[ DRAFT: NOT READY FOR PUBLICATION ]
After trying five West Coast VPN pizzerias in five days, along with the two I have tried in New York City, I've come away with mixed feelings with regard to the genre.
On one hand, they all begin to blur together. I found that, with a couple exceptions, there is very little difference in quality or flavor from one VPN pizzeria to the next. In that sense, you could say that the VPN governing body has accomplished its goal. It's now possible to visit VPN pizzerias in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and, I'm guessing, any other city with a certified pizzeria, and get a remarkably similar pie.
But there are also surprising degrees of variation among them.
There are a few more than these, but I only had time to get to these:
A16 (SF)
Via Tribunali (Seattle)
Pizzeria Antica (LA)
Tutta Bella (Seattle)
Nostrana (Portland)
Wait, I guess that's not really a surprise. Given that crust, sauce, and cheese are the three essential components to a Margherita pie (the pizza style I used as a benchmark at each pizzeria), you're naturally going to see some variation. One pie might have a puffier cornicione than another. Some pizzerias use more or less cheese. Some crusts have a more developed flavor than others. Some crusts are crisp while others are floppy.
The cheese and sauce, though, at many of these places, were almost indistinguishable from one another — again, with an exception or two.
Wait yet again ... did I say "surprising degrees of variation"? Scratch that. These were all very subtle degrees of variation.
If you weren't comparing them back to back, or day after day, you would probably be happy with any of these pizzas and maybe wouldn't be able to tell them apart (unless you were, say, super pizza-geeky and took tasting notes). Eating one after another, though, and you're able to discern the differences and come up with a personal-preference pecking order. (That's my pecking order in the sidebar above, favorite pizza at top, in descending order.)
I did mention exceptions, right? Well, those would be—not a shocker here—the pizzerias that were firing on all cylinders for each component. Again, not a shocker, but when you're stripping a pizza down to its essential elements, each one of them has to shine. There was really only one place that stands out in my memory seven days later, and that's A16 in San Francisco's Marina District.
Here's what I noticed, though, and I'm probably burying the lede here when I say this ... I tried many Neapolitan-style pizzerias on this trip, and the best examples were not from VPN pizzerias.
In addition to those listed in the sidebar, here are the other Neapolitan-style places I went to: Pizzaiolo (Oakland), Flour + Water (SF, Mission), Pizzeria Picco (Larkspur, Ca.).
And if you choose to interpret "Neapolitan" a little more loosely, you could throw in Ken's Artisan Pizza (Portland), Delancey (Seattle), Pizzeria Delfina (SF, Mission), and Pizzeria Gialina (SF, Glen Park; which I didn't visit this trip but had recently enough that it's still easy enough to remember). ....
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