{"id":71304,"date":"2025-10-23T00:01:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T06:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nmgastronome.com\/?p=71304"},"modified":"2026-04-08T17:24:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:24:40","slug":"fat-olives-flagstaff-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nmgastronome.com\/?p=71304","title":{"rendered":"FAT OLIVES – Flagstaff, Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fat Olives in Flagstaff, Arizona<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several years and a couple of tons ago, my friend “Macho” Mike Moretti and I were the type of trenchermen that all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants feared so much they established strict time limits.\u00a0 When a German restaurant on San Mateo offered a free dessert to any diner who could finish a gargantuan combination plate, we easily surmounted the challenge and asked for seconds.\u00a0 Perhaps our most impressive culinary conquest transpired when Pizza Inn offered a “order one pizza, get the next size free” deal.\u00a0 We ordered an extra large pizza and a large pizza then polished them off.\u00a0 That was the last time I ever finished at least an entire pizza (about ten acres of pie) by myself.\u00a0 That is, the last time until my Kim and I paid an inaugural visit to Fat Olives in Flagstaff, Arizona.<\/p>\n

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Main Dining Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No ordinary pizza will you find at Fat Olives.\u00a0 The pizza for which I scaled the heights of gluttony placed third in the International Pizza Expo<\/strong><\/a> in 2014.\u00a0 That event hosts the largest assembly of pizzaiolo in the world.\u00a0 Its prestigious pizza-making competition in North America, if not the world.\u00a0 Third place places Fat Olives in rarefied air.\u00a0 Furthermore, Fat Olives is a Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN) certified pizzeria which means it adheres to strict age-old principles in the art of making true Neapolitan Pizza.\u00a0 Fat Olives has acquired D.O.C.(Dennomiazione di Origine Controllata) status, which specifies the legally permitted ingredients and methods of preparation necessary to provide authentic Neapolitan Pizza. Only four pizzerias in Arizona have this certification.<\/p>\n

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Guess Who Else Has Dined at Fat Olives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fat Olive’s oven (pictured below) was handcrafted in Italy by the Valoriani family, 5th generation oven builders.\u00a0 The restaurant uses only imported organic, non-GMO, San Marzano D.O.P tomatoes for its pizza sauce.\u00a0 Its \u201c00\u201d imported flour is also organic and GMO-free. Using the finest cheese curd and Sicilian sea salt, Fat Olives hand-makes over 500 pounds of Fior de latte (mozzarella) every week.\u00a0 Ingredients of the highest quality, attention to detail and strict adherence to standards established by exports, is it any wonder I wiped out an entire pizza.\u00a0 More on this prolific pie below…<\/p>\n

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Neapolitan Oven<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fat Olives might conceivably have remained a well-kept secret known only by locals and foodies until Food Network glitterati Guy Fieri brought his Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives program to Flagstaff.\u00a0 The menu pays homage to the spike-coiffured star with a blurb extolling “What Guy Ate.”\u00a0 For the record, Fieri had a Kenai pizza (white base, house-made mozzarella, pecorino Romano, and house-smoked salmon, which is a Copper River Delta salmon brined in water, Sicilian sea salt, and brown sugar, then smoked with hickory chips.\u00a0The pizza is finished with fresh dill, red onion, and a house-made dill cream. Our server told us Fieri followers (Guy’s gang) tend to order what he had. I sure was tempted–not because Fieri had the Kenai pizza, but out of respect for Wolfgang Puck who pioneered salmon on pizza.<\/p>\n

Three pizzas on the menu are categorized as “Verace Pizza Napoletana.”\u00a0 All pizza can be made gluten-free.\u00a0 Twelve add-ons are available should the pizza you want isn’t sufficiently adorned.\u00a0 There are thirteen pizzas listed on the “Pizza Classica” section of the menu, including an adovada pizza which placed fifth in the International Pizza Expo.\u00a0 That makes two Fat Olives pizzas to garner acclaim at the most prestigious pizza competition in the world.\u00a0 As you peruse the menu, you’ll quickly determine there’s much more than pizza…and there are diners who aren’t as passionate about pizza as yours truly.<\/p>\n

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Wood-Fired Stacciatella<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also on the menu are five items on the Insalata + La Zupa (Salad and Soup) section of the menu. Four of them are salads while the one soup is a house-made tomato-basil bisque. Eight items are listed in the “Antipasti” section. It’s tempting to order two (or eight) of those starters and consider that your entree. Five bruschetta boards, every one of them showcasing myriad ingredients, might also tempt you.\u00a0 As if all of this embarrassment of riches isn’t enough, the menu also lists Pasta + Lasagna.\u00a0 If you can’t visit Fat Olives regularly, you might curse the pizza for being so good that you might never enjoy this seven-item section.<\/p>\n

18 October 2025<\/strong>: Though all the Antipasti are enticing, your not-always-humble blogger recommends the wood-fired stracciatella<\/strong><\/em> a creamy, warm appetizer made with house-made mozzarella and ricotta, topped with a honey balsamic reduction and cracked pepper, and served with house-made crostini. It is finished with a drizzle of olive oil and can be optionally enhanced with Prosciutto di Parma. The dish is a rich and savory appetizer where the wood-fired cooking melts the cheeses together for a decadent starter.\u00a0 It may ruin all other Antipasti for you.\u00a0 Even as our arteries hardened, my Kim and I worked diligently to scrape every bit of the melted molten cheese from the bowl.<\/p>\n

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Belgio Dolce Pizza<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

18 October 2025<\/strong>: The pizza that won my heart is the Belgio Dolce<\/strong><\/em> (a creative, thin-crust pizza with a white cream sauce base, house-made mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, soppressata, and shaved brussel sprouts marinated in Calabrian chili oil. It is finished with crushed pistachios, a drizzle of local honey, and more chili oil for a spicy-sweet flavor profile.\u00a0 The name Belgio Dolce translates to “sweet Belgium” though our server couldn’t tell us why.\u00a0 This pizza is imbued with magic as well as a multifarious flavor profiles: spicy and savory (soppressata and Calabrian chili oil), sweet and nutty (honey and pistachios), and rich and creamy (white sauce and mozzarella). Thanks to the Pecorino Romano and the brussel sprouts, you can add umami and earthiness to the complex flavors that bless this pizza.<\/p>\n

18 October 2025<\/strong>: My Kim is one of those weird people who can visit a pizzeria and order a salad.\u00a0 Aargh!\u00a0 Why did I marry her?\u00a0 In her defense, that was no ordinary salad she had.\u00a0 Fittingly, it’s called Fat Olives<\/strong><\/em> (organic greens, goat cheese, dried currants, cranberries, candied pecans, red onions, lemon balsamic vinaigrette).\u00a0 Though olives aren’t a standard ingredient on this salad, you can always order marinated oven-roasted olives from the Antipasti section of the menu. Then you can add them as you please…or better still, enjoy some of the beauteous briny gems.\u00a0 This salad is large enough to constitute an annual allotment of greens for some people.\u00a0 It’s humongous.\u00a0 My Kim finished less than half of the salad and nearly wept that we couldn’t take it home.<\/p>\n

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Fat Olives Salad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

23 October 2025<\/strong>:\u00a0 Perform a Google search for “Italian grandmothers try Olive Garden for the first time<\/strong><\/a>” and the resultant returns are hilarious.\u00a0 Some Italian grandmothers held nothing back in their assessment of such Olive Garden favorites as bread sticks (“looks like a skinny d**k”), eggplant Parmesan (“what kind of sh*t is this?”) and lasagna (one grandmother was so appalled she didn’t even want to try it).\u00a0 Other Italian grandmothers were more gracious and kind.\u00a0 At least one grandmother even liked some of Olive Garden’s dishes.\u00a0 I wondered what those nonnas would have thought of Fat Olives signature lasagna<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our server, the effusive Matty, actually told us we wouldn’t regret ordering any of Fat Olives’ pasta dishes instead of pizza.\u00a0 She indicated most guests rave about the lasagna which is made with a ten-hour ragu, ricotta, mozzarella-Provolone blend, grana padano and a basil chiffonade.\u00a0 This lasagna is served in a casserole dish and doesn’t appear to have the layered appearance of traditional American-Italian lasagna.\u00a0 Several features stand out about this lasagna.\u00a0 First is the cheese blend, an extraordinary blend of three cheeses that most assuredly go very well together.\u00a0 Second is the ragu, an Italian meat-based sauce, slow-cooked (for ten hours) in a tomato sauce. I could bathe in that elixir.\u00a0 \u00a0Third is the basil chiffonade, thin slices of Italian basil.\u00a0 Frankly, every aspect of this lasagna is first-rate.\u00a0 It’s among the very best restaurant lasagna I’ve had outside of the Boston area.<\/p>\n

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Fat Olives Signature Lasagna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

23 October 2025<\/strong>:\u00a0 My favorite of all Italian pastas is rigatoni, a tube-shaped pasta with a wide, hollow interior and a ridged outer surface, making it excellent for capturing sauces.\u00a0 In all honesty, it’s not the flavor or texture that makes it my favorite pasta. It’s the ease with which it can be speared with a fork or even picked up with a spoon.\u00a0 It’s no secret among friends and family that my gigantic hands are better at destroying things than at creating things (other than words).\u00a0 My mom recognized I had the brains to become a doctor, but not the deft, gentle hands to perform surgery.<\/p>\n

Fat Olives’ rigatoni<\/strong><\/em> (ten-hour ragu, mozzarella-Provolone blend, fennel sausage, basil chiffonade, cream) is superb!\u00a0 \u00a0The portion size is gigantic, far more than my Kim could finish.\u00a0 Thankfully, it reheated well and as with so many Italian dishes, was even better the following day when the ragu really seeps into the pasta.\u00a0 My Kim’s love of fennel sausage (the type of which she grew up with in Chicago) is well known to frequent readers.\u00a0 Unlike some Italian restaurants, Fat Olives doesn’t slice sausage into chunks which are strewn indiscriminately into a pasta dish.\u00a0 Instead, the fennel sausage is part of the ragu which means its influence and deliciousness are more pronoiunced.<\/p>\n

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Rigatoni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fat Olives has been listed among the Food Network’s “Top Places to Eat.”\u00a0 It was ranked 35th on Yelp’s 2023 list of “Top 100 places for pizza.\u00a0 It’s consistently named not only Flagstaff’s best Italian restaurant, but best restaurant regardless of genre.\u00a0 It’s reason enough to visit Flagstaff…or maybe to move there.<\/p>\n

Fat Olives<\/strong>
\n2308 E. Route 66
\nFlagstaff, Arizona<\/strong>
\n(928) 853-0056
\nWebsite<\/strong><\/a> | Facebook Page<\/strong><\/a>
\nLATEST VISIT<\/strong>: 23 October 2025
\n1st VISIT<\/strong> 18 October 2025
\n# OF VISITS<\/strong>: 2
\nRATING<\/strong>: Outstanding<\/strong><\/span>\u2013A stand-out; delivers a memorable dining experience through a harmonious blend of exceptional food, attentive service, and consistent quality
\nCOST<\/strong>: $$$ – $$$$
\nBEST BET<\/strong>: Tiramisu, Cannoli, Fat Olives Salad, Belgio Dolce Pizza, Wood-Fired Stacciatella, Rigatoni, Fat Olives Signature Lasagna
\nREVIEW #1492<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several years and a couple of tons ago, my friend “Macho” Mike Moretti and I were the type of trenchermen that all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants feared so much they established strict time limits.\u00a0 When a German restaurant on San Mateo offered a free dessert to any diner who could finish a gargantuan combination plate, we easily surmounted the challenge and asked for seconds.\u00a0 Perhaps our most impressive culinary conquest transpired when Pizza Inn offered a “order one pizza, get the next size free” deal.\u00a0 We ordered an extra large pizza and a large pizza then polished them off.\u00a0 That was the last time I ever finished at least an entire pizza (about ten acres of pie) by myself.\u00a0 That is, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1762,71,68,561,553],"tags":[5222,5219,5220,2370,5252,1701,5221,1678,749,5253,2120,5250,5254,1468,2523,5218,5251,5223],"class_list":["post-71304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arizona","category-diners-drive-ins-and-dives","category-italian","category-pizza","category-rating-outstanding","category-across-america","tag-belgio-dolce-pizza","tag-best-italian-restaurant-in-flagstaff","tag-best-restaurant-in-flagstaff","tag-cannoli","tag-dennomiazione-di-origine-controllata-doc","tag-diners-drive-ins-and-dives","tag-fat-olives-salad","tag-food-network","tag-guy-fieri","tag-handcrafted-oven","tag-housemade-mozzarella","tag-international-pizza-expo","tag-kenai-pizza","tag-neapolitan-pizza","tag-tiramisu","tag-vera-pizza-napoletana","tag-verace-pizza-napoletana-vpn-certified","tag-wood-fired-stacciatella"],"yoast_head":"\nFAT OLIVES - 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