Don Giovanni

Excellent! Loved the service the beers and the pizza. More than 2 thumbs up! I’m going to drive from iselin to get my pizza here. And oh yes Tony, your going! Lol Mr pizza lover.

Had the sausage pizza two weeks ago — thought it was very good. Nice fresh tomato sauce with great sausage and cheese and tasty crust. Ordered a plain cheese pizza today — completely different experience. Crust was like cardboard, sauce and cheese were subpar. To add insult to injury, service totally sucked. I called to ask how long for delivery and was told forty minutes but if we picked up, it would be 15 –20 minutes. I opted to pick up and left the house fifteen minutes later arriving at the restaurant at the 20 minute mark. I gave the girl behind the bar my name — she took my money then went to check the oven. Nothing was said to me at this point. It turns out, the pizza in the oven was a house pie and the guy making the pizza hadn’t even put mine in yet. Since I’m sick with a bad head cold, it took me a few minutes to figure all this out and by that time I decided to just wait it out because I remembered how much I enjoyed the sausage pizza. Bad decision on my part!!! Never again! Save your money, save your time. I expect that they will close once again.

Didn’t care for it at all when it first opened and the owner, (some obnoxious chiropractor & slum lord) was rude to the customers. The food was not great and over-​priced. They closed for a very long time after Super Storm Sandy. After they re-​opened, the food and service was much better; we went back whenever we were in the area. Rumour had it the owner and manager had a falling out and they closed again for a very long time. Their local residential neighbors are hoping they go out of business forever but I am hoping this time, they stick around. Had their Rustica pizza the other day and it was great.

I’ll start with location. I think it’s a great spot with lots of street parking (and a small lot in the back). The restaurant itself is beautifully done, very clean and modern.
Service was friendly but so slow. Our order took an extremely long time to come out (about 40 minutes for one pie), even though we were practically the only ones there. Our waitress never once checked in with us to let us know what was going on.
Now here’s my dilemma… I hate to give a new place a bad rating. The food is one of the biggest reasons to return to a place. Maybe we just didn’t choose well. We ordered one small margherita pie. The sauce was watery and the crust soggy and tasteless. The cheese did taste pretty fresh. I bumping up my rating and maybe will return to try something different.
I’d definitely suggest skipping the margherita pie and maybe going for a traditional.

I’ve heard many people diss this place in the past which made me hesitant to try it. Out of a whim I went for it last night. The food is fantastic I loved everything about it! A great price, kind customer service and delivery top notch! Definitely my new pizza place!

Good food, eggplant parm was great but the food took 1 hour and 20 minutes to get delivered when I was told 45 minutes.

The pictures had us excited for some good thick Napolitano style pizza. The pictures on the review must be really old because it was nothing like the picture. It was still pretty good but nothing exceptional than every other pizza shop in NJ.
Location: Good area. There’s only a few spots in the lot and some street parking.
Ambiance: Nice dinner setting
Cleanliness: Very clean and modern look. It felt safe eating there.
Crust: Okay just seems like its missing something to make it more flavorful
Sauce: Good
Cheese: Good
Selection: Generic. There wasn’t anything to set this place apart from the rest. Every place has a buffalo chicken or a chicken bacon ranch pizza these days.
Service: Helpful but slow. Our waitress was friendly but we were one of only four tables and it took forever to get our food. They were more concerned with placing more slices out than cooking sit down customers pies.
Price: I felt it’s a little on the expensive side.
Would I eat there again? Yes, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. This place has some potential but for right now it’s just average.

You people have WAYYY too much time on your hands to sit there and type away a negative review on a DELICIOUS upcoming restaurant. How dare they be so critical as if they know the restaurant business! Stop thinking youre some food network critic ! Haha sit down! Get off your phone. Free slice day? Your that cheap you give them one star and try to sabotage their business over $ 2?! You are a cheapo! I love their food. Mm lasagna slice! Rockin! Great enviorment. Try it yourself ! Not based off these corny reviews! They’re new owners! Give em a try support ya local business instead of a chain doody restaurant.

Been driving by this place for almost a year now and it was closed down. It finally re-​opened with a new owner. Finally I don’t have to drive to Red Bank for really good wood fired pizza. I am very picky about my pizza, I was excited to finally try Don Giovanni’s and thank God it was really good. Planning on going back during football season to watch games at their bar.

It is open. We just passed it. It was great, food, service. Will definitely go back.

On 8÷5÷15, Don Giovanni’s placed 2 signs in front of their restaurant that read «Free Slice Day» and the fine print said «*Cheese slice, toppings extra» but when I went in to get my free slice they said that it’s not free. You have to buy 1 slice at $ 2 then you get one free. I asked why the sign didn’t say that, at least in the fine print. The owner (bald guy) was SO RUDE and said the sign is correct and doesn’t understand why I’m confused! Not sure if he fully grasps the English language or what true advertising is but I will NEVER GO THERE AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU!
How can I as a customer (or you) trust anything they advertise? Or any of their prices on the menu or better yet the food on the menu? They are deceiving and should not be trusted.

Our staples here are the calamari and vodka pizza. SO GOOD. The restaurant WAS closed temporarily previously, but is definitely open now.
We really enjoy this place for pizza versus the other local spots because it’s a bit more gourmet, thin crust, authentic than the typical jersey pizza. Not knocking the typical pizza, but this place will settle a craving. The décor is really nice and service has always been very good. Don Giovanni’s is worth checking out.

I am very happy to say this place made a sharp turn around from the first few months they were open. They shut down for a month or so and got reorganized, new menu, new cooks and manager and did a really great job. They have lunch specials every day, have a nice bar to sit at while you wait (or eat at) and turn out orders quick while keeping the quality up.
Grilled chicken, with roasted red peppers, fresh mozzerella, and balsamic vinaigrette here is excellent. It’s not on the menu but they make it really well.
Fantastic pizza, calzones, and garlic knots are the perfect bite size and always fresh.

Nice décor and atmosphere. The burrata salad was awesome, the pesto that came with it tasted great with it. Good pizza, fairly inexpensive.

Im gonna set my review under this Don Giovanni because the logo is the same as what I saw on the menu. Seems this place has had a reopen and there are two reviews listed, one with 14 reviews. I’m all about honesty and giving a fair review so what I write here might sting a little bit, but I promise in the end it won’t be so bad.
I really wanted to give this place a 4 star rating. The décor seems to fit this place well. Unfortunately, thats not all I can go based on. I started with their sangria. It was very good. I moved onto some appetizers, Friend Raviolis and the Fried Mac N Cheese balls. The raviolis were great, the Mac N Cheese were cold in the middle. I was truly disappointed, but our server was cool about it.
Pizza came out. It was a simple plain pie with extra cheese & basil, nothing too crazy. With the place being empty and no pies coming out, I believe the oven was cooking to fast and burnt the bottom of the pie making it taste bad on half of the pie. Th other half was edible. The part that was good, the pizza was delicious.
For dessert we had deep fried ice cream. I would scrap that off the menu. Even though we could finish it, I just didn’t see this item being popular, it had a funny texture to it.
Our server, which might be invested in the place, was super cool about everything and offered me a few items off the bill. His laughter, jokes, and willingness to make it right will allow me to come back to give them another try. I won’t give up on them just yet.

Best margarita pizza in this area! I only ordered takeout so I cant say much about the dining experience, but I can say that the person who took my order and was there when I picked it up was very nice! They have reopened and changed their menu a bit, but the pizza is delicious. I cant wait to stop in for dinner or even for a slice (who am I kidding 2 or 3) for lunch. How awesome is a place that you could sit and have a glass of wine and a slice of pizza? Thanks don giovanni for classing this area up, much needed!

Good ingredients with poor implementation ! Salads were generous. No fresh ground pepper!
We ordered a DOP Magarita pie. It was too wet and the crust limpy! Could use more salt in the dough. Too much money for a medium sized pizza.
Dessert and coffees were fresh.

My wife and I went there for a nice dinner to celebrate Valentine’s day. Being that this is South Amboy, we weren’t expecting what we were about to experience. The first thing is that the décor is wonderful. It’s pleasant to enter and the wood-​fire stove is staring at you as you enter. The artwork and the bar were very nice and created a nice experience for us.
We were excited to try some of the food and the menu was more than sufficient. It’s not a typical NJ diner so the menu isn’t vast, but what’s on it is a good selection of high-​quality options. We ordered an appetizer, called something like spiedeto, which was cheese wrapped with prosciutto, then cooked in the wood fire. It was absolutely delicious. We also had the Arugula salad which was a good-​sized portion. Like the appetizer, this was spectacular. The balsamic dressing was wonderful.
For our meals we ordered pizzas. I had the diavalo (pepperoni and chili flakes) and my wife had a custom pizza with sweet Italian sausage, carmelized onions and balsamic glaze. Both were tasty and a welcome change from traditional NJ pizzas. You could tell they used the best ingredients for the pizzas.
The experience wasn’t without it’s flaws as I ordered a beer from the menu that was no longer on tap and instead of asking me if I wanted something different, they just brought me a different one. My wife also ordered a glass of wine that had some cork in it, however, they handled this wonderfully by providing a new glass and not charging us for any wine.
Overall, the food was amazing and we welcome the attempt to bring a finer dining experience to our hometown. Once the service matures this will be the top of the list for places to eat in South Amboy.

* Decent Pizza with fresh ingredients
* Prices are too high (I paid more here than I did at Ovest, in Manhattan)
* Waitstaff is juvenile (some looked too young to serve beer & wine (under 18))
* Atmosphere & décor is very nice
I was really looking forward to seeing this restaurant, Don Giovani’s flourish. I live in South Amboy and one thing that would make our community better would be successful restaurants. That being said, the food on the menu is priced too high. The pizza was good, but not good enough to warrant the price.
The staff was uneducated about the food. They were very young girls that probably never had experience waiting tables before. I asked for a glass of Chianti and the waitress never heard if it before. I had to point it out on the menu! The waitstaff is completely unprofessional, which is fine for a diner, but when you spend money for «authentic Italian pizza» you would expect the wait staff to be professional and educated.
My pizza took over 30 minutes to arrive on a quiet Thursday evening. It was obvious the first one burnt up in the oven, which happens from time to time I guess, but it seemed as though the cook was having trouble controlling the temperature of his oven.
I’ll give it another week or so, hoping that they have ironed out their issues, because I want nothing more than a restaurant to flourish in South Amboy. I would also be the first to rescind my 2 star rating if I see improvement, but it needs to happen fast.

This place is open again. I think under new ownership. They have switched it up and done a more take out/​slice menu.
Not sure the pizza is the same yet:
Great Italian pizza. The pizza dough is special. Can’t believe I am tasting Italy here in little olé’ South Amboy. Order more pizza than you think you can eat. They go down easy and then it’s all gone. Looking forward to any pasta dishes they may start to make.