4950 Harlem Rd., Amherst NY 14226
Web: Palladino's Pizza Express
Phone: 716.839.0777
Rating:
[learn more]Pros:
Very good wings and pizza; fantastic, benchmark-caliber garlic bread with mozzarella cheese. Friendly service, reasonably fast deliveries and prices.
Cons:
No dine-in option. Top wing spice level isn't what it used to be years ago.
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Amherst Chicken Wings Pizza Subs
"We've ordered garlic bread at dozens of other places, and we still regard this version as the benchmark; as simple as the recipe's ingredients may be, the balance here is ideal."
The hottest chicken wings we'd ever eaten, years ago, now stand as one of our few indelible memories of growing up in Western New York. We can still picture them: they were a bright, nearly glowing orange. Impossible to eat all twenty. And they were from Palladino's Pizza Express, one of the most unsung pizza and wing shops in Buffalo. Other places we used to like - Santora's, Tomatoes, and so on - waxed and waned in quality, but the small Palladino's shop has remained both good and friendly, enough so that we've gone out of our way to order from the place a couple of times in the last few months.
Palladino's is as notable for what it's not as what it is. This isn't a full-service, sit-down restaurant. It's in a strip mall near a Chuck E. Cheese, which is probably 20 times the size. When you call, you choose between take out and delivery, and if you visit, you'll find a small Italian Ice and Gelato freezer on one size of the path to the cash register, and a soda pop refrigerator on the other. Other than the kitchen and the staff, that's pretty much it for Palladino's; there's only enough room to walk in, get your food, and go. Given that the place calls itself a "Pizza Express," churning out orders in 20 minutes, that's probably all that it really needs.
That brings us to the pizza. While not in Bocce's or Just Pizza's "wow" league, it's very good: slightly sweet tomato sauce, a comparatively thick but tasty crust, and distinctive scalloping - not scallops, but rather a unique repeating series of U shapes - on the edges of the pie. If Bocce's is the Western New York pizza you impress out-of-town friends with, and Just Pizza is the one that demonstrates the versatility of the local balance of crust, sauce, and cheese when topped with different ingredients, Palladino's is the one you'll regard as comfort food. It's not as distinctive in flavor as the others, but it's really nice. The medium pepperoni version shown here sells for roughly $10; extra toppings vary in price from $1.49 on up depending on the size of the pizza.
Chicken wings are Palladino's other specialty, but first, permit us a brief digression. Our orders for wings almost always start with the store's Garlic Bread with Mozzarella Cheese ($2.29), a loaf that for at least 15 years has remained "just right" in our book: always just soft enough, always warm with a gooey mozzerella center, and always just garlicky and golden enough to feel great bite after bite. We've ordered garlic bread at dozens of other places, and we still regard this version as the benchmark; as simple as the recipe's ingredients may be, the preparation here is ideal. There aren't any sesame seeds, burn marks, or butter drips to worry about; this is cheese bread as crack.
One of the reasons we so frequently order the Garlic Bread is Palladino's aforementioned talent for spicing chicken wings. The menu lists only "hot, medium, mild," and "garlic char-b-q" flavors, at $7.49 for 10, $11.99 for 20, and so on, with a small surcharge for the char-b-q version. But ask for the wings hot, as we discovered, and you'll typically be asked "really hot?" - an implication of another spice level. It turns out that there are actually at least three others, ranging from X-hot to XXX-hot. When we asked for the wings as spicy as they could make them, in an effort to re-experience the blistering heat of that fateful box noted in the introduction, what we got was billed as double-X-hot, but boxed as triple-X-hot. The wings still weren't as spicy or as bright orange as on that one occasion, but they were plenty hot - something a little north of a Duff's hot wing. Perhaps it's time for a quadruple-X version.
Other spice levels are, obviously, easier for the average wing lover to take. And no matter how hot the wings get, short of the one or two most insanely spicy occasions, they still taste good. We don't say that about most wing places, but we've always enjoyed them here.
The menu does have other options, including specialty variations on the pizza - a double-loaded "That'sa Fatssa Pizza" ($25 and up) and a Veggie Lovers Delight ($11.49 and up), amongst others - and fresh sub sandwiches made with Costanzo's rolls ($3.09 and up, half; $5.79 and up, whole). Palladino's subs, like the whole Steak and Cheese version shown here ($7.29), are freshly made and good, not great. There are also salads, and a few other fried items, including chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks ($5.29), three types of fries ($1.79 and up), onion rings ($2.79), mushrooms, cauliflower and zucchini ($3.49 each). It's hard to mess up such items, and Palladino's hasn't disappointed with them. We're partial to the onion rings, which are just the way we like them: a little sweet, plenty crispy, and not as oily as one might expect from the cooking process.
Practically speaking, the Amherst location of Palladino's - on Harlem, near Sheridan - restricts its delivery clientele to the Amherst and Williamsville crowds, and we won't suggest that you drive out from somewhere else just to try the pizza or wings here. That's up to you. We just know that we find the occasional visit more than worthwhile, and plan to keep stopping by as long as the wings, garlic bread, and pizza stay so solid.
