14 Mistakes Everyone Makes When Ordering At A Pizzeria

If you're in pursuit of the perfect pizza, a pizzeria's a good place to start. Restaurants that specialize solely in pizza make it their mission to nail that ideal balance of dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings, and deliver it to their hungry customers. So it's pretty frustrating when all of their hard work is undone by people who ruin their order with rookie mistakes. By adding one too many toppings, or specific additions that will annoy your hosts, or even by saying some highly irritating (and common) phrases, you can turn a brilliant pizza into something totally substandard.

As someone who's worked in pizzerias for years, in virtually every role that an employee can fill in these restaurants, I've experienced my fair share of ordering mistakes. A lot of the time, customers just aren't aware that what they're asking for will ruin their pizza — and on a busy night, we staff members may not have the time to inform them that they're about to commit a grave error. That's why I decided to roll up my sleeves and share the biggest mistakes that I've seen customers make when ordering at pizzerias, so you can ensure that you get a perfect slice every time.

You'd be amazed at how many people forget that not all pizzas are the same. When working in pizzerias, I lost count of the amount of times someone frowned at their pizza after it was placed down in front of them, and then asked why it wasn't a deep-dish style pizza, or why the crust was so flat. These people had also totally failed to ask before ordering what type of pizza we specialized in, or checked before entering the pizzeria in the first place.

The truth is that there are so many different styles of pizza, and they're all made with slightly different recipes and methods, producing varied results across the board. Neapolitan pizza, for example, is cooked incredibly quickly and is designed to be light on toppings, while deep-dish pizza is cooked more slowly and is stuffed full of ingredients. If you don't check which pizza your restaurant makes, you may end up pretty disappointed with what you get. So before you order, check with your server, or look at the menu for the restaurant online.

Pizza is always made with tomato sauce, right? Wrong. There are plenty of pizzas out there which are made with a white base, which basically means that it doesn't have any tomato sauce at all. Instead, the toppings are either placed straight onto the dough, or the base is first brushed with oil or flavored butter to give it a richer taste.

If you fail to check thoroughly whether your pizza has a white or a red base, you may end up with one in front of you without intending to. In the pizzerias I've worked in, this happens all the time: People just assume that every pizza on the menu has tomato sauce, and so they don't look closely enough at the ingredients list for the pizza they're ordering (which will usually always specify whether it has a tomato base or not). The opposite can also happen, where folks expect a white pizza and end up with a red one. The simplest way to avoid this is by asking your server how the pizza is prepared. Remember, too, that a lot of pizzerias will let you add tomato sauce to a white base pizza if you want.

This rookie mistake has been the bane of my life for many years. We all want our pizzas to feel generous and substantial, and the sight of a pizza that has just a few toppings on the menu can cause us to want to amp it up by requesting additional extras. However, adding too many toppings can be a serious mistake. Pizzas are delicate creations, and even one or two too many toppings can cause the base to get bogged down or rip when it's in the oven. The pizza loses its structural integrity, things don't cook properly, and you'll end up disappointed with the monstrous, overtopped creation in front of you.

Adding too many toppings also ruins a pizza's flavor. Most pizzerias pride themselves on the quality of their ingredients, and by having a few well-chosen toppings on a pizza, each flavor can shine through and hold its own. Adding loads of toppings onto a pizza, however, can make its flavor crowded and overwhelming, and you won't be able to distinguish between the individual tastes going on. So, I'd always recommend trying to limit extra toppings to just one or two. 

Certain styles of pizza can be ready in just a few minutes, thanks to the ultra-high heat of the oven they're cooked in. This leaves a tiny margin of error in which the pizza can go from perfectly-cooked to burnt. So it's incredibly frustrating when customers push this margin to its limit by asking for a "well cooked" or "extra crispy" pizza, and increases the likelihood that their pizza will be burnt.

In my experience, most customers think that they'll like their pizza to be a little more well-cooked as they assume that the pizza won't be crispy enough when it comes out of the oven. Generally, though, pizzas are intended to have a crunchy crust and a firm, crispy base. If you just trust the chef, the likelihood is you'll end up with something that's crunchy enough for your taste. Asking for it to be extra-crispy, though, means that your pizza base or toppings are way more likely to char, giving the pizza an acrid flavor that you probably won't like.

Pizzeria owners and chefs put countless hours into taste-testing their pizzas, trying to discern the best combination of toppings and flavors for their customers. So it's pretty frustrating when people dining in the restaurant undo all of that hard work by asking for toppings that wildly clash with the pizza's base flavor profile. When I worked in pizzerias, the number of people who would ask for something like anchovies, olives, or blue cheese on a lightly-flavored, subtle pizza which was based around gentle, floral tastes was kinda wild — and it led to a weirdly-tasting pizza that they weren't happy with.

Of course, it's not for me to tell you what your taste is and isn't, and if you're craving certain flavor combos then go for it. However, for your sake, I'd always recommend avoiding going rogue with the toppings. Ask your server which extra toppings might go well with your pizza and which wouldn't. If in doubt, don't add any toppings at all, and just enjoy the pizza as it was intended to be eaten.

There are lots of reasons to get several small pizzas instead of one large one: It lets everyone get what they want, it prevents debates over who gets the last slice, and it can make splitting the bill much easier, with no one saying that they didn't eat as much as everyone else. However, in my humble opinion, going for smaller pizzas over a large one is a big mistake. It's not only an error because opting for one large pizza means that everyone starts eating at the same time — it's also a mistake because it's way more cost-effective to get the large pizza.

Large pizzas are often just several dollars more expensive than small ones, but you get so much more bang for your buck. When you order a 16-inch pizza instead of an 8-inch one, for example, you actually end up with four times the amount of pizza due to the overall surface area being way bigger. Unless the small pizzas are way, way cheaper than the large ones, you're likely better off going big and reaping the rewards.

Okay, so I totally understand why people request this. It's bad form to start eating before everyone's got their food, after all, and asking that all of your pizzas come at once helps to ensure a more convivial dining experience. However, I'm here to tell you that asking this is a mistake because it's harder to make happen than you might think — and if you have a large table of more than six people or so, it may be impossible to fulfill.

Pizzas are cooked to order, and pizza ovens themselves can only fit so many pizzas in them at once. Depending on the size of the oven in your pizzeria, the chef may only be able to get four to five pizzas in at a time. Any more than that, and the oven's temperature drops too much, preventing the pizzas from cooking correctly. While your chef will do their best to get everything to come at once, they simply may not be able to ensure that everything is cooked at the same time. Therefore, you may have to endure a 5-10 minute wait between the first batch of pizzas and the next one.

Pineapple is the most hotly-debated topping out there, and as someone who personally loves it on pizza I'm kinda sick of hearing all of the chatter about it. However, what I can tell you is that pineapple is by no means an authentic pizza topping, and while it might be okay to ask for in Domino's, in Italian-run joints asking for it may be perceived as slightly disrespectful to pizza tradition.

Pineapple on pizza originated in Canada in the early 1960s, and is commonly attributed to Sam Panopoulos, a Greek immigrant who owned a restaurant in Ontario. Panopoulos had an entrepreneurial spirit when it came to food, and began to experiment with out-there toppings like pineapple on the pizza he sold in his eatery. The topping took off, and pineapple on pizza remains popular to this day. However, pineapple has never crossed the threshold of the vast majority of pizzerias in Italy, and the best you'll get if ordering it is a raised eyebrow. As such, if the pizzeria you're in is making authentically Italian pizza, they probably won't have pineapple in stock. Save yourself the embarrassment, and don't order it.

What's the difference between a pizzeria in Italy, and a pizza restaurant virtually anywhere else? One of them won't have any dips on their menu, and one of them will. In Italy, dips are considered unnecessary additions to a pizza that may well get in the way of the flavor of the pizza itself. Dipping the slice into an overpowering garlic-and-herb or spicy Buffalo dip does a disservice to the ingredients on the pizza and its inherent taste. Dipping the crusts, meanwhile, may give them extra moisture, but if a crust needs a dip then it's a sign that it's not been particularly well-made.

That's not to say that dips aren't delicious, but they're far from traditional. Therefore, ordering loads of them in a pizzeria may flag to the owner or chef that you don't trust that their pizzas will be tasty, and is slightly bad form. Of course, if a pizzeria is actively trying to push dips on their menu, or if the server brings you complementary sauce or dips, then feel free to try them. It may be worth bearing in mind, though, that if pizza restaurants are too forward about making you try dips, then it may be a sign that they know their pizza is pretty dry.

Have you ever wondered why some pizzerias send their pizzas out for delivery without cutting them first? It's because they know exactly what can happen when they're sliced. Pizza can be a surprisingly dainty food, and if it's bumped or tipped over when it's delivered, it can easily smush up on one side. This is way more likely to happen if the pizza has been cut, as it weakens the overall stability of the pizza.

Pizza that's cut before delivery also retains its heat way less effectively than whole pizza. Plus, pre-sliced pizza also has an unfortunate habit of oozing all of its cheese between the slices and onto the cardboard box below, leaving each slice glued to the bottom. Some pizza joints, of course, have sturdier pizzas that can be sliced before being sent out, and if their pies can take it, they'll do it. However, it's always better not to ask for it specifically, to avoid any mishaps along the way.

I've always been amazed by how people treat their takeout pizzas. They take the box from my hands and then promptly flip it by 90 degrees and tuck it under their arm. Then, they're surprised and upset when they open the pizza box at home, and find that it's collected into a gluey mass of dough and cheese on one side.

When pizza's just been cooked, it's usually super soft: The dough is still gelatinous and pliable, and the cheese is melted and gooey. As such, it's incredibly easy for it to collapse on itself if it's anything but flat. This can happen even if the pizza hasn't been sliced, and once it's bunched up on itself it'll be almost impossible to stretch out again. You should therefore always keep your pizza box completely flat, from the moment you leave the store to the moment you open it up. This can be tricky if you're popping it on a slanted car seat while you drive home, but luckily there's a nifty hack to ensure it remains flat: All you have to do is tuck a water bottle underneath it.

Whenever I've worked in pizzerias, be it as a manager, on the floor, or in the kitchen, few things have struck fear into my heart as much as a customer walking in and asking for 25 pizzas for their office party, that they need as soon as possible. Then, I'm faced with a choice: Do I disappoint them by saying we can't do it and turn down business, or do I disappoint every other customer in the restaurant by causing them to wait an extra 45 minutes for their meal?

Calling ahead to place large orders is important at any restaurant, but at a pizzeria, it's especially vital. A lot of the time, pizzerias can only cook around four or five pizzas simultaneously because of the oven's capacity. While large orders can of course be completed (provided that we have enough ingredients), as a worker you have to make sure the chef starts at a certain time, and warn the other customers that there will be a delay on their food from the start. As a result, large orders that come out of the blue are immensely disruptive to the order of service. Don't get me wrong, we can do them — we just ask that you call us the day before to let us know, or at least a few hours before we're due to start service.

Are you a fan of pepperoni pizza? Of course you are — pretty much everyone is. It may shock you to find out, however, that asking for "pepperoni" as an extra topping in a traditional pizzeria may not leave you with slices of spicy sausage, but another ingredient entirely. Pepperoni pizza has non-Italian origins, and the word "pepperoni" sounds identical to the Italian "peperoni," which translates to peppers. As such, you may end up with a pizza covered in vegetables instead of meat.

Now, this is less likely to happen at pizzerias in the United States, which may well have a pepperoni pizza on their menu. However, if you're in a super-traditional pizzeria where the servers and chefs speak Italian, or if you're eating in Italy itself, this mishap can still occur. Instead, you should brush up on your Italian skills. "Ask for a 'Pizza al salamino piccante' for our version of pepperoni pizza," says chef Tommaso Iorio via Foodie. Alternatively, look out for salame piccante on the menu, which will be spicy pepperoni.

Customers have pretty strong opinions about how they want their pizzas cooked — and they're often keen to ask for certain toppings to be prepared in certain ways. As such, I've frequently had customers ask me to make sure that the fresh basil or burrata on their pizza is cooked in the oven instead of being added at the end, or that the garlic oil that's often drizzled on before being served is swirled into the sauce.

While I get why people want this, I always recommend against it. Some toppings aren't designed to be cooked, as doing so ruins their flavor. Delicate ingredients like fresh herbs or soft cheeses can burn quickly in the oven, while flavored oils can lose their potent taste. When added at the end, the heat of the pizza warms them through, unleashing their aromas and flavors. Therefore, it's always best to just trust that the chef knows what they're doing, and let them add the toppings in the order they see fit.

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