The Three Faces of Puzo’s

When you go to Puzo's you can pretty much pick your dining style. There's a "pizza" room that's popular for lunch and, next door, a more formal room for elegant dining and private parties.

And as soon as the weather becomes reliably warm, there will be a garden "room" on the sidewalk with unique planters trailing flowers and sheltering diners from the traffic on West Ridgewood Avenue.

Mario Puzo, the "baby" of four brothers who emigrated from Avellino, Italy, opened Puzo's 14 years ago. When the opportunity arose two years ago, he took over the storefront next door, doubling the size of his kitchen and allowing him to open the second dining room. The bigger kitchen also lets him do more catering.

"We opened it into a tough economy," Puzo said. "The business hasn't grown, but it has remained steady."

Like most of the village's successful restaurants, Puzo's has a lot of repeat customers, which helps in bad economic times. He estimates that about half his business is takeout or delivery.

And a lot of people will tell you Puzo's has the best pizza in town, but there is much more to the restaurant than the excellent pizza made by Mario's brother, Jerry. It offers all of the classic Italian dishes along with a nice range of salads, soups and sandwiches for lunch and dinner.

During our last visit, my partner elected to start with fried calamari, which is always good here if not great, and I had the Caesar's. I always like the Puzo salads because they are super fresh, no rusted ends or limp leaves on the lettuce, and have an excellent dressing. (The bread is very good, too.)

For a main course, my partner picked his favorite test of any Italian restaurant—the veal Milanese. It was listed as an entrée and he expected it to come with a vegetable, but Linda Bernardo, who runs the front of the house, explained that it had been mistakenly put in the wrong category. It should have been under salads. 

If he wanted anything other than the veal and greens, he would have to order it on the side. (The menu has been corrected online, but not in the printed menus we received.) So he ordered the mashed potatoes, which added $2 or so to the $16.95 charged for just the salad with veal. He pronounced them both good for the price, if not outstanding.

I ordered a decadent plate of "Jumbo shrimp, fries, onion rings and mozzarella sticks." The shrimp, when they came, had been left a bit too long in the hot oil, and I suspect had come to the restaurant frozen, breaded and ready to fry. They weren't great, but the rest of the plate was perfectly fine if terrible for my cholesterol.

On prior visits we've had the pizza and a lot of the pasta dishes that were truly very good, but I recommend skipping the fried jumbo shrimp unless you really, really need a night of fried food.

That said, this is a great place to bring the family without breaking the bank, and we've come here with a party of seven, three of them children. There is always something to make everyone happy, and the service is good.

When Mario and Jerry first came to the United States, they worked for brother Joe, who has a restaurant, A Taste of Italy, in Fairfield. (Brother John owns Puzo's in Hawthorne.) After 15 years, Mario was able to open his own place in Ridgewood. Jerry joined him and makes the pizza dough. The kitchen also has another cook, Ronald Picado.

Ninoschka Izguirre, who hails from Peru, works with Bernardo at the front of the house.

Mario's job, Bernardo says, is to be "everybody." When Jerry is off, Mario makes the pizza dough. When Picado is off, Mario cooks, and when the restaurant is busy, Mario waits on tables.

He also likes being in a town full of restaurants. "I like the competition," he says. "Ridgewood is the center of dining in Bergen County. When you succeed here, you know you're pretty good."

As for downtown Ridgewood, Mario says, "I think it's going to come back. It's going to take a couple of years, but it will come back."

Food: Good

Service: Very Good

Price Range for Entrees: $8.95 to $22.95

Atmosphere: Convivial

BYOB

Credit Cards Accepted