Farewell, My Fair South (Pizza)!

The first time I told someone in California that I am from "down south," they thought I was referring to southern California. Let it be known, I am from the southeastern part of the United States. Namely, I have lived in Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi. (Whether Florida is "the south" is arguable, but I'm going with it for the sake of the region I'm in currently.) Although I've traveled in many of the upper 48 as well as Hawaii and abroad, I have really only ever really known heat, humidity and the two seasons of the south. Needless to say, coming to California has been more of a climate shock than a culture shock.

Maybe I'm missing the south already, just a little bit? Maybe I didn't say my goodbyes thoroughly enough to the hot, damp air and southern hospitality I'm so used to? We'll see how I feel about the air come summertime, but for now, I'd like to pay a tribute to one last pizza; the last pizza I ate in the south before my departure, and a truly remarkable one at that.

Ladies and boys, I present to you, Antico Pizza.

Thought by some as one of "those" places that you have to eat at while in Atlanta, I'll admit, they serve up a great za worth trying.

Located on Hemphill near downtown, also known as one of the shadier areas of the city, and boasting a menu that at least half of which is written in Italian, be prepared for a cultural experience upon entering the vicinity of Antico.

Having never been there before, my husband and some friends and I took the advice of the employee working the cash register when it came to ordering some za. She seemed more fluent in Italian than English herself, so I'm not really sure what we ended up ordering. But I can say this - it smelled divine and tasted amazing.

I'm pretty positive that the pizza in the foreground of the above photo is the Margherita, and there's a good chance that the one in back is the San Gennaro. Both were excellent. I kept eating a slice from one then a slice from the other until I was just so stuffed that no more would fit into my pizza-loving belly.

You can tell by eating this za that the ingredients are truly remarkable. They are a far cry from your standard pizza place's cheese and crust. Just a simple bit of mozzarella is all that's needed to top a pizza and Antico really hit the nail on the head with that one. Not to mention the crust! Oh what mastery they've achieved in crust making. It's crispy but not cracker like. It's chewy but not doughy. It is baked to perfection and topped with ingredients that compliment it perfectly without overpowering it. If I could be a fly on the wall to observe the craft of dough making and crust baking, I would probably get swatted down and murdered, because that's what you do to flies. But I would like to know what foreign secrets are imposed on this dough!

Let's just say, the pizza bar has really been raised for me. Although I am 1/8 Italian, I don't expect that I can pull off an Antico-level pizza. However, I will certainly try to acquire fancier (yet budget-friendly) ingredients for pizzas that I make in the future (yep, I'm still not a millionaire). At the very least, I'm going to go for better mozzarella and fresher spices. And who knows…in two to five years I might even be making the sauce from scratch!

Oh what a joy. I want to get started already!