3651. Have pizza in New Mexico

 We are pizza snobs and are on a quest to find the good pizza whenever we travel. I decided to try to have pizza in all 50 states among other things. Since we were actually staying in New Mexico, I decided we should have pizza for dinner. The hubby agreed. It doesn't take much convincing when it comes to pizza but he was hesitant about finding good pizza in New Mexico. I figured since we were staying in Las Cruces, a college town, we might have some luck. With the help of Trip Advisor, I narrowed the pizza choices down to 4 and by process of eliminating, I settled on Luna Rossa Winery and Pizzeria.

Luna Rossa was only 2 minutes from our hotel and open until 9 on Saturdays. It served pizza along with out pasta dishes. The pictures of the pizza looked appetizing. It is located on the southwest side of Las Cruces off of I-10. 

We started off with an appetizer. The hubby got cultured. Since these were true Italian appetizers, there wasn't any garlic bread or breadsticks. We went with the bruschetta. I don't like tomatoes and figured I would just brush off the tomatoes. There was no need to brush off the tomatoes. Even with the tomatoes, the bruschetta was fabulous. The hubby even agreed. The bread was perfectly done and the mozzarella was fresh which helped mask the tomatoes which we diced nice and small.  

Then our pizza came. It only came in one size -- 12 inches. We went with the Salsiccia Piccante or spicy sausage pizza. The sausage was not that spicy. It was absolutely amazing pizza like straight from Italy pizza. The crust was thin and chewy. It was near perfection even for these pizza snobs. 

Since Luna Rossa is also a winery, I had to have a glass of wine with my pizza. It was really only a tasting room as the actual winery is about an hour west of Las Cruces. The wine menu featured a variety of reds and whites both sweet and dry. I went with a Moscato. It was really sweet but also good. In hindsight I probably should have gone with the Zinfandel or even the Gewurztraminer something more semi-sweet. 

The one thing that sold me on Luna Rossa for pizza was they also had gelato. I told the hubby we are having gelato with our pizza. My poor, uncultured husband had no clue what I was talking about until we got to the restaurant and he saw all the flavors of gelato. We both had gelato for dessert. He had French Vanilla and I went with Chocolate Brownie. There were several good options to choose from including Stracciatella which I had in Door County and enjoyed. Of course you can never go wrong with any flavor of gelato. It was the cherry on top to a great meal.

Yes, it was a very pricy dinner for us but it was well worth the $55 price tag. I highly recommend stopping at Luna Rossa if you are ever in Las Cruces. Maybe one day I will check out the actual winery in Deming.