You Wanna Pizza Me? @ Pizza Cucinova, Easton

A fabulous time with fabulous pizza. Love LOVE the make your own pizza idea. Such delicious, fresh ingredients and the chef gave us lots of great advice. (Add ricotta, you won’t be disappointed. And mix the marinara and the garlic sauces.) Overall, once again a great time organized by Bryant.

This was a great event. The establishment actually brought in the higher ups, who helped out with the event serving tables and taking requests, talking, etc. Very fun time and due to Bryant I see myself spending more money at this place in the near future!

I love Monday Unilocal events, because you have something to look forward to other than your normal routine! This event at Pizza Cucinova was definitely not my typical Monday night — walk in and be greeted by Bryant and the friendly restaurant staff, grab some awesome Unilocal swag, use your drink ticket on a beer or wine on tap (wine on tap? Yes please), make some awesome new friends, get a quick run-​down from the restaurant manager and pizza demo from the CEO’s son (?!), enjoy a delicious beet salad for the first time ever, and then devour yummy pizza and cheesecake. Yep, it’s good to be Elite!

What a fun event hosted by Bryant and Pizza Cucinova.
Bryant greeted us and the elites got a sweet phone charger just in case we ever need it.
Onto the event, Don the director of operations and formerley of Wendy’s spoke to us about the concept, talk about future growth potential, I could see a Pizza Cucinova on every college campus.
The first course was a roasted beet salad with walnuts and cheese. It was very good the greens were a mixture of mixed greens and frissee.
After our first course the GM talked us through making a pizza the pizza cucinova way. It’s really incredible that they use 00 flour, normally this is a flour used to make pasta, I haven’t seen it used for pizza dough, but the next time I make mine I will add it in. After the demo we all got up and made our own. Mine was a veggie pizza with a mixture of pesto and roasted garlic sauce. It was topped off with Arugula and balsamic glaze.
The final course was a delicious cheesecake, brought on chilled plates which the people at my table raved about. One comment from a fellow Unilocaler was «How often do you see desserts brought on chilled plates, almost never. What a nice touch.»
All the staff were super friendly and answered questions, plus we got a coupon to come back which I deff will. Only if they built one closer to Delaware, I might make it a regular stop.
Thanks again for hosting us. Best of luck with your growth!
–Side note Bryant– We need more Unilocal events on Monday, it was really nice.

Fantastic time for my first Elite event!
While I wasn’t new to Pizza Cucinova after living within walking distance from the Olentangy location, it was my first time out at the Easton restaurant. After a warm welcome from Bryant and some of the corporate and professional staff members (complete with gifts and drink tickets), we learned a bit about the history of the company and the concept and a sneak peak of their plans for the future. (Hint: a lot more Cucinova!)
We learned they planned out a three-​course meal for the evening before bringing out the first course, a beet salad. It was served in large, square-​like bowls, and we weren’t sure if they were for sharing or individual portions until each person at our table received one. The dressing was light and refreshing, perfect for the sweet taste of roasted beets. Definitely a great start!
In preparation for our pizza-​making, the GM gave us a short tutorial on the options they had for sauces, cheeses and toppings. Now, I had been to Pizza Cucinova several times since the menu change and somehow never realized that extra toppings from a specialty pizza were of no extra charge! Ready to test out their array of endless toppings, I put together quite a delicious pizza with mushrooms, red onions, caramelized onions, tomatoes and peppadews (which I learned were sweet and spicy peppers, yum!) on top of a mix of pesto and garlic with shredded mozzarella. I added on some tossed arugula with a balsamic glaze and the perfect pizza was born! Well, at least my perfect vegetarian pizza. Somehow their pizzas always come out wonderfully!
With a couple of slices in the box for tomorrow and a full belly, I was delighted/​horrified to see the enormous slices of cheesecake heading toward the table. Mustering up the courage to continue, I dug in with my fork and was taken over by sweet, creamy goodness on a moist graham cracker crust. Normally I think cheesecake is overrated but their in-​house made dessert was a sure exception.
Corporate executive Don spoke highly of his staff’s emphasis on building relationships with his customers to keep them coming back. I’m usually skeptical of business-​lingo, but Pizza Cucinova is certainly a beautiful thing. And we will be coming back!
Shout out to Bryant and my tablemates for making me and my boyfriend feel so welcome at our first Elite event!

Yep, another incredible Unilocal Elite event. I’m starting to feel a little bad for non-​Yelp Elites, because these events are just so awesome. Where would we be with Bryant?
So, we got gifted some awesome phone chargers, which is just super thoughtful and cool. We sat down at a table and immediately made new friends. How cool is that! After listening to the owner, Don, speak for a few minutes, we were given an excellent beet salad to start. If you like beets, you will love this. Then, we got to make our own pizzas any way we wanted them. My thought was: let’s throw on some meat and a bunch of cheese. That can’t miss, right? Right! It was fantastic. Chicken, bacon, banana peppers, and three cheeses did the trick. Honestly, I could come back 10 more times, have a scrumptious unique pizza each time and still have ideas for more. Finally, dat cheesecake! That was the perfect end to an amazing meal! Thanks to PC and Bryant for an epic night of eating!

Oh boy… just got back from this event, and let me tell you, I’m halfway to one of the most satisfying food comas a human could possibly imagine. Everything about this event was just absolutely magical and the perfect way to end what had otherwise been a ridiculously stressful and crazy day (Bryant can attest to this part — I looked like a frazzled mess when I arrived, but left feeling much more relaxed and with a happily full belly).
After arriving, signing in, and being gifted some pretty cool Unilocal memorabilia, we got to hear a quick spiel about the history of Pizza Cucinova and how it came to be. Next came the first course, which was a large bowl of their roasted beet salad — so good and surprisingly very filling! The roasted beets blended together really well with the feta and basil, and the walnuts added a fun finishing touch.
As the salad course was finishing up, they did a sample demonstration (by the owner’s son, I believe) of how you design your pizza (later on, we all got sample this construction — super tasty!). Once that was finished, we were released to make our own creations. You could either elect to get one of the Chef’s Creations, or you could go wild and make your own. I may or may not have gone slightly crazy and gotten just about half of the available toppings, but I swear it was for a good cause — I wanted to know how these different toppings tasted so that I could refine the pizza that I would order when I come back (and yes, you can be assured that I will be coming back here!)
Cheese: GO FOR THE RICOTTA! It’s so smooth and creamy, but isn’t overwhelmingly rich, and I think it can pretty much compliment any combination of toppings. I also got a bit of mozzarella and asiago, but the flavors of those didn’t come out as much as the ricotta.
Meat: I tried the sausage, meatballs, and roast sirloin. Of these, I think I enjoyed the roast sirloin the most. I don’t know of too many (if any) other places that offer this as a protein, so definitely worth trying it out!
Veggies: I’m kind of a veggie junkie, so I’ll add just about anything that isn’t olives or bell peppers (allergy reasons). They have a good selection of the standard options such as mushrooms, grape tomatoes, caramelized onions, spinach, arugula, and basil (all very solid), but there are also some more unique ones that I hadn’t seen before (at least not on pizza), such as eggplant or long hots. The eggplant is a really fun addition for my fellow purple-​veggie lovers out there, but oh my god, if you like spice, you HAVE to get the long hots. It consists of cayenne peppers grilled with caramelized onions, and it is easily my favorite topping out of everything that I piled onto my crazy hodgepodge monstrosity of a pizza. I don’t care what I’m doing next time, I am getting a heaping dose of those long hots!
Even though I only ate half of my pizza, I was so stuffed by the time the third course came around. The dessert, which was a slice of their delicious dolce cheesecake, was unbelievably rich and creamy, and in the best way too! Each bite was just happiness upon happiness, and I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate way to wrap up the meal. So, despite the complaints of my already overflowing stomach, I had to finish my cheesecake… which is why I am now about to go flop onto my bed and food coma for the next three or so hours.
In summary: RICOTTA and LONG HOTS.
Thanks so much for organizing this Bryant, this event completely made my Monday!