Unlike the pizza place de rigueur in this city, Oakland Trattoria bakes their pizzas in a wood-fired oven and offers a lot more than just cheese and pepperoni.

“This place is very college student,” said my non-college student dining companion as we took our seats at Oakland Trattoria on a dreary Monday evening.

Its ideal location on Oakland Avenue and the extremely laid back atmosphere add to the hype among University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students of the now locally famous college eatery that many have nicknamed, “the Trat.”

Unlike the pizza place de rigueur in this city, Oakland Trattoria bakes their pizzas in a wood-fired oven and offers a lot more than just cheese and pepperoni.

On my first visit, the BBQ Chicken pizza ($8.95) sounded too good to pass up. Slices of chunky chicken breast dressed in a glittering array of barbeque sauce, red onion and my favorite herb of them all, cilantro.

The layers of smoked Gouda and mozzarella cheeses were plentiful and almost on the “too cheesy” side of the spectrum (is there such a thing as too much cheese to a Wisconsinite?)

The pizza was very good. The chicken, aided by the juicy barbeque sauce, was surprisingly moist and the crust was thin, crunchy and slighted charred.

On my last visit, we decided on trying our hand at making our own pizza. Unfortunately, there was no hand tossing or sauce spreading going on but, we did get to pick out our own ingredients which made for an interesting pizza.

Prosciutto, anchovies, basil and for a delicious counterbalance to the saltiness of the proteins. Pineapple made for an extraordinary pizza that I will most likely end up creating again. Since proscuitto is salt cured and thinly sliced pork and anchovies are used distinctively for their salty seafood flavor, the pineapple calmed down the competing flavors and brought them all out nicely.

I did end up trying a pasta dish, as well. The Traditional Lasagna ($10.95) was well… very traditional. Layers of dense noodles, ricotta cheese and ground Italian sausage made this a hearty meal that I should have reserved an entire third visit for.

Pizza and pasta at Oakland Trattoria are very well done, but too much to eat together in one sitting.

However, our server on my first visit, Lindsey, should not go unnoticed. Rarely do I mention individual servers at the places I frequent, but our experience was heightened because of her attention to detail and upbeat attitude.

Being a predominantly college crowd eatery, I walked in with preconceived notions of what the service might entail. I’m used to it, especially around the campus restaurants, and hardly make note when service was bad. But when my experience becomes better and my thoughts of the restaurant as a whole differ because of an individual employee, it should be rewarded (in my own very small way of a slight mention).

My thanks and appreciation go out to Oakland Trattoria and their staff members for changing my views on what I once feared and desperately tried to avoid on Oakland Avenue…the restaurants.

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