Luigi’s Pizzeria, “Home of the Italian Hotdog”, currently runs two locations situated in both Midtown and in the heart of Bellaire. The two restaurant owners, Luisa and Bruce Ward, have been running the New York style pizzeria since 2008, baking fresh pizzas in house and making all their pastas and breads from scratch.

When first walking into the tiny, brick shop, the smell of fresh baked pizza and melted cheese circulated the air. Soft music played in the background and the murmur of a few customers, mostly younger people picking up pizza for delivery, projected across the store. From behind the cashier counter, a “pizzaiolo” could be seen flipping the dough in his hands and sticking the newly created pizza into the ginormous, stone oven. The menu is decorated with all sorts of dishes, from chicken parmesan to margarita pizza to chicken-cheese calzones. While ordering, a huge display case of 20 or so gelato flavors can be located right next to the cashier, with the flavors of Italian ice cream changing every few weeks or so.

At Luigi’s, I ordered some of the most popular dishes told by the cashier: one slice of cheese pizza, a plate of fettucine alfredo, breadsticks, and a side salad. All the food came out within 10 minutes of me ordering and everything was still hot. The cheese pizza was very large, yet it was kind of greasy. All the cheese held together, and the pizza was very flavorful. The fettucine alfredo was not that flavorful, and the pasta was slightly mushy. The sauce on the pasta was not too creamy, which took away the precise flavor of the fettucine. The side salad was very fresh and had a wide variety of vegetables. The breadsticks were also flavorful, with the salt not being too excessive and the olive oil dressing on the bread not too overwhelming.

The cashier working at Luigi’s, whose name is left anonymous for personal reasons, recalled her favorite things about working at the pizzeria.

“The environment of this pizzeria is always full of life,” she said. “In the past 4 years I’ve been working here, I still love coming to work here every day and just talking to our customers. They always tell me how much they enjoy the food, and it just makes me really happy every day.”

Overall, Luigi’s environment and food are quite decent. Although most of the food I ordered did not taste like what I expected, since the restaurant claimed to serve traditional Italian food, the food always remained appealing to so many of the pizzeria’s frequent customers. The way the restaurant functioned and the graciousness of the staff who worked there helped make this mom-and-pop restaurant worth trying.