Bites Nearby: Amorina

Each week, Prospect Heights Patch picks a great restaurant either in the neighborhood or nearby worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

Overview: Unlike its older sibling, the upscale across the street, Amorina is a checkered-tablecloth casual restaurant specializing in individual thin-crust pizza with unique toppings. But despite its low-key decor, the boutique pizzeria is serious about its food, making No. 5 on Zagat's most recent list of best NYC pizza places this year ( was No. 7). Owner Albano Ballerini is dedicated to using local and organic ingrediants, sacrificing both tenets only occasionally and in the quest of quality (or, when absolutely necessary, price).     

Decor: The cozy restaurant has a casual, friendly, and very child-friendly vibe. The employees are, for the most part, also devotees of the local food movement and in turn are devoted to Ballerini, the restaurant and serving food pizza. "They're freaks for pizza," Ballerini said in an interview. 

The Drinks: They have a large selection of wines, as well as beer, Boylan sodas and San Pellegrino Limonata.

Appetizers: Offerings include Ceci e Cipolle, chickpea salad with red onions over arugula; Deliziosa, endive, goat cheese, beet salad; Antipasto Italiano; Vizietto, fresh mozzarella, anchovies and capers and Caponata, traditional eggplant antipasto.  

Pizza: The specialty is thin-crust individual pizzas topped with traditional toppings such as fresh mozzarella, stewed tomatoes, sausage and artichokes as well as more unusual offerings such as the Carbonara with pancetta, parmigiano and fresh eggs, the Gorgonzola e Frutta, with gorgonzola, figs, pears and honey and the GialloRossa with dried cherries, orange zest, creme fraiche and nutmeg. There are also daily specials. 

Pasta: Dishes include the standards: spaghetti with marinara sauce or with meatballs, meat lasagne and eggplant parmigiana as well as spaghetti with calamari and peas, tortellini with meat sauce as well as rigatoni with cremini and porcini mushrooms.

Desserts: Besides the GialloRossa pizza (above), there is tiramisu, ricotta cheesecake, pine nut tart and flourless chocolate cake. 

Address: 624 Vanderbilt Ave.

Phone: 718-230-3030

Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Delivery: They cover all of Prospect Heights as well as large swaths of Fort Greene and Park Slope. $10 minimum. 

Cost: $$ (Most appetizers range from $6 to $8.50, individual pizzas from $9.50 to $13.50, pastas from $9.50 to $13.50 and most desserts are $5.25.)