Sal's Reincarnated as Midtown Pizza

The news has been a roller-coaster ride recently which has caused a disturbance in the usual LITG posting schedules. Royal weddings, tornadoes and real commando raids have (in some cases) rightfully taken the national interest above mundane lunch ramblings in the Gump. I exclude the royal wedding from that list because, actually, I was more interested in where the Gump Guinea Pigs might be deployed for pizza than I was with "Kate's Poise." Of course our hearts go out to the victims of the recent storms and we urge you to support relief efforts with your time and money. However, we did have a new restaurant open up in the Gump and we have to let you know about the Midtown Pizza Kitchen.

Hopefully, the escapades of our little furry and expendable commandos (the Gump Guinea Pigs) will continue to entertain. We know their role is not even comparable to the importance of double-tapping Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, but they do serve a role-if not nearly as dangerous or as important-in making sure we in the Gump are not exposed to poor lunch spots. At least we have the comfort--small that it might be--of knowing that if the GGPs have been in and made it out alive, it is probably a safe bet for lunch.

It was in this spirit that last week (before the tornadoes and death of OBL) that the commander of GGP Commandos ordered the group to lunch at what is now called Midtown Pizza Kitchen on Zelda Road a/k/a the "Z-Red" District. We had previously reviewed the Sal's Pizza that had occupied that space before the sad demise of the Nancy Paterson food dynasty. The reviewers had given the place glowing marks.

But when new management opens a similar themed restaurant in the same space, in the interest of gastronomic safety, it requires a squeak peek job for the Pigs. What we found was that Donovan--the on-site manager of Sal's--is still there and, we were told, chef Christophe Zagagliais is back also. So you can expect similar northern Italian pizza and pasta selections that you saw at Sal's but with some new items and names. We hit the "Zelda" because of the delicious Italian fennel sausage and found it to be very different from the type of southern Italian pizza you will get from pizza delivery joints.

The team happily devours a Zelda Road on Zelda Road.

As with many new openings, the places are often slammed and the service staff overwhelmed (especially on weekends). So although the food was good and reasonably priced (especially if you stick with the cheese pizzas), the service could be improved and we have no doubt Donovan will have the staff ship shape in a lot less time than it took to plan the Royal Wedding.

After our foray into Z-Red, the debriefing was pleasant and the opinions uniform that Midtown Pizza Kitchen was going to be a hit. One of the team even bought a souvenir.


Some of the GGPs are smarter than others....