Pie in the sky

NAMES can be deceiving. Take, for example, Don Antonio's Pizzeria. Based on the name, I expected a small pizza place offering a few hot sandwiches and some fried appetizers. After a little research, however, I learned it was actually a serious-but-casual Italian restaurant with one of the most diverse Italian menus in Las Vegas. And after one visit, I've already become a fan.

Don Antonio's pizza selections alone demonstrate more variety than I've found anywhere else in town. They offer both thin-crust New York-style ($5.50 and up) and Chicago deep dish ($11.99 and up). Each is available with a variety of toppings, from the traditional to the innovative. House specialties include a lemon zest pizza made with white sauce, lemon zest and mozzarella, a Mexican variety featuring ham, pineapple and jalapeno, and a Greek version created with kalamata olives, feta cheese, Roma tomatoes, onions and green peppers (each $18.99). But the most exciting part of the pizza menu for me is the Sicilian pizza ($13.99 and up) -- a large, square, thick-crust variety I used to enjoy in my childhood, but which I've never seen anywhere else in Las Vegas.

Yet as varied as Don Antonio's pizza offerings are, they only take up about 10 percent of the restaurant's menu. And the rest of the offerings are even more impressive. You'll find a large selection of calzones and rolls ($5.99-$7.99), hot sandwiches ($4.99-$8.99), Boar's Head brand deli sandwiches ($5.99-$7.99) and Italian panini ($6.99-$8.99). Even burgers are available with either Angus ($6.99) or "Kobe" beef ($9.99).

If you want a more formal meal, start with one of two-dozen appetizers that range from standards such as chicken fingers ($6.99) and baked clams ($9.99) to more exotic choices such as neck bones in a tangy pepperoncini sauce ($9.99) or broccoli rabe sautéed in garlic and oil ($6.99). Then there are more than a dozen and a half salad choices ($2.25-$11.99), as well as a soup of the day.

Any detailed description of the diverse entrée selection would take up more space than I have in this column. Suffice it to say, you'll find countless steaks and chops ($9.99-$24.99), traditional Italian meat dishes ($9.99-$29.99) and pastas ($7.99-$29.99). To give you just one example of how extensive the choices are, they offer three different versions of fettucini carbonara -- a dish many Italian restaurants don't offer at all.

Like the menu, the dining room at Don Antonio's is considerably larger than what you'll find at a typical pizzeria. (It seats 260.) Yet when I visited at 8 p.m. on a Thursday night, the place was packed.

The décor is casual but nice. An open kitchen stands on one side of the room. Tables feature red- and white-checkered tabletops that recall traditional pizzeria tablecloths. Posters on the walls are split between tributes to New York and Las Vegas. And the waitstaff is casual and friendly.

My wife and I originally attempted to order appetizers of scungilli (conch) in marinara sauce ($9.99) and sautéed broccoli rabe ($6.99). But when we told our choices to our waitress she looked concerned and told us the restaurant frequently ran out of both of those dishes. Before taking the order, she went to the back to check, and returned to tell us they did, in fact, have the seafood dish, but did not have the vegetable. Fortunately, they had a very similar second choice in stock: traditional sautéed greens made with spinach and broccoli with oil and garlic ($6.99). For entrees, we both opted for simple, traditional pasta dishes. My wife ordered penne puttanesca ($10.99), while I had linguini in white clam sauce ($10.99).

Everything we tried was delicious. The well-spiced marinara perfectly accented the slices of tender scungilli without overpowering them, while the greens were perfectly sautéed with plenty of garlic. My wife's very traditional puttanesca was rich and salty, packed with two types of olives, sardines, capers and tomatoes. My linguini, by contrast, was in a light, delicately spiced clam sauce, with more than a dozen littleneck clams in their shells. (I actually would have liked a bit more garlic, but I'm something of a garlic fanatic.)

Before we left, I decided to order a small (eight-inch) New York pizza to go. The crust really wasn't thin enough to qualify as true New York style, but that can happen in very small pizzas. Nonetheless, I loved the sauce, which was well-spiced with garlic and oregano.

With its massive menu, it will take me quite a few more visits to get an idea of all that Don Antonio's has to offer. (My next visit will be for the Sicilian pizza.) So far, however, I like what I've tasted.