Last night we ordered in, and we ordered local. We ordered take out from Giovanis Pizzeria & Cafe. They have been around for a while in Topeka, but recently moved to a space on Kansas Ave, by Kay's Cakes.
I was glad we ordered take-out, the restaurant is in its low-budget early stages. It feels like you are walking into someone's house, possibly someone's kitchen. Now, thats not necessarily a bad thing, it just lacked the coziness of a restaurant -- even a home style restaurant. They were advertising for a local artist to decorate there walls, and I'd like to see them upgrade there work station up from card table to a real prep table. I would hope that as their popularity grows they will begin investing back into the restaurant. You can see there kitchen without any problems, and they did keep it clean. However, if your not one for feeling like your walking into someone's home, then have it delivered.
As for the pizza, it was good. I had hoped after seeing the inside that it would be, I wanted to support this restaurant in the future and see them grow. We ordered the large pepperoni pizza and garlic knots. The garlic knots were like a garlic bread knot rolls that sat in garlic olive oil and topped with kraft-style parmesan cheese (you know the kind that comes out of a green can). They weren't swimming in garlic flavor and the olive oil was on the bottom of the pan so you could tap some of it off, the bread wasn't soggy from the oil either, it was still crusty, like a soft pretzel. I think these would also taste good in rolled in butter and topped with cinnamon sugar, mmm. The pizza dough was kind of a hand tossed size, they only have the one thickness because they really believe in serving an authentic New York Style Pizza. I haven't been to New York, so I have no idea if its authentic or not, but it did look like TV Style New York Pizza. The sauce tasted like tomatoes, and didn't taste artificial. The cheese was good, we would have ordered bacon cheese burger, but they didn't have cheddar cheese on the menu, only American, Mozzarella, Ricotta, Parmesan. However, it was cheesy and when I am eating pizza thats really all that matters. The pepperoni was nice big slices, it wasn't as spicy as I had hoped for, but it was crispy.
As you can see they cut it every which was from Sunday, but since we were at home we just used our pizza cutter and cut things down to our comfortable size.
So, at least give them a try. They do have a unique flavor, not like the chain restaurants, and it does smell like pizza place when you walk in. Unlike one of our other local pizza places.
