Cafe Italia

Wooooooow que maravilloso lugar, excelente servicio, la comida deliciosa, natural, super agradecida he viajado por todo el mundo, he comido en muchisimas pizzerias y no me habia topado pon una pasta tan bien hecha. Super recomiendo este lugar y el plus pude llevar mi propia botella de vino. MUCHAS GRACIAS CAFE ITALIA.

Many times I have wanted to try Café Italia, one of the reasons being I am tired of paying $ 25-​$ 35 for an $ 8 or $ 9 bottle of wine. I had glanced at Unilocal before, noticing the good reviews regarding the pizza. My wife called me on her way home from work and just wanted to go out for dinner. I suggested Café Italia, she was too tired to try to think of anyplace else.
We met there, shortly before 6:00 on a Thursday. It was more than half full and in less than 10 minutes, it was packed with people having to wait for a table. Our server was quick, friendly, and very helpful. We ordered two pizzas with his help adding sausage and garlic to the Gracie’s and red onion to the Andy’s. We were very surprised how quickly the pizza was brought to our table, especially considering how busy they were. Both were exceptional with excellent crust but the Gracie’s really stood above the other pizza. The sausage was great, not greasy, and the mushrooms were very tasteful.
The restaurant is a little compact when so many people are there, but it’s not uncomfortably small as many places are. The outdoor patio looks great, can’t wait for it to get a little warmer. While to many people it is not probably a big thing, but having very nice wine glasses provided with your own wine was a nice touch. We didn’t mind paying the $ 5 charge for bringing our own wine. We have eaten pizza at only three or four places in town, but Café Italia is the best we have had.

Best place to have Italian. Mm mm fresh mozzarella and their heavenly bread never fails!

We’ve gone here twice now — disappointed the first time and this time, 9 months later, the whole experience was worse! We arrived to a nearly empty restaurant — meaning there was one group of four besides us in the place. Despite this the service was slow, very slow. We ordered our food, no wine, and while waiting the waiter for the other group went to their table and presented a gift to one of the ladies for her «special day.» The whole table is a little confused though — turns out the waiter gave someone else’s present to them. A gentleman had come by earlier and pre-​staged with the restaurant for this to happen when he came in with his dinner party but they gave it to a completely different group. Fortunately, the guests there protested enough that they eventually took the box back and were able to give it to the correct lady later…
Our experience, besides slow, the food was OK. The famed bread turns out to be their pizza dough — nothing more, just the baked pizza dough. Boring and bland. When our food came it was good but again nothing much to talk about. We ordered their famous dessert… and this was a disaster. It is once again, their pizza dough. A HUGE roll of pizza dough covered in much too sweet chocolate, overcooked, and bitter where burnt. We took two bites each — after I managed to saw off pieces of it. Even guests at other tables were looking at it like it was road kill on the plate. It was just plain bad.
We won’t be going back again.

Every time I am in El Paso, I must stop here. The pizza is phenomenal. I like ordering a small side of honey to dip the crust into!

Our first visit and it will not be our last. The food and the service were beyond compare.

This place is great! They make their own cheese and dough. I am not a nutella fan, but my friends are and they ordered the nutella calzone which was interesting (I had never tried Nutella). The pizza, capressa salad, and bread with oil and vinegar are always excellent. They bring your own wine is great too!

My husband and I visited Café Italia a few months ago and were thoroughly impressed with their pizza. (So much so we ordered three of them, and finished every last slice, right then and there!) Looking to celebrate New Year’s Eve, we decided to visit the restaurant again and explore the rest of their tantalizing (and refreshingly diminutive) menu.
This time around, we limited ourselves to only one pizza, which we preceded with antipasto and followed with shrimp linguine. Although featuring mozzarella and salami, the antipasto eclipsed both Italian staples with perfectly roasted and seasoned vegetables (including, among others, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and carrots). Once again, the pizza was immaculately composed: the crust combined perfectly balanced flavor (subtly salty and yeasty on the tongue) and texture (crispy on the bottom and doughy on the edges); the toppings (buttery mushrooms infused with fennel and rosemary) weaved potent aromas; and the mozzarella delivered fresh and delicate flavor and texture.
Regarding the shrimp linguine, I was bracing myself for disaster: when I asked our server, «Can you make sure the pasta is al dente?», he shot me a quizzical look and answered, «What’s that?» (Certainly, servers shouldn’t be expected to know as much as chefs; still, I stand by my expectation that a server in a dedicated Italian restaurant should, at the very least, know what «al dente» means, if only to reassure worried patrons like myself that we are, indeed, in good hands, and that our meal won’t be botched.) Fortunately, I had, for the most part, nothing to worry about: on the cusp of being overdone, the pasta nonetheless retained enough of a bite. Further, it was tossed in one of the most exquisite Alfredo sauces — equal parts creamy and buttery — I have ever tasted. That being said, the shrimp were, at best, superfluous: coated in Alfredo, they acted as a vehicle for the sauce — redundantly, pasta already filling that role — as opposed to playing off of it somehow with complimentary flavors and textures (e.g., by getting some char on the shrimp and resting them on top of the sauce, instead of folding them into it).
Typically, the best international restaurants in El Paso are satisfactory by local standards only (something that may change as the city continues to overcome its cultural isolation): put them up against their equivalents in most other large cities and they would pale in comparison. Café Italia, however, stands toe to toe with some of the best restaurants on offer in Little Italys across North America. Locally, Café Italia remains unmatched, surpassing other restaurants billing themselves as authentically Italian, as well as those serving Italian fare as part of an eclectic menu. Some examples: the pizza at Ardovino’s Desert Crossing suffered from a bottom so soggy it couldn’t support its toppings, and pasta from Café Central was so overdone it had to be returned to the kitchen.

Best pizza in El Paso, wood fired fresh ingredients and bring your own bottle .
Try the wood fired veggies. The pasta is not so great.

As predicted café italia is simply better with company. Excellent service, pizza was perfectly cooked, and complimentary bread sooo good with the garlic butter. Definitely a place to go with a friend or friends and enjoy a bottle (or two) of wine!

This place is a cute little place that has a cozy ambiance. I wish I would have known ahead of time that you can bring your own wine as they don’t sell it. I got the Margarita pizza and we had bread to start with. The bread and butter was very good & the pizza as well. The dough is some of the best I tasted. We will definitely go again however it seems you need to be careful of when you guys because the place fills up fast after 6:30.

Love there pizza it is Italia style! There NUTELLA CALZONE is to die for!!! It’s always between Ardovinos or Café Italia on the weekends!

This place has outstanding pizza and appetizers! I love that it’s a BYOB. I’m not fond of the corkage fee, but that will not prevent me from returning. We got their antipasti and was pleasantly surprised it was served with bread. We also ordered the Caprese salad with their homemade mozzarella, which is to die for! The olive oil they served with the Caprese salad was outstanding. I am from an Italian family that has Pizzaria’s in NY, and I thought their pizza was outstanding; from the dough to the fresh ingredients and having it cooked in a brick oven. Goodness, if you haven’t eaten here, you must try it. Their dining area is small & intimate & they have tables outside. The service was great. We will definitely go back. This will be my ‘go-​to’ restaurant for all our out of town guests.

Being able to sit down to a nice meal that you didn’t have to cook after a long hard day is bliss. Café Italia is perfect. I sat outside on the patio and enjoyed a wonderful glass of fresh brewed tea and music piped from outdoor speakers. It was followed by a Caprese salad with the most delicious mozzarella I have had since Europe. Then a pizza that was delicious. Perfect Italian thin crunchy crust. And I didn’t have to wait forever. The server was very attentive. My only drawback on the meal was that we had the world’s dullest knives.
Naturally when I have just relaxed the 6 year old needs to go to the bathroom. So I am happy to report they have wonderful restrooms. At this point I am also able to scope out the inside which is perfectly lit for an Italian restaurant. The ambiance is relaxing and feels very casual.
We arrived a little after 6 and this place got busy fast. So if you are planning dinner here I recommend coming close to 6.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Loved the unique ingredients in the pizza but the caprese salad was a little bland and could’ve used some balsamic vinaigrette.
Overall, it was pretty delicious and loved the BYOW thing :)

If you like Grimaldi’s Pizza, you will Love Café Italia. This place takes it up a notch as far as flavor and quality. The BEST pizza in EL PASO!!!

Great pizza comes down to three things… Thin, brick oven baked, crispy outside/​soft inside, slightly burned crust. Not to sweet, not too sour, understated, woody herb tasting tomato sauce. And last but not least, fresh, imported, perfectly melted, never greasy mozzarella and parm cheeses.
Quality meats and vegetables on top of that will only be the deal breaker.
Café Italia has managed to bring the best imported ingredients and succulent hand crafted Florence style pizza right to our city.
Thank you Café Italia.

Another 5 star restaurant in El Paso. BYOB which is really awesome. The food was all delicious we tried the pizzas (6 slices) the calzones (size of your head) and the spaghetti with meatballs (also giant). Our waitress was really friendly and funny. The owner/​chef was workin his tail off its nice to see someone so invested in their business. And of course the place was clean and the bathrooms were cool. Would come here again and bring all my friends. Looks like a great place to have a good time and a good meal.

You don’t want to be that person who hasn’t been to Café Italia! Honestly, I don’t know why I put it off so much & now I hate myself because I could of been eating good a loooooong time ago lol.
I ordered shrimp linguine & I just couldn’t put my fork down. Every ingredient came together in a beautiful marriage! Never have I ever had such delicious pasta! I also ordered a house salad & it was excellent but it just couldn’t compete with the pasta. It was definitely the runner up in this competition.
I really want to try everything on their menu especially their Nutella calzone!

This place is amazing. We came on a Friday evening and we’re lucky to get a table. Although the place was packed the service was amazing, the food was delivered fast and ahhhhh the pizza… The pizza was amazing.
Make sure to get some bread with butter as appetizer !!! Need to come back for dessert

After running into a former co-​worker in the downtown area, we traded contact info, brushed up on the current happenings in each other lives, and promised to get together to talk more sometime later that week. ‘Later that week’ came and I was left with the decision of choosing a good pizza place at his request. It’s so hard for me not to choose a place I already love, but I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t been and who better to trust than my fellow Unilocalers? So maybe choosing Café Italia was cheating a bit since I’m already a Texas-​sized fan of the second, downtown location… but I’d never been to the OG Café Italia and it has numerous 4 and 5 star reviews so I was immediately sold.
We arrived about an hour before closing, which is always a scary time to go into any restaurant, but the staff greeted us with smiles and a cheerful welcome. We seated ourselves and ordered iced teas (which my dining partner exchanged for a bottled Dr. Pepper shortly after). Since I have already explored this menu numerous times I allowed my friend to choose our pizza for the night. As he was looking over the menu and realizing that he wasn’t familiar with a lot of the names of the pizzas he said, «I’m a simple guy. I would’ve been okay with going to Peter Piper’s Pizza.» Okay, sure. But Café Italia is more than «okay». It’s nothing less than amazing so I helped him land on the simple, but classic pizza, the Margherita.
While we were waiting I spent a lot of time looking around and taking in the whole environment. Since I’d only ever been to Café Italia Downtown, I was expecting a similar trendy environment. This location is a lot more casual than it’s downtown counterpart, but I still liked it. The walls and design are very simple, there’s a TV on the wall and a lot of wooden-​square tables. Nothing extraordinary, but it has a nice family owned feel to it. And this location also has a nice patio as well which is great now that EP is starting to cool off.
Our pizza arrived and looked as amazing as anything I’ve been served at CID. My friend was equally impressed. I let him take the first bite and his mouth dropped. He devoured a majority of the pizza and continually raved about it between each bite. The mozzarella was mouthwatering smooth (exactly the way I’ve grown accustomed to at CID) and everything tasted vibrantly fresh. The crust was lightly charred from the fire and oh-​so perfect.
My already Café Italia pizza-​loving heart was big, but after eating at the original location my heart was forced to grow three times its size. This restaurant is great for meeting with friends or even date night and the pizza is definitely top pizza in El Paso… maybe even Texas!