Plan to spend a little time at Little Tony’s
It’s been well-established that Tony Gemignani can make pizza. He’s an 11-time pizza world champion whose passion for the pie is legendary in the industry, and if you’ve been to any of his pizza restaurants (which in Las Vegas started with Pizza Rock downtown), you know Gemignani and his disciples are well-practiced and extremely adept at crafting pizzas of many styles, be they thick or thin, New York or Chicago, classic American or Italian-style.
But every time I’d been to Pizza Rock or one of Gemignani’s other local restaurants, I always ate pizza, because it’s difficult to resist. So when we headed to Little Tony’s, his relatively new outpost at Palace Station, it was with a mind to branching out.
Fennel-studded Italian sausages are a favorite, so the sausage and peppers ($12) was an obvious choice. And we weren’t disappointed; the house-made sausages were strong on fennel (a good thing), and rested, along with caramelized peppers and onions, in a tomato sauce that had been gentled by cream.
White wine clams ($12) also delighted, the tiny, tender and succulent littlenecks fresh and sweet, carrying a hint of the sea and bathed in a lovely garlicky broth flavored with a little sharp note from Pecorino Romano.
And, well, we couldn’t completely resist a pizza — My Cousin Vinny, which we had in the individual size ($9; large is $17), was a New York-style pie with a crust that was crisp on the edges but still stretchy (and even foldable!). It was topped with the requisite red sauce and mozzarella as well as some chopped meatballs with plenty of meaty flavor, plus peppadew peppers, garlic and Pecorino Romano, each of which added a flavor spark of a different kind.
Service throughout was kind of strange. Our server was fine, but things came from the kitchen at an inordinately slow pace, which was even more remarkable in that the restaurant was less than half-full. It became a little stranger when, after our server had delivered empty bowls for the deposit of those long-in-coming clam shells, a managerial type wandered by, touched the bowls and said, “Are you hanging on to these?” Well, actually, we hadn’t used them yet, but if you could speed up the kitchen a bit, maybe we’d get to.
As for the atmosphere, that was great, with an Old World-y richness.
At any rate, yes, Tony Gemignani sure can make pizza. But his other Italian specialties, showcased at Little Tony’s, are world-class as well.
Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. E-mail Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at reviewjournal.com and bestoflasvegas.com, and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.