Beretta

Beretta has been the talk of the Mission restaurant scene for the past several months. I've walked past it so many times and thought to myself - why on earth is this restaurant so crowded? I knew I had to try it myself to figure out if it was worth all the hype. And I did just that - twice in one week. I guess I really liked it :)

So what is it about this place that has people willing to wait over an hour for a table?!? Well to start with they have amazing amazing cocktails, with some very unique names. I had the Airmail - gin, lime, cane juice topped with bitters. That was one good cocktail, so good in fact that I had it when I went back the second time.

On to the food now - nice cocktails are all good, but the most important thing about any restaurant is the food. And beretta does food well! The menu is Italian, lots of small plates, a few salads, risottos, but the thin crust pizzas are definitely the star of the show. If you think Delfina's pizza is awesome, you are absolutely going to love the pizza here. I highly recommend the pizza with the spicy marinara and pepperoncini - it's the most amazingly simple, tangy, spicy, flavor in each bite pizza. The funghi one is pretty good too. And did you know that egg on pizza tastes awesome - who would have thought? Ok so there's all this good food and all these great cocktails, but in these tough economic times (I just had to throw that in :)) the question is "Is dinner here going to burn a hole in my pocket?" The answer to that is "somewhat" - beretta is definitely not a cheap eat, but 30 buks could get you a couple of drinks and a filling meal. Thats not so bad i think. And if you share with friends even better!

So far everything sounds perfect, doesn't it? There is a but though - there always is. It's the noise - don't even think of going here if you want to have a conversation with the person you are with. So first dates are a complete no-no here. This restaurant is loud! I mean lip reading loud - theres music blaring, people talking, people shouting, you get the picture.

In summary, beretta is definitely worth a visit, my tip though is to either get there really early or really late. It'll save you from the extremely long wait and may also spare your ear drums from getting blown off!