Il Forno in Lakeland, FL

I ate dinner at Il Forno in Lakeland. Hidden in the back of a strip mall, Il Forno seemed a little hard to find without already being in the mall. Apparently the location isn't hurting them since the restaurant was pretty crowded when I visited.

We ordered a large cheese pizza. Florida is the land of mediocre pizzas, so I wasn't expecting anything great. Not expecting much made it even better when it turned out Il Forno makes a very nice NY style pie. The pizza had a thin crust with a good sauce to cheese ratio. Some people find this disgusting, but I like it when oil begins to pool on the surface of the cheese on a pizza. It happened here. Beside being well made, the pizza was also very tasty. The sauce had good flavor and the cheese was nice and salty. Unfortunately, my picture of the slice doesn't do the pizza justice. Everyone at the table ravenously grabbed their slices with the pizza fresh out of the oven. Since the cheese was still a bit molten, it made the slice look a bit messy. It looked better in real life!

So far I've had three different pizzas in Lakeland. Il Forno has my favorite so far!