Some places don’t even try.
Recently I’ve restarted my search for a good pizza place since my current favorite one has diminished in quality. Italian Fiesta popped up on my radar. At first glance it looks like your typical hood pizzeria except some reviewers noted it might be black owned so I decided to take a closer look.
I ordered twice from Italian Fiesta. The first time I ordered my standard test of a sausage & pepperoni pizza (if you can’t get this right… you should not be making pizzas.) I also ran the gambit, ordering a meatball sandwich & catfish dinner. The second time I ordered I kept it small due to issues with the first by only ordering 2 canned drinks & a small pizza. Each order took almost 3 HOURS for my order to be delivered & the orders still arrived screwed up. Here are my thoughts:
Overall Price - Standard prices. Scary cheap on some menu items. Extremely limited menu when ordering online.
Pepperoni & Sausage Pizza:
Presentation -
This is definitely one of the misses. Some of the slices don't even have sauce or cheese or toppings on them. The pepperoni is not even on some parts of the pizza. It's baffling how on some parts of the pizza has six pepperoni stacked on top of one another as if they did not bother separating the pepperoni from the packaging. The cheese doesn't look shredded, it looks as if they sloppily throw on whole slices of mozzarella based on the melting patterns, how oddly thick the cheese is & how it overflows over the crust. The aluminum foil is also halfway on. Terrible job. 1/5
Taste -
It definitely is not the best pizza in Chicago as some of the previous reviewers have stated. Not even top 20. The sauce is salty, the pepperoni has a strange tinge to its taste, its greasy beyond belief & the cheese is of average quality (definitely not fresh mozzarella or any italian brand I've ever tasted.) Some slices tasted like motor oil. For them to take about two hours to shove this out the door is beyond ridiculous. 2/5
Meatball Sandwich:
Presentation -
A meatball sandwich with no sauce? what planet is this restaurant from? French bread looks nice and soft. The mozzarella is nicely browned & they piled it on. I paid for sweet peppers & they just went overboard with the peppers. Less peppers more sauce. 3/5
Taste -
The meatballs are dry which is one of the reasons why people put marinara sauce on the meatball sandwich. The meat mixture isn't that good as it's not seasoned very well if at all. There's nothing like a meatball sandwich that is dry as well as not very tasty which is a shame because the bread is good & the overall combination of everything would have made a great sandwich had it had some actual sauce. 2/5
Catfish Dinner:
Presentation -
Breading is very thin & lackluster. Unexpectedly dry. 2/5
Taste -
The breading has a little spice to it which is most likely the black pepper. The fish is alright, nothing special. It's perfectly fried where the meat itself is neither fatty nor dry.
Customer Service:
My second time around it was nearly the EXACT same experience as the first. The order arrived over 2.5 hours late with no drinks & they took it upon themselves to substitute Italian Beef for the Ground beef I requested for the pizza. No call, no nothing. 1/5
Conclusion:
Overall, listen to the reviews. This place is unable to get a simple order out in under 2.5 hours. For them to have such a limited menu & offer this level of quality is unacceptable. I don't know how this place calls itself "Italian Fiesta" when they can't even get the basics of Italian food right. Both of my orders had the exact same issues down to the foil only partially covering the pizzas. I wish I would've cancelled my order when after the one hour mark. There are plenty of restaurants throughout Chicago that get 10x-20x the business this place gets & can get out orders on time, have great customer service, etc. so there is no excuse. Luckily Italian Fiesta doesn't leave that much of a hole in your wallet.
1 out of 5 stars
Italian Fiesta (Halsted)
8058 S Halsted St.
Chicago, IL 60620