This family owned Chicago style pizzeria in west Carmel has been on our list for a while. Roselli's was included among Indianapolis Monthly's definitive list of the top 48 pizza places in Indy in 2020. I swore up and down that we had never been here before but when we walked in the door Chris claimed that we definitely had been here. We looked up our credit card transactions in Personal Capital and sure enough we had been here in 2016.
The interior is dim with high-walled booths, very cozy, and they also have a covered patio that just about doubles the amount of seating in the otherwise modest restaurant. It sort of reminded me of a mix between an Irish pub and a train station for some reason with the exposed brick and dark stained wood.
I saw the spinach tomato bread on their Instagram and I knew I had to have it, so Chris and I got separate appetizers. He had the regular breadsticks with marinara and they looked plump and delicious as well.
The spinach tomato bread is fantastic - so fresh tasting, I could imagine having this for breakfast, and the diced tomatoes are sweet and creamy mixed with the spinach. The garlic bread underneath is crisp and crunchy but not too hard where you cut the roof of your mouth on it.
We decided to split a medium Chicago style pepperoni and bacon. In true Chicago fashion it comes out with cheese and toppings beneath a bed of seasoned sauce. The sauce itself is rather minimalist, fresh rather than acidic, and still has whole chunks of canned tomato in it rather than uniformly smooth. This was fine but be prepared to navigate hunks of tomato.
The pepperoni was sufficiently spicy, nothing to write home about, and the cheese was a little lackluster to me in terms of the amount. We tried to do a cheese pull video, like we've done with a few Chicago style pizzas, and were underwhelmed.
The crust was supportive and spongy and the outer edge gets somewhat hard but not in a terrible way, it's like the entire outer edge of the pizza is made of buttery breadsticks. We took some home and it was good reheated too, but some of the harder curst parts do get pretty crisp.
Overall it was just okay, we're not rushing back. The staff was amazing, very friendly, and you know we love a deep booth. For me I think it was the crust hardness and not enough gooey cheese.
Next time we go: We'll ask for extra cheese or try the thin crust that got a good mention in the Indianapolis Monthly article.