Via Tribunali

We went there on Friday evening around 6 and wasn’t crowded at all, perhaps a bit too early. I would have liked more variety. The pizzas were decently priced. Preparation wise, pizzas had a great crust but the sauce was still a bit runny. hence the 3 stars.

Any of the Via’s are great — its my goto place for a nice place to take a date, friend or a special occasion, that won’t break the bank!
I had my girlfriends bachelorette party dinner here, and reserved the back room. It was a fantastic place for groups, especially a group of loud chatty girls! We had about 11 people and it was extremely roomy.
They were very accomodating when we took our time to order, and the family style worked out perfectly. We ordered 5 pizzas and 4 salads and it was more than enough for the 11 of us. The caraf’s of wine are great for larger parties as well (I think we had 4). The bill came out (with tax and tip) to only be $ 35/​person which I find extremely reasonable!

I’ll try to be brief… exorbitant prices (non-​happy hour) for the portion size, noisy/​lousy/​non-​italian music, seats that make you need a chiropractor, ridiculous glassware (almost sippie cups for wine!), and, perhaps most importantly, the pizza itself was mediocre at best.
Oh, and the place is surrounded by smelly garbage and homeless people — exactly how I want to start my Saturday night. Do yourself a favor and get the $.99 personal pizza at the grocery store instead.

I like this place. Yummy pizza!
Nice atmosphere. Great service. Big private booths. It seems easier to get a table than the one on Capital Hill.

Ok, so I have been to this location of Via Tribunali twice now — once for happy hour, and once for dinner.
The happy hour, in my opinion, is pretty lame. I mean, they advertise $ 5 pizzas & $ 2 Peronis, but that is the ONLY thing they have for happy hour, and the «$ 5 pizzas» is limited to only 3 pizzas — cheese, margharita & salami. I REALLY wish they had more drinks on the happy hour menu besides the Peroni.
The pizzas are good… fired in the wood fire pizza oven in the restaurant right in front of you. And the wait staff is nice. The pizzas are also fairly authentic (I’ve been to Italy 3 times in my life, so I can speak from experience)…
BUT…
I definitely think this place is over-​priced. And their lack of options of «glasses» of wine on the wine menu is VERY disappointing. It’s mostly just bottles that you can purchase, and I don’t have that kind of money.
So, even though it’s tasty and I LOVE the décor and the ambiance, I am giving this place 3 stars just based on the prices and lack of wine options by the glass.

Came here for happy hour when bathtub gin was closed.
Cool décor and a nice location right behind the Crocodile.
$ 5 happy hour pizzas are delicious, with high-​quality ingredients. But small and definitely not worth full price.
Drinks were decently priced and well prepared by an experienced barkeep.
Service however, was slow and spotty.

I had a great time here my last night in Seattle.
I was on a pizza-​eating binge… Already had a slice at a place down the block but I couldn’t resist the lure of a wood-​fired oven and a $ 5 pie. I was stuffed stuffed stuffed after my pizza-​eating bender that night. But also full of great memories from good conversations.
Also, the coldest beer I’ve ever had… and not in a good way. The pint was slushy – but beer and pizza is too good a combination to resist.
Locals – act fast! Apparently the guy I spoke with the whole night is heading to Portland to spread the franchise.

ATTENTION!!! ATTENTION!!!
******public service announcement of the day******
So R-​40 wanted to take us out to this pizza joint he recently tried and loved, Serious Pie as it’s called. But the wait was 2 hours. Having talking about pizza throughout the day, we still wanted pizza but did not wait to wait. So we decided to on another place. Via Tribunali next to the Crocodile was the pick. BIG MISTAKE!!!
There were four of us, and we ordered 2 pizzas thinking that would be more than enough. I’m not a huge eater, and the misses isn’t either, also the prices were about $ 15. So yea, 2 pizza has to be more than enough right? WRONG.
Pizzas were individual sized, I knew it was thin pizza, but these were thinner than anything I’ve every had before. the toppings were less than minimal. We had to order another pizza too boot. I’ll admit, the red sauce on the pizza was quite tasty and the ingredients used were top notch. But not even close to being worth it. The pizza here is over priced for what you get.
Minimal beer selection, only 3 beer are on tap. and at $ 5 a pint, ouch.
Here was what we ordered:
Quattro Stagioni — mozzarella, shrooms, ham, salami (good variety of topping options, now if they put more than a couple of each on the pizza).
Misto Salumi — all kinds of meats (prob the best pizza of the 3. topped with different meats).
Napoletana — anchovy pie (the sardines were crazy salty).
Total damage for four with tax and tip (5 pints of Manny Pale Ale, 3 pies)?
a tad under 90 $ and half filled tummies.
+3 stars for the pizza
— 1 star for the price
— 1 star for the waitress automatically adding 20% to our bill

This location is smaller then the one on Capitol Hill and doesn’t quite have the same ambiance, but the pizza was equally delicious.
We had the Quattro Fomaggi which is one of my faves, a little bit of Gorgonzola adds a nice touch of saltiness and a pungent bite. Also shared a smoked cheese and sausage pizza — delicious, but I did feel that the toppings were almost too minimal. The wine menu is limited to Italian selections only.
Our server was friendly and attentive, overall a pleasant early Sunday dinner experience.

Update: the service has improved! Read my previous reviews for the difference. Looks like they are reading Unilocal reviews. Excellent!
Wednesday evening: I hit up 3 different bar/​restaurants on a drinking/​eating binge that lasted 6 hours.
As I enter to meet my group of friends, the server immediately recognizes me, and asked if I wanted my double Makers Mark/​splash of ginger ale.
I give her a big hug.
5 Stars! I didn’t even have to ask!
Ok, so I was just here 2 weeks ago with another crew of peeps, and the week prior to that with another crew.
Yes, I love Italian pizza. (Would be fun if they served pasta too!!!)
Why I love this place: never too crowded, excellent food, and perfect place for a group of 10 or so friends to get together to eat, drink, and be merry in a dimly lit low key restaurant.
Previously, I was pissed off b/​c of the shit service, but that’s changed.
Tip to Via: Please play better music.
I’m genuinely happy my last 3 visits the month of January 2010 has been excellent.
If you haven’t been — try it out!

My friends and I were at Via Tribunali a few weeks ago for dinner on a Friday night. We thought the place would have been packed, but turns out we had no trouble getting a table for the 4 of us. We arrived after our friends were seated and asked for our drink orders right away. This was probably the only quick thing about our dinner as after that our waiter disappeared for several small amounts of time.
The next time he came back though, we ordered our salads and pizzas right away. The place was in fact empty and surprisingly it still took about 30 minutes for our pizzas. I understand it takes time to build and cook these masterpieces, but it was a looong wait and we were hungry. The pizzas though were the saving grace of this place. Lots of delicious meat and crispy crust! I’ll come back again, but maybe only for happy hour.

This was my first visit to this location. I found it to be very intimate and cozy the minute I walked through the door. It has very dim amber lighting which I loved. The pizzas are very yummy. I shared the margarita and the salame with a friend. They were both great.
The bonus was that it was happy hour, so each pizza was 5 bucks.
Also, had a liter of house wine for $ 15. What a bargain!
Our server was great too.

This is a very niche review — stopped in at 12:30am after a comedy show to try this out, and guess what — on a Saturday night they have happy hour after 11pm! This means they had 3 of their pizzas for $ 5 each, which given the usual $ 14 – 17 price, is nothing other than a steal.
Thus, we stopped in for 20 minutes, got 2 pizzas for $ 10 + tax and tip, and we were happy :)
The other reviews here can attest to quality, but I found this to be quite good — maybe not QUITE up with Serious Pie or Delancey, but darn close. Nice work guys.

Back in the 90’s I really loved The Simpsons. The best episodes were the ones where the show started with one incident happening which spun the plot into a completely random direction that had nothing to do with the start of the episode.
That doesn’t really relate to my review so you can ignore that little bit. Another thing you can ignore is all the other reviews for this place that complain about «soggy» crust. I’ve eaten at Via Trib’s enough times to know that soggy it is not. The crust is chewy in most spots and crispy in all the spots where it should be while still being light and thin. Maybe people that think it’s soggy want pizza that is thick and doughy or prefer Tombstone frozen frisbees crisp from the oven?
I could gush about the sauce all day. Since I’m lazy and you probably don’t care enough to read said gushings all day we’ll just say it leans toward the chunky side but the chunks are jammed with fresh tasting tomato. Each bite just seems to burst with tomato flavor. Cheese is applied more lightly than on a traditional American pie, but it’s high quality cheese and full of flavor and texture.
Interior looks cool. Lots of stained glass that must be pretty during the day (haven’t been there during those hours) and the booths have an air of seclusion about them.
If there was an area of improvement I’d point to price, though grudgingly. It isn’t outrageous by any means and the quality is very high. But $ 16 for a pie this small? Hmm …
In any case, Via Tribunali’s is a welcome addition to the pizza world of Belltown. What used to be a wasteland as far as pizza is concerned when I first moved to the neighborhood in ’02 seems to be thriving now. So check ‘em out now, unlike the Simpsons their best days are not in the past, but the present.

This place could be really spectacular, the décor is tops — reminds me of the pubs in Melbroune — the booths are incredible, stained glass windows against the bar and atmosphere can really be something. My friend and got the Happy Hour Special, two pizzas for about $ 5 each (one cheese, one pepperoni). The pizza could have been stellar if they had been left for about 4 ½ to 5 extra minutes in the oven. The crust wasn’t charred enough and was a bit too soft for my liking but the ingredients were top quality and I can really appreciate that. The service was great, no complaints there — will definitely give the desserts a try the next time I’m in town.
Overall I give Via Tribunali 4 nice and crispy pies :)
ps. The Soundtrack was absolutely amazing, lots of great Punk and New Wave on rotation — tops!

Went here before a show at the Crocodile with my husband. We were just in Italy several weeks ago, and I would say this menu reminded us of a lot of the pizza we saw in Italy. We ordered the via tribunali which was delicious and authentic italian pizza. We also had the house wine which was not wonderful, but definitely cheap. I liked that they had a really good selection of italian wines, and I think I would try that next time. The service we had was really good, and I would definitely come back again for some yummy pizza.

This is the best Via Trib because it’s my Via Trib! (Really the Cap Hill one is best.
But did you know you can get $ 5 happy hour pizzas? I bet you didn’t. But you should go get them anyway.
Oh, and use this Via Trib while at the Croc because you can just take out and enjoy with a Miller Highlife at the bar in the Croc. Pre Show WHAT?

Seriously these guys are trying to be too serious about their pizza. First it isn’t that good. The pomodoro either needs flavor or freshness (take one or the other but don’t do neither). Tribunali failed. Then the crust was somewhere in between the thickness of a true thin crust and a regular pizza. When you do that the sauce makes the pizza crust soggy.
I must say the service was full of nonchalance, and could have been more accommodating and helpful.
Seattle still needs really pizza that feels like its from Naples. Tutta Bella isn’t quite there and I think the closest comes from Veraci but they need more traditional toppings like rucola, gran parm, fennel, etc.

While waiting for a show at The Crocodile, we found the entrance to Via in the alleyway. We were enticed by the warm, inviting scene we viewed through the picture windows.
The interior décor was a warmly lit gothic style with insane Cathoic Church-​inspired art on the walls. I enjoyed the offbeat, creepiness of an otherwise classy joint.
Via Tibunali does authentic Neapolitan-​style pizza the way Cucina Cucina should have. The pizza had a thinner crust topped with fresh ingredients and served uncut. The pizza sauce wasn’t exactly my favorite part of the dish since it seemed more like tomato pulp without a lot of seasoning. Fortunately, they provided a small dish of red pepper flakes and grated parmesean with little spoons to save us from the embarrassing condiment «shake shake shake».
Overall, it tasted homemade, fresh, not processed, and authentic. If memory serves me, the price was very acceptable. I would enjoy returning.

Interestingly enough, there are no reviews for the newest location of Via Tribunali, which is situated on 2^nd ave, next to the Croc.
I’ll do the honor and give it my Unilocal stamp of approval.
If you like the other Via’s, you will like this one. As someone who used to frequent the Croc for shows, they’ve done amazing things with this space, that used to be the bar. The service here is great and the pizza is just as delicious here than it is at the others.
I had a few tears of the Dante (they didn’t have pizza scissors here last night– so yes, they really were ‘tears’) which was covered in prosciutto, arugula, and Parmesan. No mozzarella, which is a great pie for someone like me who can’t handle the dairy.
I also like that the service here is pretty quick, which is great when you’re headed next door for a show afterward.