Coal-fired pizza is the Holy Grail of pizza - difficult to find, impossible to replicate at home, and impossible to forget once you have tasted it. When I found out that a coal-fired pizzeria was opening up here, I got very excited, remembering visits to Lombardi's, Arturo's, and my personal favorite, John's Pizzeria in Greenwich Village. To say that I was eagerly anticipating my first pizza at Tony D's in Corn Hill Landing would be a gross understatement. And then my first Tony D's pizza hit the table. I tilted my head to one side, confused. Where were the bubbly hot-spots on the edge of the crust? Why was the crust tan instead of brown, shading into black? And why was it so thick?

I want to be clear on this: the pizza at Tony D's is pretty good. The crust is thinner than you usually get here in Rochester, it's a shade darker than you find in most pizzerias, and it has some taste to it. But despite being cooked in an oven that uses coal, it ain't coal-fired pizza.

What makes coal-fired pizza so great? Heat, and lots of it, preferably in the 800- to 900-degree range. Flour, yeast, temperature, and cooking time are the main ingredients that go into making a good pizza crust, and Chef Jay Speranza spent several weeks developing the dough he uses in his pizzas, playing with the variables until he arrived at a crust that he liked. And then, he told me, he had to change it, cooking it at a lower temperature for a longer period of time in order to satisfy local expectations - customers were sending back his pizzas saying that the crusts were burned. The sad result is good dough cooked far too long, too often coming out of the fire tan, thick, and mostly flavorless.

The toppings, though, are quite good. Chef Speranza uses high-quality mozzarella, a spicy and sweet pizza sauce of his own devising, and an Italian sausage that is among the best in the area, in addition to the usual pizza toppings ($7 for a small, $10 for a large; toppings $1-$1.50 each). The combination of ingredients on the Lucia ($11-$14) - sausage and hot peppers chief among them - are very satisfying, but one of the tests of a good pizza is that you want to keep eating the crust once the toppings are gone. That does not happen here. Unfortunately, that means that Chef Speranza's interpretation of a margherita pizza ($8-$11) was a bit of a letdown, too. Instead of sauce, cheese and basil - the traditional margherita pie - this pizza offered roasted tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and shredded basil on an otherwise bare crust brushed down with olive oil, herbs, and a touch of garlic. The resulting pie featured too much dough and not enough topping to carry the day.

A pepperoni and mushroom pie that I carried out a couple of days later was superior to either of the ones I had on my first visit: the oven was apparently a bit hotter and the crust had a nice crunch, was toothsomely chewy, and had just a bit of smokiness to it. Still not perfect, but much closer to the ideal than either of its kin. It was good in the shop, good about a half hour later as carryout, and the two slices leftover the next morning made for a passable breakfast (yet another of the signs of good pizza).

The pizzas were uneven, and so was the rest of the menu. The arancini ($7) - balls of rice and cheese coated in breadcrumbs and fried golden brown - were excellent. Served with a zippy pesto and a swirl of marinara, the balls were crunchy outside, creamy inside, and nicely complemented by the generous shaving of good parmesan resting atop each one. The meatballs ($7), on the other hand, were generously portioned, pan fried, and served with fresh ricotta and some of the chef's superb marinara (bright tomato flavors heightened by just the right balance of salt and crushed red pepper), but they were a bit on the dense side, and pretty flavorless without the sauce to prop them up.

Beans and greens ($8) were well done, bitter escarole and spicy sausage squared off with a rich chicken broth, cannellini beans, and garlic for an appetizer that could easily serve as a satisfying main course. The same ingredients were even better in the smoked tomato broth that formed the base of one of the chef's soup specials ($7). Not quite pasta fagiole (no pasta), not quite minestrone (again, no pasta, no potato, and white beans instead of red), this soup was the perfect start to a long lunch on a chilly afternoon. The broth was sweet and smoky, the sausage lending just the right amount of fat and spice, the aggressive green taste of the escarole combining with the bite of parmesan to round things out and put a warm glow on an otherwise grey day.

Fortunately, I followed that soup with a panini made for me by the chef himself in his open-plan kitchen. Even though the panini menu is short, I found myself unable to decide between the three options available ($7-$9). I threw myself on Chef Speranza's mercy and he made a hybrid of all three for me to try: a breaded chicken cutlet, topped with fresh mozzarella, hot peppers, prosciutto, tomato, and greens on good bread, toasted crispy outside and piping hot within. The incredibly fresh-tasting salad of green and kalamata olives and celery in a spicy dressing that accompanied the panini was excellent in its own right, and could almost stand alone as an appetizer.

Unlike the olive salad, the Caesar ($7) was a bitter disappointment. Covered in a gloppy white dressing and served with croutons that were burned on one side and underdone on the other five, the lettuce was totally drowned, and whatever promised prosciutto might have been in there was lost in the salty shuffle.

On the whole, Tony D's has promise. Several of the appetizers were excellent, and Chef Speranza's way with soup and panini is inspired. Now if he can just convince people to try pizza the way it should be - puffy at the rim, chewy in the center, and "artfully charred here and there" (to borrow from uber-critic Jeffrey Steingarten) - then Tony D's will be well on the way from passably good to great. 

Tony D's

288 Exchange Blvd., 340-6200

Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Saturday 4-11 p.m.; Sunday 4-9 p.m.