If you stand outside Due Forni, you’ll see a park catty-corner across the street. It is well placed and likely a necessity. The food at Due Forni is rich and yummy. If you’re like us, you’ll order more than you should. Thankfully, there’s that nice park where you can walk off some of your indulging.
The space is cool, two rooms separated by a swank bar. Many trendy, singular lights hang down to create the entire lighting package. Old Westerns play on the flat screen television. Artsy collages of those old movie stars hang on the wall. It’s somewhere you want to eat.
Two side-by-side wood burning ovens sit next to one another in the open kitchen area. One cooks Neapolitan style pizza at 900 degrees for 90 seconds creating a thicker, chewier crust. The other bakes Roman style pizza at 500 degrees for 3 minutes creating a thin, crispy crust.
Of course, before we got to the pizza there was plenty of other goodies to try. The mozzarella bar is $12.95 for one style of cheese – classic, smoked, or creamy – plus a side. All the cheeses are imported from Campania and the sides are there to add to that feeling that you could actually be eating this in Italy. We opted for the classic mozz, firm, mellow and fresh tasting. Roasted tomatoes made for a natural pairing. Spread the two on a piece of house made bread and add some strong arugula to the mix and you got yourself a flavor explosion.
The polipo ($11.95) is a well-thought-out salad but ours had one crucial mistake. The octopus had a nice char on it and retained its toothsome texture. Sprinkled with a little breadcrumbs that fell off onto the rest of the salad, it added a mini-crouton feel to certain bites. Almost everything else worked in harmony – mixed greens, thin piquillo peppers, subtle taggiasca olives. The problem was the promised mint vinaigrette was neither seen nor more importantly tasted. It was the element that would have tied everything together, not just from a flavor standpoint, but it also would have added a necessary wetness. It was unfortunate as it’s difficult to find a good octopus plate in this city and it marred an otherwise high end dish.
We chowed on three pizzas.
The margherita Neapolitan style, the Due Forni Roman style, and the Tartuffo Neapolitan style.
The margherita ($12.95) would be the one I would say to skip. There was nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s a solid pie. But there was also nothing spectacular about it. Of course it’s simple, featuring only bufala mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes and spices comprising the crushed sauce, and fresh basil. Since every pizza place in the world makes this pie, it has to be really special to stand out and this one just wasn’t.
The Due Forni ($16.95), however, was the surprise of the night. I’m so glad we opted for Roman style as the thin, crunchy crust was the perfect vessel for what topped it. Along with the house-made San Marzano tomato sauce and bufala mozzarella, it also had house-made sausage and piquillo peppers, both of which did their jobs well. The star of the dish was Nueske’s bacon which added a beautiful smokiness to the entire thing. It elevated the rest of the ingredients bringing them all to prominence.
The Tartufo ($20.95) is food porn. You go Neapolitan here because the bulky components need a thicker base to carry the day. Also, the char of the crust plays nicely with the lighter flavors. Start with a rich Parmigianino Reggiano crema as the foundation to build on. Add mild and equally rich fontina fontal and you have your cheese components. The mushrooms are roasted creminis and black truffles, both treated with respect and unlike other mushroom pies, not overpowering. The porn comes in the form of a runny egg just sitting on top of the pie. The server breaks the egg, smears it all over the hot pie and it’s ba-chika-bow-bow time. What, you don’t have 70s porno music going through your head when you eat stuff like this? Fine, I’m the weirdo.
As good as the pizzas were, my favorite savory course was the daily lasagna selection ($16.95). On this day it was a braised bison lasagna complete with crisp edges served in a rustic cast iron dish. The tender, shredded bison was enveloped in fresh noodles, tucked in with horseradish and basil, and blanketed with bufala mozzarella, bufala ricotta, fontina, and 24 month aged Parmigianno Reggiano, and of course that ubiquitous San Marzano tomato sauce. This is one of the best dishes I’ve tried all year. While Italian by nature, it feels like a lasagna you would eat somewhere in the French countryside. Our server told us it was the first time they made this version of lasagna, but I can’t fathom it will be the last.
For dessert, we also went with the daily selection, this time of bread pudding ($9.95). This was another carefully crafted creation. Brioche and strawberries melded as the base. Mixed in was house-made strawberry rhubarb jam which had nice tartness, almond slivers for crunch, and caramelized honey. It was then topped with a silky strawberry cheesecake gelato. The only flaw I could find with the dish was that it needed an extra scoop of gelato to bring that moisture to the entirety of the bake.
Because clearly we still hadn’t had enough cheese we closed out with sweet bufala ricotta ($6.95). The creamy, clean tasting cheese comes in a glass that could hold a parfait and is simply complimented by organic honey and toasted pistachios. It’s not overly sweet. It’s not overly complicated. It is excellent all the way through.
Come to think of it, excellent all the way through is a good way to describe Due Forni. Now excuse me while I take another lap around the park.
Due Forni 3555 South Town Center Drive 105, Las Vegas, Nevada 89135
(702) 586-6500 Due Forni | Pizza and Wine
