Ambrogio15

Ambrogio15 opened last month, serving Milanese-style pizza. The trio of owners are all originally from Milan. Ambrogio is patron saint of Milan and the name of a church in their hometown and 15 refers to the diameter of their paper-thin pizza crust.



We were invited to dine here during their soft opening weekend. The interior looked quite warm and inviting. Unfortunately, we only got a quick glance of it as we were seated in their patio section, which was basically a small area of four tables in front of the restaurant which haven’t yet been given the care and attention of the interior. I was initially surprised by the seating, but didn’t want to be difficult. However, sitting outside on hard patio furniture when we were dressed for and expecting a nice dinner date definitely did take away from the dining experience. Instead of seeing their wine collection or pizzas cooking in the oven, we had a choice of staring at the parking lot or at the window of the restaurant. What made things more confusing was that not a single other diner was seated outside during our meal. We actually greeted several of our friends who came in later for their reservations, who met us with puzzled glances as to why we were outside by ourselves. Okay, rant over. Moving on to the food.

The food was very good. Even with the awkward dining experience, I found myself immediately recommending the restaurant to several friends who live in the area.

Scrocchiarella Crudo

The restaurant serves two kinds of focaccia, a thin and a thick-style. We were quite curious and decided to try them both. This is the thin and crispy one. It reminded me of flatbread sandwiches, filled with prosciutto crudo di Parma, imported burrata cheese, local cherry tomatoes, mixed greens and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano.


The thin and crunchy focaccia was quite delightful and unlike any focaccia I’ve tasted before. We really enjoyed trying this and found the filling ingredients to be well-balanced.

Nuvola Porchetta

This is their thicker-style focaccia, topped with burrata and imported Italian Porchetta. While the bread was very soft and fluffy, I actually found it to be a bit too thick. It was a lot of bread to handle and I found myself preferring the scrocchiarella. However, the thin slices of cold porchetta were moist, smoky and savory.

Pizza Margherita

Though we were getting full by this point, we couldn’t leave without trying their pizza. As explained to us by one of the owners, the pizza they serve here is thinner than what you’ll find in Milan. They stretch it as thin as possible, for a very crispy crust.

We chose the very simple margherita. The crust that was presented to us was indeed, the thinnest crust I’ve ever experienced on a pizza in the US. I don’t think you can get any thinner and still call it a pizza. With such a thin crust though, the rest of the ingredients on the pizza become so much more important. Here, they really delivered. The flavors were robust and vibrant, making each bite very enjoyable.

Tiramisu in Coppa

For dessert, we shared a tiramisu served in a glass cup. It was light, not too sweet, and the perfect way to end our meal.

Overall, we really enjoyed the food here. I wish we had a chance to enjoy the atmosphere more and next time I’ll try to make sure I’m seated inside. I realize it was the soft opening so the restaurant was still working things out and seating us outside might have been one of those issues. The food here though, is definitely a little different from most of the Italian pizza restaurants that currently exist in San Diego and is worth checking out.

Menu:

Ambrogio15
926 Turquoise St, San Diego, CA 92109

Please note, as stated above, we were invited to their soft opening weekend and our meal was complimentary. All opinions remain my own.