Food was no good and service worse. Â We ordered a pizza with eggplant and they brought a sausage pizza. Â We told the waitress the pizza was wrong and she argued the sausage was eggplant. Â She finally brought the pizza to the kitchen and a couple minutes later we saw the same sausage pizza delivered to the table next to us. Â Rede liveried after we had touched and tasted the sausage. Â Hum???
Got our pizza and it was tasteless. Â New Jersey can do much better.
I've reviewed Emma's before, but this evenings meal was so wonderful that I had to add to my original review.
July 17, 2012
Emmas Brick Oven tonight with my 3 bff's.  What an absolutely incredible meal.  We started with Rice Balls.  I never liked Rice Balls before I had the ones at Emmas.  We had the cheese and the cheese with Italian deli meats.  They were light, fresh and delicious.  Atillio made us a pizzette with carmelized onion, olives,feta and fontina. Crispy and mouthwatering.  We had the apple and brie salad, which is one of my very favorite salads.  Then a Funghi Pie arrives at our table.  This pizza is so delicious that I don't even have words to describe it.  As if this wasn't enough, we had cavetelli with brocolli rabe and sausage and citrus skirt steak with sweet potatoe fries.  The skirt steak was the highlight of our meal.  It is one of the best dishes I have had ANYWHERE.  There was skirt steak with figs and what tasted like mandarin oranges in a sauce that was so incredible that you really wanted to  lick the plate.  The sweet potatoe fries in the sauce from the steak were truly admirable.
As always, the kitchen at Emmas outdid themselves and Atillio Rocks! Â He is a superstar in my book.
We have only enjoyed the pizza and fried ravioli but I must say we are a huge fan of the pizza. Â I didn't think the fried ravioli's were anything fabulous but the fact that the sauce is as good as it was made it good.
Excellent pizza which is why we would go back although it isn't cheap it is worth it!
Brick Oven Pizza here is really good, we get ours with chicken garlic and eggplant. We ordered wings the last time too and they were pretty good as well. Way better thin crust than Sun Tavern makes as of late. Friendly and attentive waitstaff.. I know some think the pizza and stuff is bit pricey here ..and that may be somewhat true.. but its worth it to come here for the occasional monthly splurge..you definately get what you pay for. unfortunately i never had tried any of the other dinner entree's coz we are a bunch of pizza freaks lol ..but they look pretty good too from what ive seen.
Review Source:Just a word of advice- if there's a line when you get there, go elsewhere to eat. You'll have a much better experience eating there when it's less busy.
Case in point, just went there for dinner on 7/3, it appeared there was only 1 waitress for the entire room. We ordered an appetizer and 2 pizzas, and all 3 arrived at the same time after a very long wait. We asked the waitress to take back the appetizer as we were expecting it to be served first, and she refused to do so, claiming it was the kitchen's fault they came out together.
Simply unprofessional and no excuse for her behavior. The food at this restaurant is excellent but nonetheless we will be going here much less often.
Good pizza's, especially if you like thin crusts.
Entrees are good, but small portions & quite expensive.
Service ~ slow/not so good.
Price for pizza's ~ too high
If you're walking around town and want to splurge or treat yourself, then it's worth it, but to make a special trip in ~ I wouldn't.
Emma's is great, I love this place. We were carb loading before the Ultimate Mud Run, (7.8 mile run with 30 obstacles) and I ordered the Shrimp Parm which also came with Pasta, it was perfect. I can't remember the last time I've eaten Shrimp Parm but this hit the spot, the marinara, the breading, everything was done right. The waitress wasn't on her game and we had to ask for water a couple times and the check, blah blah, but it's okay the food was great and the ambience was as well, I will keep coming back here, next time I will try the Pizza.
Review Source:I love this place. For one, I m a huge fan of their beautiful brick oven! I m a fan of their goat salad, garlic cheese bread and of course the pizza's. The perfect combination for me & my husband : precuitto, mushrooms & black olives! So yummie!
The only thing I wish we're slightly different to help the experience be even better, would have to be for them to maintain cleaner bathrooms and even the dining area . I have to admit, it was enough to draw my attention. Hopefully, it was a one time thing...food comes pretty quick, but some servers could pay a little more attention to details regarding drinks. Just saying...despite all that, I say try it. I think you'll like it...
I miss this place. Â Pizza is very good and super fresh. Â As a thin-crust fan, Emma's was the only game in town for me. Â The only downside is the wait/service. Â The dining room gets crowded and the service staff can get overwhelmed. Â Not their fault, really, but it takes away from the dining experience. Â
Emma's pizza is best eaten at the restaurant, so if you're not thrilled with their "pick-up" pizza, don't say I didn't warn you.
I usually get takeout from here, as i work across the street from the place.
Pizza is on of the best in New Jersey.
My wife loves their fried ravioli, and also the goat cheese and arugula salad.
We usually get a regular pie with fresh garlic.
Making pizza is definitely an art, and this place does it right!
I like Emma's enough to go back frequently, however there are some faults with it. Â The pizza is great. Â Pastas are good too- we usually get a small pie and split a pasta as well. Â I like the casual atmosphere and having a great byo pizza place in the neighborhood. Â I'm not too big on their version of a margharita pizza, however- it's delicious, yes, but not a margharita with the fresh mozzarella, tomato, etc. Â it's basically just a plan tomato and cheese pie. Â
Also, service is very inconsistent- i've never had over the top good service there, and i've never had an experience bad enough that i won't come back, but simple things like refilling water, or taking an order on time are things that take too long and i often something i have to flag someone down for.
My hubby and I used to visit Emma's frequently in 2008. The pizzas were cheap and delicious. Our favorite was the vodka pizza and the fried ravioli. We used to brave snow storms and New Jersey's wicked cold for their wood-fired pizza and friendly atmosphere.
On our most recent visit there, we were genuinely disappointed. Their fried ravioli tasted like nothing. The vodka pizza went from an affordable $12.99 to an outrageously expensive $19.50!
The waitress kept asking "how's everything?" in the most uninterested way and did not seem to care much about her job. We used to experience friendly waitresses that were eager to please and at least pretended to care about the customers.
Special note to the mommies out there: the bathrooms have no changing tables or even a counter to place your baby.
Please don't waste your time here.
I'll make this review short. This pizza is not the worst in Cranford, but the crust tastes like cardboard. There is no love in this pizza, no soul. What gets me about this place is the service. EVERY order (which were mostly take-out) we have ever had here was ALWAYS screwed up...seriously, every time....and not little mistakes, but entire items were missing, though we were charged in full for it. We just don't bother anymore.
Review Source:I came here on a date a few weeks ago. Â I wasn't crazy about the pizza - it's not bad, but it's definitely not anything special. Â The place is open and spacious and there is outdoor seating available. Â I just wouldn't feel the need to go back - the service and food was far from outstanding.
Review Source:I've eaten at Emma's a few times and have always had good food. Â The service staff is young and can be iffy at times, despite it being a small place.
The pizza is delicious. Â Try the buffalo mozzarella! Â I've also had the gnocchi which were very good. Â Also, the pannini were good too. Â
Prices are slightly higher than local pizza place fare, but I guess that's to be expected with the higher-end entrees on the menu. Â I've had friends complain about some of the entrees (not everything can be as good as grandma's!), but I haven't had any issues.
Definitely check it out. Â It's a good date night spot!
NOTE: Parking is tough in Cranford and be careful in the municipal lots. Â My meter just ran out and I had a ticket within minutes. Â I know it's my own fault, but you usually expect an extra 5 minutes to get to your car, I guess it was bad timing. :-(
Pretty nice place in downtown Cranford if your looking for some good brick oven pizza. We got some appetizers to start, fried ravioli and stuffed mushrooms were good. Then we got the Emma pie with meatball on half the pie. Â The pizza had a nice crust and was delicious, right up there with Lombardis. Â And it's BYOB!
Review Source:I stopped in for the lunch special recently. I had a bowl of rigatoni with vodka sauce ($7.95). The pasta was properly cooked al dente, but the sauce tasted like it could have come out of a jar. I was not offered any bread to go with it, either, and was still hungry after I left the restaurant. The teenage server managed a smile, but was not paying attention--I had to ask for silverware and a napkin.
That said, their brick oven pizza is still the best anywhere around here. But, bring earplugs, unless you are getting takeout. No joke--even with the restaurant half empty, the noise level is unbearable.
Emma's is a good place to go on a Friday night, or during the week. The food is decent, but not outstanding. The service is decent, but not outstanding. The decor is decent, but not outstanding.
The brick oven pizza is nothing to write home about either, it does the job but doesn't really make me want to come back. The salad menu is pretty good as well, the fried goat cheese salad is, in my opinion, the best item on the menu.
Not a bad place, but also nothing great either.
The pizza was crispy but i think around 12" - i pretty much solo that. Â The place has a nice view in the warm season as it has large open windows - its easy on the eyes in a nice little neighborhood. Â
Its not as good a pizza as a typical NJ pizzeria in my opinion, but it is very gourmet - i have to say that the shrimp pesto and the garlic bread are amazing. Â I would just want that bangin' pesto sauce with my garlic bread as my meal next time ;-)
This is one of those restaurants where i wouldn't order 50-80% of the menu items because I know they're marked up by just a tad too much. Â Yes, having fresh ingredients shipped from a special cow in a foreign country sounds important, but I also don't think its practical to be so enchanted in that notion that you base your diet off of it. Â Then again, its a sort of gourmet place, so you have to base your opinions from that.
I heard Emma's was the place to go for good pizza in the area so we were excited to try it out. Â A big plus is that it's byob, always a nice way to save some money. Â We were there on a Friday night and it was packed, though we didn't have to wait long. Â
We started out with the goat cheese and mandarin salad. Â It was very good, though how can you go wrong with goat cheese and oranges? Â The portion size was huge, more than enough for the two of us.
For the main course we ordered a margherita pie. Â When I think margherita I picture a generously sauced pizza with fresh mozzarella on top and some basil scattered. Â The pizza we got was really more just a regular pizza. Â It was thinner than you might get at a normal pizza place but there was nothing remarkable about any of the components. Â It was too cheesy for my tastes and I couldn't really taste the sauce. Â
I could see returning here and trying out some of their other menu options, but the search for great pizza continues.
I'm very into brick oven thin crust pizza and I'd definitely say this place is worth checking out. Not only is the pizza really good but the calamari and desserts are pretty noteworthy as well. The byob is also a nice plus, with a little wine shop just around the corner too. However, the fact they don't take reservations is pretty lame..I mean you're a restaurant in suburbia? Really? The other draw back is the service has been really slow every single time I've ever gone to this place. When all the plates are cleared and you end up waiting 30 minutes for the waitress to come over to even ask about the check..I think that's pretty bad. They have a young waitstaff, maybe they are clueless on how to get tips? at any rate, that just means less money out of your pocket for tipping...but minutes of your life wasted waiting.
Review Source:As any person that reads my Yelp reviews knows (I think there might be one or two of y'all...maybe), I love pizza. I could have it for every meal and never get sick of it. As I write this, I'm currently on a binge and have had it for the past 4 meals and Emma's was one of those experiences.
Emma's has a lot of bright points. It's in a neat town setting, it's BYO so I don't have to have crappy alcohol with my pizza (In addition to being a pizza snob, I'm also a beer snob), and the decor is awesome. As in, when I open mythical pizza restaurant I'd want it to look that cool. Open kitchen, big fire, very happy. (Yes, I'm a 4 year old. With a drinking problem.)
The menu was a big of surprise though. The name of the restaurant is Emma's Brick Oven Pizza and the pizza menu is almost an afterthought! It's stuck on the FRONT COVER basically covering up the pretty picture of the restaurant. On the inside is a pretty extensive Olive Garden-esqe menu of all your Italian favorites.
Uh oh. Good for the general public, bad for the pizza lover.
For an app we had the toasted ravioli and it was excellent. It seemed fresh as in "made that day" instead of "defrosted that day" with a tangy marinara sauce. My wife proclaimed it "best she's had outside of STL" which is saying something. (The first couple years of our marriage consisted of her asking every waiter of a place that had toasted rav "Is it like STL?" with them looking back at her like she's crazy and saying something like "Um, I think so, but we're in LA so I'm not sure." Good times) Â
For the main course she had the vodka pizza, I had the pepperoni. Â When the pizza was brought out it looked pretty good. Maybe my fears were unfounded! We both took bites and.....average. Definitely not bad, but definitely missing the "it" that makes a pizza joint legendary. Which I think is the real point. If you want an Italian restaurant with fresh food, a good atmosphere, and you are burned out on the Olive Garden, Emma's is a good choice. If you are looking for a "pizza joint", proceed with caution.
I went here last night with 2 other friends. Let me say this ... I love brick oven pizza! But I was really disappointed in the pizza.
We waited 15-20 min for our waiter to order our meal.
We had the vodka pizza and pesto garlic shrimp appetizer. The appetizer was good, and the shrimp was cooked perfectly. The pizza on the other hand we couldn't taste any prosciutto. It really was just a cheese pizza with a mushroom here and there. I think maybe next time I will create my own toppings.
All other tables were brought out bread except us. So we had to make the request for bread to another server.
When we finished our meals the server never offered us the dessert menu. We had to make our own request for a dessert menu as well.
By the end of the night we waited another 20min to get our check and finally had to get up and ask our waiter for the check. I felt bad since the whole staff was having their dinner. But we are paying customers!
Overall I gave this place 2 stars only because service was slow and bad. To be honest I feel that Bertuccis makes better brick oven pizza.
However I do love BYOB!!!!!!!!!!!!
I give them two stars. Â The hot food and salad is pretty good and I would return for that. Â
They serve a fairly fresh 'scoongeel' as we would say in Brooklyn. Â And I was surprised that they even had scungilli on the menu. Â I'm used to getting my scungilli from Randazzo's in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn, whose version complete with stale biscuit and hot sauce has no equal. Emma's version is pretty good and I could easily have it regularly rather than go back to that loving slumhole called Brooklyn where I lived nearly my entire life. Â I decided to move out after finding that some a*hole mugged one of my 90 year old neighbors on the street. Another time some older neighbor drunk out of his mind got out of his cars, walked 5 steps, turned around and urinated on his own car while smiling at myself and my girfriend. When he finished he walked 5 doors over to his own house. Â By this time we had had enough of the low life dirt that congregates in NYC, preferring the less concentrated low lives in NJ instead. Lol. Â
The pizza here is not of my preference however. It was ok at best for me. They claime that their  basic pizza is a margherita pizza.  Their version was some hybrid neither here nor there.  The crust was thicker akin to Two Boots in NYC with a whole wheat or corn meal crust on the bottom.  But in any regard the pizza contained and this is just a guess - regular mozzarella and water buffalo mozzarella on it and maybe a sprinkle of parmesan reggiano.  Real margheritas only have bufala mozzarella.  The combination just wasn't right to me and I couldn't get over it. The basic was also baked into the pizza which I didn't like either. They should make a standard pie with regular whole milk cheese and a margherita pie. In any regard its an ok pizza but I'm not a fan of it. I would return for the hot food and might give the pizza one more try but it would be pushing it.  The flavor combinations just violates my sense of all that is right with this world.  A solid regular old school pizza pie being one of the god given plaesures of living in the tristate area. Â
Paisano's in Watchung is still my reigning favorite pizza. Â Truth be told on any given night Paisano's is packed. Â its tough to make good pizza though, even in Brooklyn, there are maybe 8 that I would recommend if someone were to ask for a humble slice as their dying meal. And this exclude's Di'Fara who can suck it for all I care the man is a pizza nazi.
This is after growing up in Brooklyn for 33 years when every pizza place tasted the same almost and was almost always a 10 for the better part of 15 of those years.
Except for spumoni gardens of course which in all of its history and marketing mystique has the runaway worst and I mean worst tasting and limpy slice of Pizza in all of Brooklyn. Â I'd rather chew my girlfriend's dirty unaired sock than eat a slice from Spumoni Gardens. Â Their squares however are not bad.
If I were a goombah I would have had the owner hanging in the basement of his own walk in freezer and said to him. Bahfungool your pizza is not authentic and then given the horns for added affect.
PS I just looked at their site and it explains much, it says their mozzarella is imported from Italy. Â Aside from what the mozzarella is made of in reality quality mozzarella should be eaten within days if not hours of it being hand formed. Â It explains why I didn't like the pizza. When I lived in Brooklyn I would get my mozzarella from a salumeria on 18th Ave. in Bensonhurst that fresh hand pulled cheese will be better than anyyhing imported so don't believe the hype. Â Its all marketing coming from someone who works in marketing for a living. Local ingredients in some cases will always be the key to such a simple and perfect meal as the humble pizza.
Having sampled probably tons of pizza places in NJ, finding a good "Brick Oven" joint is few and far between...until now. I have to say the pizza is very good! For apps, we had the fried ravioli. It was ok. Not much flavor to it. The pizza was very good. The service was fine. BYOB which is an added bonus. I did try my girls meatball pizza and I wasn't crazy about the mb's.
Review Source:byob pizza place with good Italian food. Food tasted very fresh. I had some fried ravioli and the Emma's pizza which was very light and tasty. there is a liquor store right across the street and they have a very good selection of wine. I was there on a very busy weekend night, and there was a bit of a wait. The guy at the front of the house opened our beers and offered us some slices while we waited in line- class act. Also, maybe the prettiest waitress I have seen in Cranford.
like the governator, ill be back.
I went to a pizza place and didnt have the pizza.
Also, I should mention that this review is not exactly objective since I wasn't having the best time when I was in that place, something that had nothing to do with the place itself.
So when I was there with my bf it was about 3 pm and besides another woman sitting at a far table, we were the only ones there. This place does get busy in the evenings and during lunch time.
This place is quite large and it looks nice. It does not look like a pizza place at all, instead it looks like a pleasant restaurant. It is surrounded by large windows which during the day time bring natural light into the restaurant, something that adds to the ambiance.The tables have a little metal thing hooked onto them in order to put the pizza on it, which is somewhat uncomfortable and leaves less space for table usage.
We ordered the garlic bread, which was very very good, nothing like the garlic bread that you make at home it had some kind of herb on it. I ordered the Penne pasta( you can choose from several types of pasta and add the sauce you want) with Bolognese sauce. I chose this sauce because I have had it before and liked it and also I made it myself and so does my mom pretty often. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the expectations, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. My bf got the panini sandwich with eggplant and parmesan cheese, which was really good.
The service was somewhat slow, which was odd considering there was almost no one there, however this was the time when the waitresses were having their lunch. The prices weren't too bad for a restaurant, and I do feel like we got our moneys worth. Another downfall of this place is that there aren't many vegetarian choices, which kind of sucks but I would return here again to try the pizza and another sauce.
3.5-4
Emma's pizza is fantastic-- thin, light, crispy crust; fresh sauce; real mozzarrella, fresh out of a brick oven. Â
They get docked a star because their service isn't very good, but it's come up from laughably disastrous the first couple of months they were open, so they've made strides.
Two of my favorite pizza places are named Emma's. Â The Cambridge, MA one handles my local cravings and the Cranford, NJ one takes care of me when I'm home. Â Truly, life is a rich tapestry.
Quick story about this New Jersey Emma's - My friends and I, having grown up in the suburbs of the Garden State, love local pizzerias. Â When we found out that a new one was being built in center of town, we anticipated it's grand opening for months. Â On the night it was supposed to open, about a dozen of us lined up outside of the (surprisingly) locked door and peeked through the windows into the (surprisingly) empty restaurant. Â Apparently, there was a last minute snag and they couldn't open on time.
The owner of the place saw and took pity on us, and let us in anyway. Â Over the next two hours, he and his staffed churned out pizza after pizza and we ate like kings. Â He kept us company as we ate, explaining that the place was named after a niece of his (if I recall correctly), he gets his meats from a butcher that's been around for a century and has his mozzarella flown in from Italy once a week. Â After this enormous feast, he gave us a small mountain of fried cheesecake and charged us about pennies on the dollar for the whole affair.
The pizza there is incredible; it is cooked in a brick oven and comes out with a crisp, thin crust and bubbling cheese. Â This is gourmet pizza, loaded with fresh and interesting toppings, and worth every penny. Â The other items (oven-baked sandwiches, etc) are also excellent, as I learned over time. Â The service is solid, the food comes out fast and the place is justifiably packed at night.
Emma's has been going strong for years, anchoring the little restaurant row in the middle of my hometown. Â If you're ever in that corner of the world, go here and enjoy.
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