La Vecchia Trattoria, Friedrichshain, Berlin

Looks promising from the outside, but once inside we immediately got the feeling this is a concept-restaurant made for tourists.

It is well thought out though, with a big smoking area and nice fotos on the wall and an impressive looking oven. I didn't like the stones on the wall though, they looked very fake to say the best.

There certainly don't work Itallians, and it's probably not owned by Italians either, even though the people working there pretend to be Italian by greeting you with "buona sera" when you enter, and yelling words like "salami, mozzarella and la vita e bella" to each other. When they really talk to each other it's not Italian at all though, but something arabic (caught in the act). Not that we would care; as long as the food and the service are good.

Now, the service really was fine. They were very friendly, so nothing to complain about there.

Pizza's are (avg 7,50 euro) just mediocre:
Too greasy, low quality cheese, prefab tomato sauce that tastes a bit like ketchup, and the bread is too thick and not crispy. You can get much, much better pizza's in Friedrichshain.

Too bad... they have a good location, good service, and with better quality food I'm sure they could become quite a succes.

2,5 stars, give them the benefit of the doubt, makes 3 stars.

this is a brand new trattoria with a serious wood-burning oven. while the interior does not win points for tasteful design, the pizza was simply perfect.

this is the first pizza i’ve had in berlin which rivals the best i’ve had in napoli. the pizzas are also quite large, so you won’t feel bad paying an extra euro or two than other pizzerias in the area.

undoubtedly the #1 pizza in friedrichshain, and most certainly one of the best in the whole city.

the rest of the menu included standard pastas & antipasti. nothing else really out of the ordinary. the pizza is what you want.