DeSano

 DeSano Pizza Bakery

115 16th Ave S

Nashville TN

953-1168

The floor

We watch the old Castle venue stop being the Castle and it has been transformed into DeSano Pizza Bakery.  Reviews on Yelp and Urbanspoon are great.  All the the reviews say this is Italian style pizza, not NY style pizza, and the pizzas are really good! 

The pizza

We went back night after night getting calzones and pizzas because we are in the camp with the other 95% of the people reviewing this place, the pizzas and calzones are really good!  The gig is, you order at the counter, and they you seat yourself with your ticket number.  Then one of the pizza guys comes out with a huge tray with your order on it.  You share the tray as your plate.  Off to the side of the dining room is a condiment bar with olive oil, vinegar, freshly grated parm, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, crushed garlic, and little red hot peppers packed in oil.  So if you wanted to, you can make a little cup of dipping sauce for that crust, or just add some condiments to you your pizza or calzone.

The calzone

I believe that you cannot "make your own" pizza, and I can see why they are not allowing that at this time.  The operation is really efficient and changing the efficiency, would really mess up the works.  The operation is 1. you order at the counter.  2.  the order gets sent to the pizza maker.  3.  The pizza maker makes the pizza to spec.  4.  The oven guy takes the pizza and puts in the oven and tends to it, about 5 min or so.  5.  The slicing guy takes the pizza, puts it on a giant tray and slices it into slices and finishes the pizza with a little cheese, basil etc.  6.  The runner takes the giant tray to the table.  Every person in the operation does the exact correct activity for the pizza or calzone ordered.  There are specs, they are followed to  make the perfect pizza or calzone.

Pizza in the making

I normally don't eat the crust of my pizza because I just don't think it is worth it.  I ate every bite of the calzones and pizzas we have gotten here.  I love the condiment bar because I can make my own dipping sauce just the way I want it, and dip that crust in it and enjoy every last morsel.    The pizza topping quality is very good too.  The cheese, the pepperoni, the ham etc all add to the pizza to make it better.  I have been to pizza joints before with cheap yucko toppings that just ruin the pizza.  This is not the case here, the toppings are good.

Condiments

So here are a few things to know.  The pizzas are about $22, and the calzones are about $13.  The pizzas are plenty of food for 3 people.  The calzones are plenty of food for 2 people.  The size of the pizzas and calzones are meant to share.  I am sure there are people who can eat the whole thing, but that would be a lot of food for one meal.  DeSano did not have salads until the 3rd week in October, and now there is a section in the cold case with premade salads.  When I was looking at reviews of DeSano, there was only one review that complained that there were no salads, and people would not go back to DaSano for lack of salads and they are going to get NY style pizza at NY Pie and salad.  You know, I really like NY Pie too, but I don't go their for salads.  And, the big joke at many real Manhattan pizza by the slice places is that they don't care about salads, and many places don't serve salads either.  And the ones that do, the salads end up being warm and wilty, and rather pointless to get salad when ordering pizza.