Pizzeria Guido does pizza right

When the weather is good, you will often find Salvatore Lembo sitting outside his 15-year-old Firenze restaurant at Bellevue's Crossroads Mall, at a table right next to the front door. Perhaps with some wine, or food — always conducting business and conversation within eye- and earshot of everything going on around him. It is the Italian way.

It is also a perfect spot to keep an eye on his newer venture, 2-year-old (plus) Pizzeria Guido — named for his father, just two shops down, right across the street from the Crossroads Cinema. His Firenze is the spot for more formal dining. Guido? You go for the pizza.

The menu: The long list ranges from antipasti (cold and hot), soups and salads to baked pastas, pizza and calzone. There are some classic antipasti here (mixed cold cuts, $12.50; mixed cold cuts and cheese, $15; and cured beef, arugula and oil, $15, a favorite of mine at home). The pizzas are divided into those with tomato sauce and those without — normale and bianche, for example. The crusts are thin (Neapolitan style, for the most part), the ingredients measured. You won't find your 1 ½-inch American version here, adrip and overloaded.

What to write home about: Here's what I like — a pizza and a beer. You go to a pizza place, hey, whaddya gonna have? So, two of us split a Napoletana (tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, capers, $13.50), my test of good pizza wherever I happen to eat it. Nicely done. We also split a schiacciata — yet one more version of Italian flatbread, this typically Tuscan — con radicchio (radicchio, olive oil, salt and pepper, $11.50). My favorite. I could eat thin, manageably coated bread like this for days.

The setting: Pizzeria Guido sits across the street from Crossroads Cinema at Bellevue's Crossroads Mall. The restaurant is on a corner, lots of windows, lots of light during the day, lots of cars and headlights and people coming and going in the evening. It's a large-sized, wide-open room where you can see and hear everything going on around you — and that's including live mandolin music Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Summing up: Our order of two pizzas and two Moretti beers ($4.50 each) came to $43, including tax and tip. The movie across the street was extra.

Terry Tazioli: 206-464-2224

or ttazioli@seattletimes.com