Brezza Cucina

This town has a problem with celebrity chefs... There's too many of them and too many that wants to become a celebrity chef. They all want to be television and film stars and not real cooks. This profession has been so dumb down by the Food Network and Bravo and the lure of money, celebrity status, fame, drugs and hookers that everyone is jumping into this vocation just to be famous. This Jonathan Waxman was a good chef that cooked well for a living at one time, now he's just a restaurateur opening a handful of restos in the past few years. I was never that impressed with the restos that he opened, they appealed more to the masses... Kinda like Guy Fieri's dumps. But let's take a look at his shiny new eyetalian joint inside the PCM... The space is pretty open, a nice bar area and open kitchen with a wood burning oven. The menu is quite short and simple which is a good sign. Stick to simple and traditional, you can't fuck that up... That badly. I hope. They do draw in the big crowds during the weekends but it's pretty easy to get in during the week. I have had so many disappointments in PCM so far that I'm not even gonna get that excited about anything here anymore... I'm just gonna eat and report my findings... For the children.

Wood Roasted Oysters. Yeah, this pic sucks ass but there's no mistaking that there are 4 oven roasted oysters sitting on a thick bed of rock salt (what a waste of money, wait, no wonder it's this expensive, I'm paying for this inedible part). These oysters were awful. Over cooked and shrunk to size of a baby turtle barely peeping it's head out of the shell. It tasted like nothing except a rubber mass bathing in some liquid which wasn't briny. I have seen pics where this had 5 oysters on the cast iron, but the pouch got fucked again... $15 for 4 oysters, that's $3.75 per shitty oyster, it's just absurd.

Pizza. Salame, pancetta, olive, fontina, caramelized onions. Dude, $16 for a personal size 'ZA. This thing was prolly 8 inches at most, while most ladies wouldn't complain, the pouch was disappointed with it's girth... That's like $2 per inch. Not only was this a joke, it was near burnt. I asked them to make sure it's cooked through and not watery and this creasture from the abyss came out. Have they no shame?

Slice of 'ZA and oyster side by side for size comparison. At these prices, you should eat the fucking shell too because you ain't gonna be satisfied with the amount of grub found here or in your belly. Look at all that grease shimmering on top of the slice. The pizza was ultra salty unlike the oyster and it was just a bready, gooey, greasy mess... If I didn't know any better I would have thought this was from Pizza Hut. Wait, that would be insult to Pizza Hut, they don't burn pies because it's on a timer.

Up skirt... Looks like this hair pie needs to do a better job at wiping after itself... Flush.

Gnocchi. Hen of the woods, parmesan. No one fucks up gnocchi, no one... But what's this? Is that friggin Combos? Bay scallops? Marshmallows? I tasted one and it was all dough and raw in the middle. How is this gnocchi? Where's the fucking potato? I have even made ricotta gnocchi that used less flour. I think these were breadsticks cut up and pan fried. Was this Eyetalian Naan bread? They were so dry, dense and heavy vs. the pillowy gnocchi we all know and love. I rather they try to trick me with a bag of Combos on a plate (pizzeria flavor, pweez) than with these flour rocks. The hen shrooms were the best part but $18 for pure flour is even more of a slap in the face than the personal size 'ZA.

Bucatiniall'amatriciana. One of my favorite pastas... I recently stocked up on bucatini from Dekalb Farmers Market. They're the only place that have gemelli and bucatini... Add a can of the DOP San Marzano tomatoes and basil as a hand crushed sauce to either pastas and it's pure heaven. While this specimen looked decent enough, the amount of pasta to sauce to price ratio is baffling. $16 for a bowl that looks like a half portion... Even a 8 year old would be left crying for more after this measly amount. The bucatini was way undercooked, where it's gummy and sticks to your teeth when you bite into it. The sauce was too light and watery and it lacked the bold sweet flavor from the tomato and the salty kick from the protein... There were a few bits of what may be guanciale but the spiciness from the black pepper and red chili flakes were non-existent. The server asked if I wanted them to make another one, I said, no, don't even bother, it's not that good even if the pasta was cooked properly.

Risotto. Gulf shrimp, butternut squash. Is this oatmeal? Congee? Condensed mushroom soup without the can of water or milk? Risotto was the reply by the server. This $23 bowl of over cooked rice porridge was gummy and slimy in a natto kinda way. Where's the 1000 year old egg? Oh, I forgot this was risotto... Which had almost no flavor and just a bowl of mush. The arborio rice broke down to basically nothing except starch in it's purist form. They might as well just call this dish roux blanc. The visual was enough for me to give up on this dish. This meal was a steady progression of bad going to worse.

I refuse to believe that a meal could be worse than Jia inside PCM... But another celebrity chef has done the impossible. Am I missing something here where other people were raving about the same exact dishes I had here on the same night? Either, I have no taste and palate at all or I am taking crazy pills for not having the same amazing food nirvana as everyone else. I wanted to order more dishes but every single dish that came out so far was a total disappointment, so I gave up. How the fuck does the kitchen and expeditor not see what's going on and putting out sub-par dish after dish. It's just too baffling to even try to comprehend this overpriced goat rodeo. Another all show and no substance stall in the PCM... 

675 Ponce De Leon Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30308

404) 724-9700 

http://brezzacucina.com/