Pizza A Metro offers up tasty Italian and wood-fired pizza by the meter

How do you say "wildfire" in Italian?

Trust me, it won't stay hidden for long.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever gotten so many recommendations to check out a single restaurant in such a short period of time. A couple of friends did some early scouting, and I could listen to them rave about delicious pastas and wood-fired pizzas only for so long before I gave in to my cravings and checked the place out last month. A few days later, an anonymous reader left a voicemail promising that a visit to Pizza A Metro would be worth my while. One of my favorite hard-to-impress foodie pals mentioned that he'd also been there recently and found it pretty tasty. And not long before I sat down to write this column, yet another friend e-mailed to share the lowdown on this unlikely little spot in her neighborhood.

I can take a hint, people — and I couldn't agree with you more.

This is the kind of place you could drive past a zillion times and not notice, in a Circle K strip mall on Thomas Road, just a few blocks east of I-17. If you're heading there from the east, you won't see it until you've almost passed it, so look for a small neon "Pizza" sign directing you to the right. I imagine this space must've housed a number of pizza joints over the years, as the sign looks pretty weathered.

Pizza A Metro, though, is just six months old. Owner Maurizio Benforte, a native of Sorrento, Italy, tells me it's his first restaurant.

"Wow, what a natural," I think to myself.

Then he explains that it's his first business in the States — that he owned a restaurant in his hometown for years before moving to the U.S. five years ago.

Okay, that makes more sense. Benforte's scrumptious menu, his enthusiastic, welcoming treatment of customers, his tireless work ethic (over a number of visits, I witnessed him single-handedly wait on customers, bus tables, hand over takeout orders, answer the phone, and even make delivery runs, with one or two employees busy in the kitchen) — it's all evidence that this guy's a pro. This fall, he plans to open a second and considerably larger restaurant, Amarone, at 90th Street and Via Linda, in North Scottsdale.

One reason he decided to move to the States was the comparative ease of opening a business here — something I've heard from other local Italian entrepreneurs.

"You don't have a big profit in Italy," Benforte says. "In America, people go out to eat a few times a week, but in Italy, it's maybe once a month."

An even bigger reason was his wife, an American citizen. She has a career outside the restaurant industry, but she's still made her mark on Pizza A Metro, from the colorful seaside mural that takes up an entire wall, to cute hand-painted dishware depicting olives and birds and flowers.

The first thing I splurged on here was pizza, available in three sizes: small (a generous personal pie, as big as the plate it's served on), regular, and "metro." The restaurant's name means pizza by the meter, and you can really get it — the metro pizza is about 39 inches. I've seen subs by the foot before, but a meter-long pie is truly a sight to behold.

The crust was great — thin and crisp, with slightly chewy edges. The wood-fired oven added a touch of charring and a great smoky flavor. I sampled a few combinations of toppings, and each was delicious, with delicately sweet tomato sauce and gooey blobs of fresh mozzarella. One was topped with meaty slices of sausage and broccoli florets (the menu called for rapini, though), while another had flavorful pieces of meatball. My favorite was the "Frescolina," with paper-thin prosciutto draped over the pie, and fresh arugula scattered on top.

Among several antipasti, I enjoyed a simple mixed-greens salad with red wine vinaigrette, as well as a standard Caesar salad with Romaine and Parmesan. My only quibble with the first one was the tomatoes — they weren't quite ripe enough that day. The "Antipasto della Casa" was an eye-catching assortment of roasted yellow peppers, black olives, mushrooms, eggplant, prosciutto, and slices of tomato topped with diced fresh mozzarella. And grilled calamari, served with lemon wedges and a pile of salad, was fresh and tender.