Zetti's: The Pizzeria that Tries Harder

If there is one thing Western New York has plenty of, it is pizza places.

The Yellow Pages lists 157 of them in Buffalo and Amherst alone.

So why has Zetti's Pizza & Pasta, located at 3500 Main St., come all the way from Westchester to join our crowd?

According to Zetti's owner, John Fusco, there is definitely room for one more.

"We thought this area could use a better pizza product and pasta product overall to be honest," he said. "The pizza here is like white bread with ketchup and cheese on it. It's a whole different product than what we serve."

Zetti's is not your average pizzeria - for the college crowd, it is definitely a step up from the dingy storefronts you might be used to.

While it stores its drinks in a self-service Coke cooler, and displays its pizza Sbarro-style from behind a glass counter, Zetti's is closer in appearance to a dine-in restaurant than a typical college pizza place.

The parlor area in the front seats 25 people. The yet-to-be-opened dining room in the back will seat another 50. Almost every table is taken on Wednesday night, and takeout business seems to be booming. Long lines of customers, many wearing UB sweatshirts or sorority t-shirts, appear and disappear quickly.

"We get everyone. The menu has a wide array of dishes. We have veal dishes, chicken dishes, pasta dishes - so we have everyone from families coming in and sitting down to students," Fusco said. "Lots of students are from Long Island, and they come in because they recognize the product."

The atmosphere is part bustling pizzeria and part authentic Italian dining room. That means that if you're expecting to come in and grab a slice without any fuss, this is the place to be.

However, if you're looking for a sophisticated place to bring a date, you might want to go elsewhere. For a pizzeria, though, they do put in extra effort to be sure that your visit will be a pleasant one.

For example, someone took the time to paint the walls a classy mustard color and to polish the hardwood floors. You still order your food at the counter, but someone comes out from the kitchen and places your silverware on your paper napkin for you. And instead of being forgotten after you walk away from the cash register, there will be someone to walk by and earnestly ask if you're enjoying your meal.

And the odds are, you will be.

Presumably because my guests and I ordered full dinners, a large hunk of crusty, floury bread arrived at our table. It was so fresh and delicious, we found ourselves fighting over it.

One of my guests had Pasta a Cuore ($10.25) a dish with shrimp, saut?(c)ed chicken, artichoke hearts and white wine lemon butter sauce over pasta. It was one step from gourmet, and so good that I couldn't keep my fork out of it.

Another diner's Farfalle Verdura ($9.25), bowtie pasta tossed with fresh vegetables and saut?(c)ed in garlic and oil, was gone in minutes.

The menu states that all soups at Zetti's are homemade, and I can attest to the truth of that statement - the Pasta E Fagioli ($4.25) could have been made by my grandmother.

I didn't try my friend's Veal Marsala ($12.95), but everyone else at the table did, with plenty of ooh's and ahh's to be heard.

But, the true test of any pizzeria is the quality of their cheese and pepperoni pizza, so I ordered a slice ($2.40). Growing up in this area, I have tried dozens of different pizzas over the years, but until trying Zetti's, I had no idea there was anything this much better to be had. Though the pepperoni could have been just a little better-I like mine to curl up a little more when it cooks-the crust more than made up for it. It was so crispy and light, even the burned stuff on the bottom tasted good.

While the pizzeria-that-tries-harder experience is refreshing, it caused a couple of minor glitches during my visit.

Because larger orders are served at the table sit-down style, the lack of an experienced wait staff caused our food to be served hopelessly out of order. My slice was the first to arrive, alone. My friend's soup and salad came out at the same time as her entr?(c)e. Appetizers came out last or, as was the case with our garlic knots ($3.00), not at all.

In addition, the eggplant sticks ($4.75) were soggy and served with a watery marinara sauce. They would have actually benefited from the standard artery-clogging, over-deep-fried treatment they would have received at any restaurant of lower quality.

But, when contrasted with the overall dining experience and food quality, these incidents added up to no more than a few endearing mistakes, to be quickly and easily forgotten.

"It is what it is," said Fusco, about his restaurant.

And what it is, in this reviewer's opinion, is truly delicious.