Explore Italian cuisine at 3 new restaurants on the edges of metro Atlanta
It’s been a good summer for anyone looking for a new Italian restaurant in metro Atlanta.
For this far-flung roundup review, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution visited three Italian restaurants that opened in June and July to the north, south and east of the city.
First came Bicicletta in Peachtree City, a casual pizza and pasta restaurant opened in late June by the team behind Fayetteville’s Enzo Steakhouse & Bar.
Just days later, a white-tablecloth spot called Fiorenza opened in Alpharetta from a first-time restaurateur. And, later in July, Besto opened in Decatur, offering takeout-friendly Italian American food from the Victory Brands team (Victory Sandwich Bar, LLoyd’s, S.O.S. Tiki Bar).
All three restaurants specialize in different aspects of Italian cuisine, from Florentine steak and beautifully charred pizzas to family-sized portions of salad and sandwiches. Visit them all and you’ll have a nice tour of metro Atlanta as well as a tasty learning experience about the range of Italian cooking.
Besto — Decatur
Opened in the former Victory Sandwich Bar space and still operated by Victory Brands, Besto is a casual Italian American restaurant in the heart of downtown Decatur. The company switched up the restaurant concept to better serve the busy, young families of Decatur, co-owner Ian Jones told the AJC.
Besto offers two different service styles. By day, it’s a counter-service restaurant focused mostly on salads and sandwiches. At night, both the menu and service expand. Pasta becomes the centerpiece of the dinner offerings and Besto becomes a full-service restaurant, though Jones emphasized that it remains very casual.
One of the biggest changes in the restaurant’s philosophy is the addition of online ordering. The goal is for Besto to become a reliable option for convenient, family-friendly meals that parents can pick up on their way home from work or soccer practice, Jones explained.
Besto serves hearty portions of familiar Italian favorites like chicken cutlets, eggplant Parmesan and a big, messy meatball sub. The salads are huge and well-composed, worthy of entree status even without the addition of a protein; chicken cutlets or salumi can be added to any salad for $6.
The cocktail menu is full of straightforward classics like a martini, Manhattan, negroni and espresso martini, but the cocktail creativity for which Victory was known shines through in a couple of drinks. There’s a Cynar fizz featuring the bitter artichoke-flavored amaro, and alcohol can be added to the extremely refreshing lemon granita.
Though Besto wants to keep things casual with a relaxed, kid-friendly atmosphere, that attitude does not equate to carelessness. The kitchen, led by chef John Campbell, puts real thought into when and how each dish will be eaten. The meatball sub, for example, is served on a nice Italian sandwich roll from TGM Bread, but the messy sandwich was practically falling apart once it arrived at my table. I asked Jones how the sandwich could possibly travel well, and he explained that the sub is assembled differently for takeout, with the sauce served on the side.
Besto is still evolving, but the thoughtful details, large portions and reasonable prices will go a long way toward ingratiating the new restaurant to the families of Decatur.
340 Church St., Decatur. 404-377-9300, bestobesto.com
Bicicletta — Peachtree City
Enzo Steakhouse & Bar has established itself as one of the top dining destinations in southern metro Atlanta, finding enough success to expand on multiple fronts. Just weeks after opening Bicicletta in Peachtree City, the restaurant group announced plans to open a second Enzo location at the Epicurean Atlanta hotel in Midtown.
Bicicletta is decidedly more casual than the grand, modern steakhouse in the Town at Trilith development. The new restaurant is found in the more subdued Kedron Village Shopping Center on the northern side of Peachtree City.
The menu focuses on pizza and handmade pasta, and a gleaming pizza oven tiled with copper coins greets customers as soon as they walk through the door. The kitchen staff makes pasta by hand in an open workspace next to the pizza oven, and there’s a pass counter where chefs put the finishing touches on each dish before they’re brought to the table. This lack of barriers between the dining room and back-of-house is the kind of thing you see more often in fine dining restaurants, and it helps elevate Bicicletta when compared to more run-of-the-mill pizzerias.
The pizzas are strikingly good, made with dough fermented for 72 hours and baked very hot to develop a charred crust and stiff bottom. Restraint is another key ingredient in Bicicletta’s pizzas — the toppings are carefully chosen, so they don’t weigh down your slice or steam the dough into a limp, gummy mess. Yet the flavors still pack a punch; the dolce diavola pizza, made with pepperoni, jalapenos, honey and whipped ricotta, was irresistible even though it was hot enough to make some of my dining companions sweat.
The Bicicletta team’s fine dining pedigree shows up in its service, too. When I thought something was off in my espresso martini, the cocktail was whisked away and replaced with a very good negroni, no questions asked. Later, the manager stopped by the table to let us know something had gone wrong with that batch of espresso; they apologized and also thanked us for bringing it to their attention, turning a potentially negative interaction into something positive and memorable.
The group behind Bicicletta might have its hands full as it builds out the new Enzo in Midtown, but their casual Italian concept was good enough to make me wonder — when can we get an in-town location of Bicicletta, too?
1263 N. Peachtree Pkwy., Peachtree City. 770-341-0023, bici-itl.com
Fiorenza — Alpharetta
First-time restaurateur Jessi Qilafi opened the Tuscan-inspired Italian restaurant Fiorenza in Alpharetta at the beginning of July, bringing a new dining option to the city outside of the busy downtown.
Qilafi has lived in Alpharetta for years but was raised in Florence, Italy, according to a news release. His dedication to traditional Italian cuisine shines through on Fiorenza’s menu, which eschews pizza in favor of a rustic flatbread called pinsa, and puts a focus on bistecca alla Fiorentina, the famous Florentine steak preparation know for being served very rare.
Fiorenza can be found in the Agincourt shopping center at the corner of Kimball Bridge and Webb Bridge roads, between Alpharetta and Johns Creek. The space is modern but warm, awash in red fabric and golden light. Tables are nicely spread out so that diners aren’t on top of each other, though the room still had plenty of energy on a Friday night in August.
The food at Fiorenza was generally well-executed and will likely feel familiar to Italian food lovers. The charcuterie board and focaccia were very straightforward, and the pinsa stracciatella e prosciutto was one of the best dishes I tried. The semi-rectangular flatbread had a pillowy, luxurious crust and was generously topped with creamy straciatella and a high-quality, sharply savory prosciutto.
The ricotta gnudi — little ricotta dumplings with spinach and sage — were clearly made by the book, but could have benefitted from an extra dash of salt or some other flavor boost. Ditto for the ravioli di pere, a dish in which the pear needed a little more enhancement to shine through.
The style of cooking at Fiorenza is likely to satisfy anyone who considers themselves a purist of Italian cuisine; my quibbles are mostly products of personal preference. The restaurant’s biggest opportunity for improvement is not in the kitchen, but in area of service.
On a busy Friday night, our server seemed experienced, but his support staff did not. A drink was forgotten, table bussers awkwardly attempted to clear plates before we were done and a manager stopped by to ask how our food was just seconds after our first appetizer hit the table. The frequent interruptions made the meal feel choppy, like the front-of-house staff was not all on the same page.
Luckily, those issues are easily solvable. As a total package, Fiorenza is an impressive achievement for a first-time restaurant owner, and it has all the ingredients to ultimately find success.
11500 Webb Bridge Way, Alpharetta. 470-359-6558, fiorenzaitalian.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s dining critics conduct reviews anonymously. Reservations are not made in their name, nor do they provide restaurants with advance notice about their visits. Roundup Reviews consist of first impressions and may not involve multiple visits, but critics always pay for their meals and never accept complimentary food or drink. AJC dining critics wait at least one month after a new restaurant has opened before visiting.