Pizzeto

Location: Hard Rock Hotel, Punta Cana, Dom. Rep.
Cuisine: Pizza, Mediterranean
Prices: n/a (all inclusive)
Credit Cards: n/a (all inclusive)

Food: 8
Service: 8
Value: n/a
Environment: 9

Frequency: Uncommon

I have a general travel rule that New Yorkers should not eat Chinese or Italian food if they're visiting a destination that's not named China or Italy because NY is the best in the world outside of the 2 originating countries. I'll make an exception in this case though. We ended up trying out Pizzeto because there were a lot of pizza fans in the group. And naturally vacation brings about a pizza craving.

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Pizzeto wasn't the generic pizzeria I expected in a foreign country. It actually felt like a real Italian place with it's brick oven pizza and other Mediterranean offerings. The pizza itself was comparable to some NY restaurants and blew away anything in my 2 previous cruise vacations. My guess is that the staff was either sent to Italy for training or had an Italian chef flown in. The food also had a good taste partly due to the high quality ingredients of the Dominican Republic, as their milk is all organic and vegetables have minimal to no pesticides.

All restaurants in Hard Rock had good service, but I gave this one slightly lower because their system wasn't as efficient. When seating guests, there would be a line at the entrance and the hostess would slowly walk back and forth, escorting and seating each party one by one. There should be someone always at the front desk and the waiters should escort the parties. Also, a couple of times there was a piece of silverware missing and no one around to help. I had to chase down the guy setting the empty tables. Maybe this place was just short staffed.