Restaurant Review: DeLosa's Pizza and Italian Family Restaurant

It seems like an establishment would really have to try to screw up a pizza.  The classic Italian comfort food, in all its simplicity, is just inherently good.  Heck, as humans we’re hard wired to crave carbs and fat, both of which make up the majority of all pizza.  That’s not to say that all pizza joints are the same, of course.  More that, pizza restaurants, at least in this book, lie on a critical spectrum from ok to mindblowing-ly delicious.

Delosa’s is just one of many in the pantheon of Largo pizza restaurants.  As a family-owned Italian eatery, Delosa’s opened in 1983 and found success with their first location in John’s Pass later expanding with two more locations in South Tampa and here in Largo.

is your typical independent pizza shop specializing in New York style hand-tossed pizza, strombolis, calzones, wings and other low-priced, no-frills fare often found at similar-minded eateries around the area.

Taste is paramount in a good pie and DeLosa’s, with 25 plus years of experience crafting these bad boys, definitely know what they’re doing when it comes to the major players –cheese and crust. 

The cheese on a DeLosa’s pie is laced with flecks of oregano and other aromatic spices that leave their mark on the palate without overpowering the other flavors of the pie.  The smell the of the spices still lingers on my fingers as I type this, which hey, I’ll count as a good thing.

Crust was equally delicious, but a tad chewy in the consistency.  I’m a crispy guy, so this is more personal preference than anything.

The toppings (pepperoni on one, meatball on the other) left a bit to be desired.  Pepperonis were run-of-the-mill and suffered a bit from the pie’s shorter-than-ideal time in the oven.  In this book, a good pepperoni should be crisp on the outer edge curving upward from the molten cheese on the pie.  The pepperoni at DeLosa’s had neither.  I want strings of cheese and greasy pepperoni cascading off a slice when I pull it off the pie, but this pie wasn’t quite there.

The meatball topping suffered from a sense of blandness that couldn’t be ignored.  I found myself wondering if they just cooked up some raw ground beef and threw it on the pie.  Ground meatball has potential to be a star topping, exploding with a menagerie of spice and succulence, but these just failed to wake the palate.

Garlic knots were a hit.  Pillowy soft, glazed with butter, parmesan and spices, DeLosa’s famous garlic knots live up to their title.  Ripping one open yielded a burst of heat and spice-laden aroma.  The butter-brushed bread was crispy on the outside and deceptively soft (in a good way) in the middle.  Definitely a worthy appetizer or pizza accompaniment.

Overall, DeLosa’s felt a little hit-or-miss.  As previously mentioned Pizza’s, pizza to me.  While compently crafted and definitely passable, Delosa’s pizza was merely okay in comparison to what else is out there in the same style and price range.