Pizzeria Valdiano

I have to agree with Tasty Chomps, I thought I was in a scene from The Godfather. My friend Tommy and I stopped at Pizzeria Valdiano for a light early dinner on a recent Saturday evening. When we got there, it was not very busy, but by the time we left, there was a line out the door and we barely got up from our table before someone else claimed it. 

This particular Pizzeria Valdiano is located right next to the movie theater in Winter Park Village--an excellent location, it appears.  It's not a very large place, but as soon as we entered, we were greeted by Tony Soprano (or someone a lot like him) from behind the counter. This man was definitely the "brains" of the business, greeting everyone, taking orders, keeping track of orders, keeping the help on track, and constantly, constantly making pizza. As we sat and ate, his hands never stopped making pizza dough--without even looking. And you know what, the pizza was very good.

I had a non-traditional pizza, a Pizza Buffalo Chicken, and it was very good. The pizza was mozzarella cheese, buffalo chicken, and gorgonzola cheese. After cooking it was finished with a spicy buffalo sauce. This was a hit. And I hate to admit it, but I ate the whole thing. The crust was nice and perfectly cooked. The buffalo chicken was nice and tender with just a bit of heat. The gorgonzola added that bit of "buffalo wing flavor" that it needed, and the finish of the spicy buffalo sauce upped the spicy quotient just a tad. It was not too spicy and you could still taste all the ingredients. Yumm, a definite thumbs up.

My friend Tommy had the Pepperoni Stromboli and it too was very good. It had a nice compliment of pepperoni and Cheese inside. The marinara that went with it was very, very good. As a matter of fact, I used some of it for my pizza crusts and even took a sip or two. It had a nice tomato flavor with some oregano, onion, and garlic. Not overpowering, just perfect.

Pizzeria Valdiano has lots of great pizzas on their menu as well as other items. They sell a lot of pizza by the slice, it seems (helps to be next to a movie theater, I'm sure) as well as do take-out and, it seems, delivery as well. They were very busy cranking out pizza after pizza when we were there. I'd go back again. No wonder they keep winning the "best pizza" Foodie award.