This space has been a bunch of different things over of the years. All of them weird. When we first moved to the area, its was Soda Pop Shop, a throw-backy ice cream diner joint not unlike Holsten’s. Then it housed an expanded version of Greek Delights after it moved from the railcar thing on Park St. Following that it was home first to Fiamma, which presumably brought in the current pizza ovens, and then the oddly, similarly named Fiamella. While I never patronized either previous pizza incarnations, we did hit up Soda Pop Shop with Hipster Jr. and ordered takeout from Greek Delights quite a few times. And what I always noticed is that the place is awkward. It’s illogically shaped, making a seating pattern almost impossible to feng shui, and has a recessed front door that creates these strange glassed-in table alleys on either side of the entry that no person who doesn’t have a goldfish fetish would want to sit in. There is a reason these places didn’t make it, and it all starts with the space itself.
Walking in, it’s clear that Zod (who I’m pretty sure kicked the shit out of Superman) put some effort into making the space as warm as humanly possible. But it still suffers from the jankiness it always has. It feels cutoff or truncated in an unnatural way in order to keep the cavernous depth of the thing in check. There may be a separate private room behind the now-divided room, but I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. But, given the fact we were able to grab a reservation on a Friday night for five at a very normal time, it doesn’t bode well that they’ve solved the this-joint-is-just-too-large problem. It feels like it wants to be a more intimate, sexy restaurant. But it has a body built for overalls. Anyhow, they do the best they can to make it comfortable, and mostly succeed through wall textures, ceiling patterns and low, soft lighting. Mostly.
Now, Zod. He is not, in fact, a D.C. space criminal, but a dude who once had a popular restaurant in Montclair called Blu. And, later, a joint that was literally next door to Blu (and, coincidently next door to this space), called… Next Door. We did eat at one or both of them, but I couldn’t tell you a thing we ate. I do recall both restaurants being almost unbearably narrow — akin to eating dinner in the Star Wars trash compactor — which perhaps is just a thing with this guy. Oddball spaces, that is. Anyhow, despite my limited memory of my experience, they were considered Montclair haute cuisine and were popular with the Upper Montclairites who dared slum it downtown to dine on the fancier side of things. And then he pulled up stakes, closed both restaurants and skipped town. I’m not exactly sure what happened from there — he did open and close a restaurant, Wicked Jane, in NYC at some point during COVID — but he’s back. If you read his bio, he’s worked some cool places, but for very short stints. He’s a restless rock ‘n’ roll musician at heart, I guess. So, he plays something, gets out of it what he wants and moves on. For people who like Italiana, let’s hope he’s mellowed in his old(er) age and sticks around for a while. Lord, I’m a ramblin’ man.
But, yeah, we were here with three other adults, five in total. I’m generally a passive eater. As an only child, sharing is optional, but if people decide to get “apps for the table,” I just stay out of it. I generally just say that if something is all pork, you guys enjoy, but I’m not having it. Otherwise, I say “sounds good” to everything. With that in mind, I don’t agree with the ordering that went on apps-wise. We ended up with the fire roasted beets with quinoa, arugula, citrus vinaigrette and olive oil. Turns out, none of those things have any taste. Literally, look at that list of things and think about the flavor generated by any of them. So it’s more of a textural thing, which ended up being kind of a moist jelly in grass sand vibe. It wasn’t as bad as all that, but it flatlined from the start. No fire. No roast. And we got a fresh lemon pizza, which has lemon, chili, fresh mozzarella, pecorino and almonds. It’s the last pizza on the short list of five I would have ordered. Turns out it basically tastes like spicy cured lemons, with that odd chewy almond slice thing that happens when they’re exposed to moisture. Granted, it was certainly interesting (others at the table were surprised by the chili heat and the strong lemony flavor) but not something I ever need to eat again. And with the truffle pizza sitting right there! There may have been a third thing — a salad or something — but I didn’t touch it.
I then hemmed and hawed about my main. Turns out I really didn’t need to, as five out out of five people at the table rated their entrees as middling. There was some duck pasta special that sounded quite good. A couple folks got it and turns out, not so much. Ms. Hipster stole my usual, fusilli bolognese, and was unimpressed. I thought about the paccheri in spicy vodka sauce, but ultimately went with the chicken parm after being told by our [very nice] server that they’d recently “upgraded” it after moving from a baked to a more authentic deep fried version. Truthfully, I have no clue how “authentic” chicken parm is made, but it is on the perfect food list, so it’s tough to pass up. I can say this, deep fried it definitely was. The issue being that a large chunk of chicken left in the fryer even a minute too long becomes a pretty dry, daunting piece of food. Not sure if this was the intentional preparation, I took to Instagram and, yes, it seems everything on my plate was intentional. Issue is, however they put this thing together, it’s 90% slab of chicken, 5% sauce and 5% cheese. The fry on the chicken somehow evaporated what sauce may have been on top and kind of fused the cheese to it, conflating everything into a more decorative topping of sauce and cheese than a functionalone. So, it’s essentially a giant, dark fried chicken finger with nothing to dip it in. The flavor was relatively on point, but it ate heavy and very dry. I had to grab sauce and pasta from the side bowl to kind of grease the wheels. It worked, but I shouldn’t have had to work so hard to make this a functional meal.
Some dessert was ordered — a tiramisu and maybe a tres leches — but I didn’t partake. I’d certainly eaten quite enough food as it was. But, like the other grub, nothing elicited much of a reaction. I suppose the good thing is that the prices aren’t absurd. The chicken parm is technically the only entree on the menu — which is, a little odd — but at $28 it’s not the worst thing in 2026. The pastas, which make up the majority of the rest of the menu, are mostly in the mid-twenties. Which would have been steep a few years ago, but is now pretty par for the course for a mid-tier joint in the suburbs. I imagine Zod tries out new menu items as specials first and then perhaps subs them in if they hit. But, as it stands, the choices are pretty limited. That said, there is something for everyone if you enjoy pizza and pasta. I would have definitely gotten the meatball app and just a margarita or the truffle pizza (wild mushroom, fontina, ricotta and roasted onion) instead of the beets and that lemon pie if it were up to me, but it’s my problem to deal with. The restaurant has been open a little less than a year at this point, so they’re out of the newbie excuse zone. Maybe we just hit an off night, or ordered poorly. I’d be willing to give it one more try just because it’s conveniently located and feels like it should be better. Plus, I liked the people working there, and the vibes they rock on social look pretty fun. And who has ever been fooled by a place or person’s online presence? Never!
558 Bloomfield Ave. – Montclair
973/433-9213
italianabyzod.com
