Pizza Althea

Basic Information:

• Getting Wings at Pizza Althea - 07/30/25
  Overall Rating: 77

  Lynch Serniak

  Lynch's Rating: 37 out of 50

  Environment: 8
  

  Pizza Althea is a newer place in a city that’s really starting to build up its restaurant game – Pittston. For the longest time, I thought Pizza Althea only made, well, pizza. But after hearing they have a wing night and looking at their menu, they sure have a lot more to offer. Pizza Althea is going very a hip vibe and it definitely pulls it off. The place boasts a large bar with great cocktails, plenty of bar height seating, and a beer selection that will pique your interest if you’re into the craft variety. While our focus was wings, I do highly recommend getting their pizza because it is delicious. Regardless, we had a good experience with quick service and minimal wait on the wings. Be sure to check their Facebook for wing night because it’s not very obvious hope wing night works and it may change. At the time of our visit, they offered wings all night on Wednesday and wings Thursday and Friday during happy hour only. They may be testing the waters with their wings, so keep an eye out to see if they expand the days you can get wings in the future.

  
  Wing Size: 7
  

  Pizza Althea is taking some liberties by claiming they have a wing night. When I hear wing night, I typically think of a place offering reduced prices on wings. Instead, Pizza Althea means it is one of the nights they offer wings. This isn’t completely unheard, but just want to be sure I properly set expectation. Regardless, they do offer their wings t $8 for 6, which is a pretty decent price. Plus, they wings are meaty while also providing a decent crisp, which I am a fan of.

  
  Wing Flavors: 6
  

  While they don’t have the largest selection of wings, Pizza Althea does offer some unique options that puts them slightly above average. Unfortunately, I didn’t capture what flavors were available at the time of our visit, but even looking at the menu as I write this, they seemed to have added a couple new flavors. They may lend itself to my theory that they are trying out wings on certain nights to see how they do and possibly grow from there. Fro example, I don’t remember seeing Wally World or Korean BBQ on our visit because I’m sure if they did I would have been interested. They definitely had that Cacio e pepe on our trip, so I can see that sticking around. They did have your usual Buffalo during our visit, but it’s currently not on the menu. Maybe the menu changes or rotates, so be sure to check it out before your visit. Or, maybe the O.G House sauce is similar enough that it doesn’t warrant a Buffalo option. I can only guess.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 8
  

  The Buffalo wing was a deep red, thicker sauce. Like other wings in the area, it seemed like it had a tomato base, but maybe that deep red color was throwing me off. They also weren’t very hot, I would put them in the Medium range. I did enjoy the flavor of these wings. I was most excited by the Cacio e pepe wing. That’s easily becoming one of my favorite pasta dishes. You do get that Cacio e Pepe taste from these wings, but I found the lemon flavor/zest a little distracting. Maybe that’s their own spin on the flavor, but I would have loved to see how it turned out without the lemon and a little more peppercorn. Give it a try yourself – you may love it! Finally, the flavor with lowest expectations that ended up surprising me was the Porketta Dry Rub. When I’ve tried this wing in the past at other wing places, it was either not enough flavor, it was overpowered by a particular spice, or the seasoning was too much. Pizza Althea gets the balance right. These wings were really well balanced with that Porketta seasoning you want.

  Serniak's Rating: 40 out of 50

  Environment: 8
  

  We have another new place to cover, and it comes from a place that’s near where I hail from, and that is Pittston. Not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but downtown Pittston has been putting in a ton of effort over the last few years, sort of like they knew they needed to step it up a few notches once I got down here, with all the new restaurants. You got Bravo, which is where you need to go for supreme Tex-Mex, Rikasa where you can go drink a fine cocktail on the rooftop as you gaze over Pittston, and The Refinery, where you can wait for three months for a reservation but eventually will be able to impress your friend group that you actually got in. Yes, Pittston is having a moment, and I’m here for it, but make sure you don’t sleep on the old Stallworth bars that Pittston houses as well.

  Pizza Althea has only been open for about a year or so, but I think it has only had weeks for a few months. If you can believe it, they major in damn good pizza. If you want to think of their pizza as designer pizza, I think you’re okay to do that. But after having it, you have to think of it as excellent Za.

  It’s another place that really goes all out with its cocktails. Yes, they have a few beers on draft, and you can get all the regular beer you can get elsewhere. But it’s the fun, creative cocktails that get top billing when it comes to their beverages.

  Our server was nice and helped us out with everything we needed.

  They have a bar area, but they also have tables. They also have this cool long island type seating area in the middle of the place. We didn’t sit there, but I liked the feeling or aura as they young go-hards say(and they will). The decor has a real modern, uptown feel to it, but you can still go into Pizza Althea and watch a game on one of the TVs they have. It’s a place for all walks of life.

   

  
  Wing Size: 7
  

  The wings at Pizza Althea are large. They really are. The MPB(meat per bite) on each is very high. You may be thinking that they won’t be that crispy due to largeness, but I’m here to tell you they were plenty crispy(foreshadowing).

  Orders come in orders of 6.

  The price is a bit high at $8 for 6 wings. That comes out to $1.333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 a wing. It’s one of those things that I’m not the one buying all the supplies necessary to pull off a wing night, so I don’t know what it all costs to execute a sufficient wing night.

  I’m also not sure if you can get wings on non-wing nights, which are Wednesdays.

  
  Wing Flavors: 7
  

  There are not a ton of flavors to be had at Pizza Althea, at least compared to many others out there. 7 flavors are what they got. But what they lack in volume, they make up for in uniqueness.

  Ever have a Cacio E Pepe wing sauce before? Do you even know what it is? Let me tell you, Cacio E Pepe is a dish that I only heard about around a year and a half ago. Now I know a few places in the greater NEPA area have it, and to see it as a wing sauce, well, let’s just say we ate the life out of them.

  Sticky Old Bay is another one that you don’t see. You see Old Bay dry rub pretty often at this point, but sticky Old Bay, something that I’ve been clamoring for a while, you do not. I was pumped to see that.

  You can still buffalo, Carolina BBQ, and Porketta dry rub as well.

  Do I hope they expand their wing flavors? I sure do. Do I fully envision a world where a place called Pizza Althea goes wild with the amount of sauces they have? Not particularly, but a man can dream.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 9
  

  The wings were fantastic at Pizza Althea. You might not think a place that specializes in pizza would be great at wings, but it happened here.

  First off, the wings were plenty crispy, and as I said earlier, the size didn’t dictate that. Big wings are difficult to crisp up, but Pizza Althea accomplished it. I speculated, while devouring them, that there might be a light form of breading on them that crisped them up. I’m not 100% on that, but whatever they did, it worked, and you need them in your life.

  Since they come in order of 3s, I got 18 and I was plenty full afterwards.

  First, I got the house, which I thought would be an extension of their buffalo sauce. It was not that. These had more of an Asian sticky spicy sauce to them. They weren’t exactly like a General Tso sauce, but they had elements of it. I do know that it was spiced up and wonderful.

  Carolina BBQ was next. They don’t have a honey mustard sauce, but they make up for it with Carolina BBQ, which typically has a mustard twang going on with it. These were so well-balanced. The sweetness of the BBQ mixed with that twang of the mustard really does it for me. Also, they were very well sauced.

  Finally, I had the sticky Old Bay. I went into this thinking it would kind of be a butter Old Bay style, but it again had an Asian type base to it with the Old Bay dusted on. It worked and it worked very well. That base sauce with the slight bite of the Old Bay made for an excellent duo. Honestly, they could have used even more Old Bay.

  Lynch got the Cacio e Pepe, and naturally, we had some. You have to get it. It’s such a unique flavor, but also so basic. Cacio e pepe is a pasta dish that is essentially cheese and pepper. Well, Pizza Althea converted it to a wing sauce, and it was highly amazing. The cheese sauce was really thick on there with all the added Italian herbs you’d expect. But then you get hit with all the pepper, and it’s out of this world. These flavors, being fused with the frying of wings, are a real Chef’s Kiss.