I love Annapolis.  As the weather gets warmer, there will be more visits to this wonderful town.  And that means more pizza recaps.  This post will be dedicated to one of the more popular destinations downtown.

Charlie’s Bar at Mangia’s is in the heart of the city.  It has a great view of the nearby sailboats, tourists walking about, and other pleasures of the town.

Too bad the pizza leaves a lot to be desired.   I’ve been going sporadically over the past 10 years or so. And even though I never felt it was the best pizza, I don’t remember it tasting this poor.  Or maybe my tastes have changed.    They’re open until 2 am on Friday and Saturday nights. With that information in hand, we know the pizza is made to fit the later night crowd.   Unfortunately, that same pizza is also served to the daytime crowd.

Sometimes even bad pizza is good pizza.  And maybe that works in some instances.  However, this was abysmal.  I don’t want to reiterate this fact over and over.  So let’s get to my slices.

First up, was the cheese.  The crust was too crunchy and it didn’t taste like real cheese.    I could barely taste the sauce either.   I don’t think these were the freshest ingredients    I wish I could find some positives.

Second, was the white slice.   This did not taste like any white I’m used to.  But that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be good. Just like the cheese, not all good whites taste the same.   If I didn’t know this was a white slice, I would have just assumed this was garlic toast.  And bad toast at that.

Finally, was the Spinach Ricotta.  Like the previous two, I’m not sure what I was eating.  The spinach tasted ok, but the ricotta didn’t taste as good as other places.

The gentleman who heated up my slices was very nice.  Otherwise, the other staff seemed very idle.  But this was during lunch hour, so not much else was going on.   But, I did say lunch hour.  I expect pizza to be a little higher in quality during the day as opposed to near closing time at the bar.   This was disheartening on so many levels.

I don’t go into these blogs looking to disparage anything or anyone.  I want them all to succeed, especially if their intentions are to serve good pizza and to benefit the community.

Fortunately, I will be reviewing more pizzerias in Naptown, in the very near future.   And I know the best is yet to come.

Take good care.

Best,

Ideen