by Gavin M.
8 years old
Manhattan
My brother and I LOVE pizza. He loves pepperoni and I love plain. If my Mom and Dad would let us eat pizza every day we would! We went to a restaurant called Marta last month and we had a great time. Marta is part of the restaurant group that my Mom works for, Union Square Hospitality Group. They have 2 big wood-burning pizza ovens and awesome pizza. The pizza isn’t like most pizza places because it is what they call “Roman style.” My Mom and Dad promised that we would like it even though it’s different. They have delicious prosciutto and zucca fritta (butternut fries) that we all shared. They were terrific! I tried the pickled vegetables and they were good but I only tasted them. There were so many people there and it was loud and someone was having a birthday party on the balcony in the restaurant that looked like lots of fun.
Our server was really nice and talked to me and my brother instead of asking my Mom and Dad what we wanted and I think that’s cool. When our pizza came to the table we were so hungry but the pizza was super hot so we had to wait for it to cool down a little bit. Then we started to eat it right away. The pizza we got was Margherita. My Mom and Dad shared the Macellaio pizza that had sausage, guanciale and sopressata. I had a bite and it was really delicious. I wanted to pick all the guanciale off of the pizza but my Dad wouldn’t let me do that. My brother and I shared our pizza and it was so good. My Mom and Dad were right, it was not like the pizza we are used to, but we liked it a lot. My little brother got to see the wood-burning ovens up close with my Mom and he thought it was really cool. They are huge and their stacks go all the way to the ceiling.
The best part of our dinner came when dessert came! We had the Chocolate Budino, the Concord Almond Tart and the Cannoli Cheesecake. My brother and I tried them and we both loved them all. My favorite was the cheesecake. We almost had to sneak the last bite of the Chocolate because my Mom loves chocolate and she loved the Budino too. It was very cold that night when we left but we were glad we had full bellies to stay warm. I really liked Marta and I think I will try a different pizza when I go back, even if it’s just a bite of my Dad’s!