despite Eyester’s best efforts, this dense and slightly gummy crust isn’t the one I miss from my four-year Southern hiatus in New York.

Timone’s proves there’s an art to pizza making. Eyester confronted this cooking conundrum scientifically by attempting to control as many variables as possible. He’s had Culligan manipulate the pH of the restaurant’s water to mimic that of New York City’s tap water. The dough is made at the same time each day by the same cook. And the restaurant’s on its third dough recipe in just as many months.

If you can’t crank out a crust, kill ‘em with toppings. Or in this case, it’s overkill with toppings. Signature pizzas dressed with ingredients like garlic, kale and artichokes ($17) activate those salivary glands, but the pie, sludgy with thick bechamel, begs for a healthy dose of acid and salt for balance.

Stick with one of the simpler red-sauce pizzas like the meatball ($20) made with Riverview Farms ground beef and pork. Bright pickled banana peppers add a nice little bite and buoy the sliced meat.

But what if you don’t want the soft white beans or sweet balsamic on the sausage pie laced with shallots and sun-dried tomatoes ($19)? What if you just aren’t crazy about the “creative” combinations? Well, tread lightly.

Eyester, known for his “angry chef” Twitter persona, denies claims that he bars substitutions. Yet, when I asked our waitress about the policy, she cast furtive glances to each side before leaning in to whisper, “Let’s figure out how to ask for it without getting yelled at.”

To address grumblings from the neighborhood, Eyester added cheese ($15) and pepperoni ($18) pizzas and even a you-build-it option to the menu. Problem solved.

You have to admire Eyester’s gumption to enter into the pizza-making fray. Admire it and then appreciate Timone’s for providing a local hangout and marinara Italian.