Pizzaria Neo

I guess there is on in St. Charles too, but I went to the one in Naperville on Chicago Ave.

Started off with a house Chianti, which was very drinkable and then ordered some antipasti which gave us a selection to choose from various cured meats/cheeses and vegatables and came with some italian bread. It was tasty, but I wanted to get to the real reason we came, neapolitan pizza.

My wife and her friend split a white pizza which had fresh mozzerella, garlic and oregeno. They inhaled it and I did not get a taste.

I had the special, which was a red pizza with fresh mozzerella, meatballs and hot giardinaria. It was very delicious and spicey. The dough was flavorable and it seems they know how to use the wonderful wood fired oven which seemed to be fired up at 700 degrees or so, taking a couple minutes from oven to table.

There are two nice bar areas, one right in front of the oven and plenty of other seating as well. Very hip, modern feel which would be a great place for a date night for western suburban folks.

47 E Chicago Ave
Naperville, IL 60540
630-922-8200

http://pizzerianeo.com/default.asp

We tried Pizzeria Neo on Friday (on one of our relatively infrequent "date nights"). As noted in the prior review, the atmosphere and decor are very trendy and modern. Though that's not really my thing, I think that a place like this is a nice addition to the downtown Naperville scene.

IMHO, the salumi bar is the highlight of this place with the pizzas coming in second. We picked the "medium" sampler, which allowed us to pick a combination of six meats/cheeses/vegetables (grilled eggplant was excellent). Along with the eggplant, we had prosciutto, two types of salami, parmigiano and aged asiago. The meats, cheeses and eggplant were nicely presented, came with bread, and were very, very good. I know that this isn't a novel concept, by any means. But, surprisingly, there aren't any other Italian restaurants in the Western burbs (that I am aware of) that focus on serving salumi in this manner. We really like the concept.

Our two pizzas were good, but not great. I prefer Neopalitan-style pizza to have a nice crisp crust. Our pizzas were somewhat soggy and the crust became droopy and was overpowered by tomato sauce (on the Margherita). Perhaps we caught them on a bad night.

The wine list was a little on the pricey side, but the house Chianti was reasonably priced and not bad.

I really do like this place, and would be willing to give their pizzas another try. In any case, we definitely will be back to the bar for the salumi.