I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m not a huge sweet sauce person. And I think that’s because any sweet sauce pizzas that I’ve had overdid it! Those pizzas ended up being so overly saucy that they poor out with each bite, so all you taste is sauce. I guess it’s not necessarily the sweet sauce’s fault, it’s whoever the heck is dumping it on the pie!

But Mattina’s Pizzeria, their sweet sauce was ideal.

Occasion 

Wine tours are my kind of day drinking. I recently went on a wine tour in the Niagara Wine Trail to celebrate a friend’s birthday and it was lovely! We went to many wineries, including Niagara Landing Wine Cellars, A Gust of Sun Winery, Spring Lake Winery, and Black Willow Winery.

I’m all about the sweet wines, preferably white and rosé! I’ve been along this trail before and have found it has far more sweet wines than dry compared to the Finger Lakes wine trails, which has a good mix of both.

Niagara Landing Wine Cellars probably had the most sweet wines collectively, so I was a big fan. My favorite of all local wines in WNY though is the Zia Minx from Spring Lake Winery! Yum!!!

My blogger pals: Succulents and Sunnies, Sandra Arianna Photography, BJ Magg, and Clearing Preppy’s Name. Check them out, they’re pretty awesome and talented women!

Following a day full of wine, we ended the evening going back to my friend’s apartment and ordering pizza with everyone. It was like sweet music to my ears when someone suggested we order pizza, especially to my comfortably wine-buzzed self.

She suggested Mattina’s Pizzeria (Williamsville location), her family’s favorite pizza place.

Selection

What’s your go-to pizza order for a large group?

We ordered two sheet pizzas for everyone to share. One was all cheese and the other was cheese, pepperoni, and onion.

I typically hate plain cheese pizza because all you taste is cheese, but since I heard Mattina’s had a wonderful sweet sauce, I knew I’d be willing to try it out to see how the sauce added flavor!

Someone had mentioned Mattina’s onions were always kind of weird as well, often excessive, long, and pretty uncooked. I was interested to see how this played out too…

Living That Sweet Life 

There is no better feeling than two things: 1. A waiter/waitress coming to your table with your fresh pizza in hand or 2. The delivery man/woman ringing your doorbell with your pizza box.

My heart practically exploded seeing the two giant sheet pizzas arriving, especially coming down from the wine tour festivities by this point.

I couldn’t even tell you what my first two slices tasted like, considering I literally inhaled them without thought!! I think one was the pepperoni/onion and one was the plain cheese. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do… it’s worth it.

But luckily I knew it was decent pizza because I still wanted more!

So only about a minute later after I inhaled I went for my third piece with a more rational approach. Luckily with a sheet pizza the pieces aren’t huge, so 4-5 pieces really isn’t as crazy as it seems.

The plain cheese pizza was amazing; probably the best I’ve ever had and I preferred it over a multi-topping pizza. The cheese wasn’t too milky or too much in quantity, as I like it. It had an array of Italian spices throughout the cheese that made it seem authentic. You could imagine someone taking the time and care to sprinkle these herbs on the pizza.

And this SAUCE. I usually prefer the herby, spicy kind of sauces, but this sweet sauce was done so well. It mostly had to do with quantity. It wasn’t oozing out with each bite. It wasn’t overpowering the taste of the cheese. It wasn’t making the dough soggy. The blend of sweet tomato with Italian herbs on the cheese had this pizza working wonderfully together.

I topped off my inhale of a dinner with the pepperoni and onion again, making this slice #4. And people weren’t lying… The onions were unnecessarily huge and not finely chopped like on normal pizzas. It was a little odd, but good thing I like onions on my pizza because there was a lot of them! The pepperoni was normal Buffalo-style cup and char pepperoni, which is always satisfying to me.

This is very unlike me since I love meat and veggies, but I do have to say I liked Mattina’s plain cheese best! You really taste the sweet sauce work well with minimal ingredients: spices, cheese, and dough. Sweet and simple!

Maybe there will be more sweet sauce pizzas in my future… thanks to Mattina’s!

Pizza & love,

Mandy