The square mile around Milwaukee’s famed Brady Street plays host to its fair share of pizzerias.

Zaffiro’s straight up owns the Eastside (motive for burning down Pizza Man?). Crisp offers douchetanks tasty slices and club music at bar time — same goes for Pizza Shuttle (minus the club music and plus red Gatorade in the soda fountain). Even Zayna’s is tasked with serving up hot za, fried corn nuggets and Lo-Carb Monster to drunken local pariahs.

Then there’s Meglio Pizzeria, tucked away down Humboldt Avenue in, what pretty much looks like, a house near the banks of the ever-brown, used-Band Aid strewn Milwaukee River. Meglio’s less-than-unshitty location combined with its fairly truant MKE pizza presence and overriding awkwardness makes it the Daniel Baldwin of Eastside pizza joints. Or was it Billy Baldwin? See what I mean!?!

After a weekend bender that saw Ronnie and I tying on a Bloody Mary brunch buzz, getting schooled by a band of butch lesbians at free pool, Ronnie needing a nap like a bitch, me puking in The Roman Coin’s bathroom like even more of a bitch, drinking in a record store and watching two old men have a heated argument at Bruno’s, Meglio seemed like a great idea… mostly because we hadn’t yet reviewed it for the site. We stumbled the necessary blocks off Brady and — reaching the glorified model home that was Meglio’s — stepped inside to squelch our unparalleled daydrunk hunger.

THE GOOD: Since it’s nestled squarely within a residential neighborhood and a (currently) closed bridge, there was literally no wait to place an order and be seated. With Ronnie being a vegetarian, we opted for a mushroom pizza. I shuffled through the free records I got with my recent Record Store Day purchase (all shitty) and regaled my counterpart with heroic tales of embarrassing public puking for what seemed like 10 minutes before our pizza arrived.

It seemed to be a perfect hybrid of thick crust fluffiness and thin crust crisp/retention. I think it was about $13 for a large, and was worth the cost. It was pretty big and I’ve seen worse topping portions. If you’re into fresh mushrooms (which you should be), Meglio is on top of that shit. The sauce was on par with many of the other mid- to upper-eschalon Brew City pie purveyors.

It was good enough that Ronnie dropped a slice on the ground (face down) and still ate it. Then again, he still seemed pretty toasty when that happened.

Except much smaller and with slightly better pizza.

THE BAD: I’ve touched on the model home-type appearance. As insignificant as that may be, I found myself both put off an amazed that a pizza place could exist in what looked to be one part Northwoods candle shop(pe?) and another part shittier-looking Bluth house from Arrested Development. It’s hard to justify stairs and a bannister in a 20-capacity restaurant.

Beyond that, the pizza was far from amazing, even compared to many of the previously-named Brady-adjacent pizzerias. And their Diet Dew was flat. In all, pretty average.

TRY: Meglio’s saving grace is its affiliation to nearby Lakefront Brewery. If you ever find yourself hankering for a slice while on the Lakefront tour (which is awesome, btw… and this comes from a hater of brewery tours), Meglio is the official pizza provider for the hometown brewery. In such a situation, feel inclined to imbibe. Great beer (except Local Acre and Lakefront IPA… GUH!) and OK pizza – what could be better? Well, I suppose great beer and great pizza, but it was rhetorical, dick.

RATING: Middle of the road for Milwaukee, but better than anything you’ll ever get from Franklin.

"I got kids all over town!"

Meglio, Milwaukee, T. Mario