Tasty loaves at Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria & Cucina good enough to make the angels sing

This bread does, without a doubt, belong in the top tier of the Las Vegas Bread Pantheon — or would, if there was one. Artisan breads have become downright commonplace these days, but these breads, brought rather unceremoniously to the table, were not only artisanal but tantamount to bread artistry.

The larger, more prominent bread on the plate was laudable enough. It was a hard-crusted, loose-crumbed ciabatta-style, in neat slices cut from a tall loaf and served with butter.

But the one that had me hearing the angels sing was cut in sort of medium-sized cubes. It was topped with caramelized onions, had a springy texture and was unusually ultra-moist. At first I thought that maybe it had been soaked in olive oil, but it wasn’t soggy or oily. I never did figure out the source of the moisture, but I sure enjoyed trying.

A starter of San Daniele prosciutto and burrata ($16) was pure simplicity, the ham sweet, slightly salty and faintly smoky and ringed with a thin layer of buttery fat, and it paired perfectly with the burrata, that OMG-this-is-good cream-filled fresh mozzarella. Admirable restraint was shown here; the dish was finished with just a drizzle of balsamic reduction and a few grinds of pepper, and it was perfect.

Good judgment also was reflected in an entree of penne carbonara ($17). In its original version this is a rather simple, rustic dish that effectively marries flavors and textures, but too many restaurants get caught up in not only gilding the lily but virtually drowning it with all sorts of embellishments that add nothing to the whole.

Not so at Wolfgang Puck. The penne was properly al dente, the simple egg-based sauce enriched with just enough Parmigiana. The penne was laced with lots of chunks of pancetta, fried crisply, with peas tossed throughout. Again, simple magic.

Our dessert was a success as well — a flourless-chocolate/hazelnut mousse cake ($10) with layers of both and a scoop of Frangelico-imbued cream.

The only dish we thought was flawed was a Margherita pizza ($14), and that was somewhat ironic because Wolfgang Puck found fame in large part because of his designer pizzas; while Margherita isn’t a designer pizza, we’d expect a well-executed version of this classic.

Legend has it that the Margherita pizza, or pizza Margherita, was created in the late 19th century to honor Queen Margherita on her visit to Naples. Accordingly, it was crafted to reflect the colors of the Italian flag, with the green represented by basil, white by cheese and red by tomatoes. In most of its best iterations, it is composed of just those three ingredients (well, and a crust, of course), though sometimes tomato sauce is used instead of tomatoes.

The Margherita pizza at Wolfgang Puck, though, was not green, white and red but green, white and pink, which we immediately thought was rather odd. Odder still was that the origins of the pink layer were somewhat mysterious. Our best deduction was that it was a very small amount of tomato sauce mixed with a very large amount of Parmigiana; the few thin discs of mozzarella atop the crust seemed almost gratuitous. And it was, very, very salty.

It wasn’t, however, enough to turn us off the place. This is the shopping time of year, and Crystals is a great place for shopping, even if, like us, your budget limits you mainly to browsing the windows there. There are Christmas decorations in the mall, and Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria & Cucina is a sort of cozy place, a great respite from a long day of shopping, a good place to catch the game on the screens over the bar.

So go in, relax, and go with the beer (or wine) and the bread. Just pass on the pizza.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or email her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.