Astoria has a lot of nice gems for affordable prices. My partner wanted to do a nice walk and try out this restaurant per recommendation from their friend. At first glance at the menu, I was thinking this seems kind of ok. I had already done the artisan pizza several times, so my expectations were pretty low. I read many reviews, but I was skeptical because they were all pretty positive. But this is Astoria, and it’s known for having good food, so I was very pleasantly surprised how my experience turned out.
Ambiance
Because we arrived at an early 4 PM here, there was at most 2 tables that were occupied. This day in particular was actually quite hot and humid, so we opted to sit towards the back of the restaurant away from foot traffic. The decor has a very rustic feel with a lot of wood and barn decor. There is a big coal oven in the center of the restaurant, and the rear has a small kitchen.
The service was very attentive as expected, and the prices to me seemed fairly reasonable especially for the portion size.
Food
The wood fired octopus came with russet potatoes, kalamata olives, and dill. The octopus wasn’t the best I have had, but it was mighty good. The texture of the octopus was spongy and easy to chew and eat. The aroma of the wood gave it a nice smokey flavor to it. Coupled with the olives and potatoes, I was really surprised how good it was.
The wood fired tiger prawns came with garlic, lemon, and aleppo. The smokey flavor of the wood was pretty prominent but also complemented nicely with the sweetness of the prawn. Keep in mind the head is totally edible, so you get that nice crispy texture (with guts!) along with the tender sweet meat. The portion size of this was small (basically 3 small prawns cut in half), but it was good.
The Wu-tang Clam came with cherrystone clams, garlic, freshno chili, parsley, and grana padano. I love a good clam pizza, and this one was no exception. All the ingredients came together well especially with the sweetness of the clams and the bite of the lemon. The dough on this pizza was fantastic. It did remind me of Roberto’s in Bushwick, but it also has its own character of a nice balance of chew, flavor, and bounce. My partner really enjoyed this so much, that she wanted to save some for work the next day.
The Local 82 came with tomato, sausage, speck, spicy, soppressata, garlic, jalapeno, and grana. This was by far my favorite. I love the bite of the jalapeno coupled with the salty goodness of the cured meats on top. It looked like the meats were not added after the pizza was cooked, so the char of the fire definitely cooked the meats a little and gave it that extra needed crisp to it. The dough was absolutely delicious and fantastic.
Final Verdict
Every borough in NYC has their “pizza” joint for artisinal style pizza. I think Queens, or at least Astoria, has theirs. If you’re in the mood for a boutique pizza joint that has excellent dough and toppings along with pretty darn good appetizers, you should definitely check out Milkflower.
Yelp Jabs
Pricy pies that are very small. The dough was rather rubbery, but the tomato sauce was quite good and the toppings are imaginative and satisfying. Had an appetizer of roasted veggies that really desperately needed flavor, and it was so tiny! Cute place, but they need to offer more bang for your buck, increase portions, lower your prices a little, work on the dough a bit.
The dough was fine. If your pizza experience haven’t expanded beyond traditional chain pizza, then yeah I suppose you can interpret it as rubbery. I don’t consider the pies to be that small. We shared 2 pizzas with 2 appetizers, and we had to bring some back. Keep in mind, that we are not quantity eaters.
Milkflower used to be our favorite restaurant but we’ll never go back due to the HORRIBLE RUDE service although we love the food. Arrived at 8:31 on Sunday after being told over the phone last seating was 8:30.
Restaurant last seating is at 8:30 PM. This Yelper decides to show up right before 8:30 and gets into a pissy fight with the wait staff over the time because they wouldn’t seat her. Common dining sense says you do not try to go eat dinner around the last seating time for this exact reason.
Yet another horrible delivery via Caviar. Past two times the order was wrong. This time we called after an hour of waiting. The guy on the phone was so rude asking me to repeat my name FIVE times and then just blew me off saying “5 to 10 minutes” and hung up me.
This is another one of those Yelp 1-review account. This person complained about Caviar. Yelp should have a filter, where by default, delivery reviews are filtered out. As I’ve told many people already, you can’t really judge a restaurant based on delivery. There are many logistical issues that are beyond their control.