Fat Clemenza’s: Food for the Whole Mob
12273 U.S. Hwy 98, Holiday Plaza, Destin, 650-5980
Hours: Open M-F for lunch, 11am2pm, M-Sat for dinner, 5pm


By Bruce Collier August 9, 2007 Issue

With the number of Italian restaurants that open every year around here, reviewing one can be a little troublesome. Moreover, high-quality pizza is everywhere, which makes it even trickier. Is there a difference between the super-efficient national pizza chains and your local outlet? Like its soul mate, beer, pizza has more to it than its proletarian reputation would indicate. One can eat pizza all week, and get used to the same old excess, double this and that, crazy toppings and dipping sauces. Or one can do what I did. I hadn’t had a pizza since sometime last fall — not intentionally, that’s just how it happened — and broke my fast at Fat Clemenza’s.

It’s a cozy place, dim and comforting, with two dining rooms, a tiny service bar, and both tables and booths. Most tables were taken when we arrived, and business didn’t slack off. Management has decorated the walls with the usual Italian flags and espresso posters, but they also have a set of black and white photos of the “old neighborhood” variety. Mobsters, both real and fictional, stare down at diners while they eat. When you consider the number of hoods that got knocked off in restaurants, it’s fitting. If you’re feeling hunted, get a table against the wall.

The menu offers appetizers, salads, soup and specials of the day, pasta dishes, calzones, and a list of about a dozen pizzas. The appetizers — bruschetta, caprese, calamari, and antipasti — were tempting, but word of mouth led my friend and I to split a pizza as an appetizer. We chose a “diavola,” with tomato sauce, mozzarella and hot salami. Other choices were pepperoni, margherita, mushroom, prosciutto, vegetarian, sausage, and assorted named combinations of cheese, artichokes, olives, peppers, spinach, anchovies, and herbs. Instead of trying to dream up your own combination, I suggest you pick one from the list, and let the kitchen do the rest.

The pizza arrived smoking hot, and didn’t need a thing except to be consumed. The salami was very lean, crisp and salty like bacon. Hot and gooey cheese and just the right amount of tomato sauce made one slice just lead to another. We forced ourselves to stop to save room for the main course.

At our server’s suggestion, I got one of the daily specials from the chalkboard, chicken baked with spinach and prosciutto under a blanket of fontina cheese. My friend got cheese ravioli with a bolognese sauce, also a special. The regular menu lists ravioli with other sauces.

When we had finished the pizza, our server brought out the main dishes. Service throughout the evening was friendly, attentive and efficient. Wine was poured, water glasses filled, leftovers boxed, and questions answered. A manager circulated among the tables, keeping watch and helping to serve and clear. Looks simple, probably isn’t.

The chicken was worth the recommendation. A large breast was nearly buried in browned fontina, which was both chewy and toasty. The spinach and prosciutto gave a salty and slightly bitter balance to the richness of the dish. My friend’s ravioli were plump and creamy, with plenty of sauce for that extra basket of grilled bread we requested from the server.

In addition to the pizza and specials, one can get lasagna, chicken marsala and parmigiana, cannelloni, pasta alfredo and carbonara, and calzones the size of small dogs. The latter — calzones, not dogs — come stuffed with tomato, mozzarella, ham, salami, or chicken and roasted garlic. They are big enough to share.

Then there’s dessert. As I’ve written before, Italian cooks have mastered the hidden art of making desserts that look overwhelmingly rich, but satisfy without cloying. I ordered one of the specials — torrone gelato, and my friend had cannoli. Other choices that night were cheesecake, tiramisu, and spumoni.

Torrone is an old-fashioned Italian confection, a kind of nougat tasting of honey and almonds. It makes a world-class gelato, which was served like a sundae with whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce. The cannoli, thankfully not served ice cold, was creamy and crunchy, not too sweet.

Fat Clemenza’s, named for a character in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, bills itself as a “brick-oven pizzeria.” Much of what we saw served that night was pizza, both dine-in and takeout. Enjoy the pizza by all means, but there’s more to the place than that. You could eat at Fat Clemenza’s for quite a while and never have a pizza. But, that would be a shame.

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