3910 West 50th Street, Edina, MN 55424 (map); 952-288-2882; mozzamia.com Pizza Style: Neo-Neapolitan The Skinny: Distinctly corporate restaurant show impressive creativity with high-quality toppings but comes up short on the crust Price: Pizzas range from $10 to $15
Early last month, the topic of Ed's Cosmic Pizza Blab was whether a serious pizza-maker could have more than two great pizzerias. At the time, I didn't give the article much thought because Lou Malnati's (reviewed here) and Pizano's (reviewed here) emphatically demonstrate that the answer to that question is yes, but with the caveat that deep dish pizza does not require the same kind of attention while cooking that top thin crust pies do, particularly those cooked in wood and coal-burning ovens.
A recent trip to the Twin Cities made me revisit the idea for a couple of reasons. First, any conversation about pizza in the the Minneapolis-St. Paul area has to include Punch Pizza, a VPN-certified, seven-pizzeria mini-chain that has grown slowly and steadily since opening its first location in 1996. Second, I found myself sitting in Mozza Mia in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. Mozza Mia is owned by Parasole, a restaurant group that operates ten very different restaurants in the area and is responsible for birthing Buca di Beppo. It's not quite the same idea as one pizzaiolo running more than two restaurants simultaneously, but the idea of a distant leadership exists in both cases. In any event, I was intrigued enough by a place that makes its own mozzarella in-house that I was excited to see what was coming out of the wood-burning oven. After all, if it turns out that a corporate chain with no background in pizza is capable of producing great pizza, then surely a knowledgeable pizzaiolo can do the same.
68 Jay Street, Brooklyn NY 11201 (at Water; map); no phone; wildrise.com Pizza style: Neapolitan-inspired Oven type: Custom-made electric craziness! The skinny: For a tiny operation out of the back of a smallish bar in DUMBO, Wild Rise is making some surprisingly great Neapolitan-inspired pizza. It's a pop-up, only open Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings Price: 7" Margherita, $11; 10" pie, $16
In the not-so-exact science of pizza taxonomy, there's bar pizza and then there's pizza that's served in bars.
Wild Rise makes the latter. It's a Neapolitan-inspired pop-up pizzeria that just happens to do its thing from the back of a dimly lit barrel-vaulted room in a nondescript watering hole on the cobblestone streets of DUMBO.
The place has gotten some play onthe blogs lately, much of the coverage noting its custom-made electric pizza oven, an almost steampunkian contraption whose counterweighted heat chamber glides down smoothly over an elevated baking stone and cooks the pizzas in less than 60 seconds.
Posted by Lauren Sloss, September 21, 2011 at 9:00 AM
[Photographs: Lauren Sloss]
Tony's Pizza Napoletana
1570 Stockton Street, San Francisco CA 94133 (map); 415-835-9888; tonyspizzanapoletana.com Pizza Style: New styles include the Pizza Futura and Detroit-style Red Top The Skinny: The Pizza Futura is a stand-out for both its flavorful, country-style crust and the excellent flavors of its toppings. The Detroit-style is far more standard, but a delicious, cheesy pie perfect for football season. Price: $22 for the Pizza Futura (plus $3.95 to add tomatoes); $19 for the Detroit-style Red Top
Tony's Pizza Napoletana has been packed since it opened. It doesn't hurt that it's located dead in the middle of tourist-saturated North Beach; it also doesn't hurt that the wide variety of pies are delicious, across the board (Slice correspondents agree; check out some past write-ups of Tony's). So when I heard that Tony Gemignani was putting out some new pies—the Pizza Futura and the Detroit-style— trying them out became my top priority.
The first that caught my attention was the Pizza Futura ($22), an anomaly of pizza creation from the crust-up. Made using an Anchor Steam starter, the pizza is topped with proscuitto, arugula, blackberry honey, and curls of shaved Sierra Nevada white cheddar cheese. For an additional $3.75, you can add hand-crushed pink Himalayan-salted Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes (talk about a mouthful). The pizza description certainly displayed Gemignani's penchant for bombast when it comes to pizza, and while I was certainly intrigued, I wasn't entirely convinced that the beer-meat-cheese-honey combination would live up. And $3.75 to add tomatoes? C'mon, Tony.
Posted by David Kover, September 16, 2011 at 12:45 PM
[Photographs: David Kover]
Cupola Pizzeria
Westfield San Francisco Center, 845 Market Street, 4th Floor (map); 415-896-5600; cupolasf.com Pizza style: Neapolitan-inspired Oven type: Wood-fired The skinny: Quality Neapolitan-inspired pies on the fourth floor of the mall Price: Pies, $11 to $16.50
Have we reached the tipping point? Can we safely say that this whole artisanal pizza thing is officially, and firmly mainstream? Because I just had quality Neapolitan-inspired pizza at the mall.
Granted, The Westfield Mall in San Francisco is particularly fancy-pants. And the restaurant in question, Cupola Pizzeria, comes to us from Lark Creek Restaurant Group, who seem to specialize in doing upscale dining at places that require a color-coded floor plan—airports, chain hotels, Las Vegas casinos, et cetera. In fact, they'd already established themselves in this particular mall with Lark Creek Steak long before Cupola opened in the adjacent space about three months ago.
Though one has to walk past three floors of Banana Republics and J. Crews to get to Cupola, the only real I'm-in-a-mall touch inside the actual restaurant is the series of bright red "runway" tables that run the length of the restaurant. (I guess this signifies the meeting of fashion and dining?) I'd find these kinda cheesy, if they didn't also serve as a giant red guideline directly to the impressive Stefano Ferrara oven in the restaurant's open kitchen.
633 Jericho Turnpike, New Hyde Park NY 11040 (at South 8th Street; map); phoneNoHere; originalumbertos.com Pizza style: New York-, Sicilian-, and grandma-style Oven type: Brick-lined gas oven The skinny: Umberto's claims to be "home of the grandma pizza," and that's definitely the thing to get there. It makes one of the best grandma pizzas I've had Price: grandma pie, $17.75; Sicilian pie, $17.90; regular pie ("Neapolitan"), $13.81
I don't know how much I really have to say about Umberto's Pizzeria and Restaurant, so let's see if I can't just wrap it up with one sentence: The grandma pizza here is phenomenal. That's about all you need to know.
But guess what? See that info box over to the right? I need to write at least enough stuff to reach to the bottom of that, otherwise this post will look sort of funny.
OK. I'm joking ... Sort of. Really, the grandma pizza at Umberto's is killer. Thin-crusted, as per the "nonna" style, it's topped with a rich and complex yet bright-and-fresh-tasting plum-tomato sauce spiked with oregano. Over that, just enough regular mozzarella cheese, baked in spots to that nutty-brown color, all crisp-chewy, with that special flavor that comes with it—almost-burned-but-not-quite. And where the cheese is not crisped, it's creamy and almost oozing from the slice. This is a deeply satisfying pizza, and it's no surprise that the grandma pie is what Umberto's is known for.
5557 Xerxes Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55410 (map) 612-424-8338; pizzerialola.com Pizza Style: Neo-Neapolitan The Skinny: Another mid-career shift to pizzaiolo success story, bringing excellent pies to the Twin Cities Price: Pizzas range from $8 to $15
I never get tired of hearing about pizzerias started by people who left another career behind to follow their dreams of dough, sauce, and cheese. When I heard about Ann Kim, the founder and pizzaiola at Pizzeria Lola, who left her former career as a stage actress and took the plunge into high-end pizza, a field predominately dominated by white males, I was determined to check it out.
By the time I got to Pizzeria Lola I was running on fumes. I hadn't slept much the night before, spent the day driving from Chicago to Minneapolis, and had already eaten a full meal at Black Sheep (reviewed here) and stopped for excellent ice cream at Crema Café. But a couple of bites into my Pizzeria Lola experience and all of that was forgotten; this was some truly delicious pizza.
4813 Beauregard Street, Alexandria, VA 22312 (map); 703-354-8383; valentinosnystylepizzeria.com Pizza Style:Nominally New York-style Oven Type: Gas deck The Skinny: Mediocre NY-style, undone by the sweet stuff. Price: 14-inch round pies, $11.95 to $18.95. 16-inch square pies, $17.95 to $29.95. 20-inch round pies, $15.95 to $27.95. Also available by the slice.
A solid four stars on Yelp, eighty-six percent like it on Urbanspoon, and many rave that it's the best New York-style pizza in the DC area. Thinking that a great pizzeria had miraculously flown below my radar for all these years, I headed straight to Valentino's in Alexandria, ready to be impressed.
The dining room was sunny and old-school funky, our waitress was helpful, and the large pies were huge—20-inches across. But after my first bite I had only one thought, Domino. Not Domino's pizza—Domino sugar. The sweetness of the sauce was overwhelming and assured me that this meal was going to be a real cloy-fest.
190 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA (map); 617-576-1111; spirituspizza.com Pizza style: New York Thin Crust Oven type: Electric The skinny: For cheap eats in P-town, especially of the thin-crust pizza variety, look no further than Spiritus Pizza. Price: 18" pizzas, $18.50-$27.50 Notes: Cash Only. Open 11:30AM to 2 AM
My wife and I are fortunate enough to get to spend at least one week each summer in Provincetown, MA. Provincetown, (aka P-town to locals and regulars), is located on the very tip of Cape Cod; if you think of the Cape as a gangly teenager flexing his bicep, P-town sits right in his balled-up fist. As such, it's literally the end of the road as far as Cape travel goes—drive any further, and you'll find yourself out swimming with the whales in Cape Cod Bay. (Though the smart traveler doesn't drive there at all, opting instead to hop a quick ferry from Boston and avoid the aggravation of bumper-to-bumper Cape traffic altogether.)
Despite being a major summer tourist destination with a bustling downtown, Provincetown is not known for its restaurants, the majority of which are pretty mediocre. Even though most of the people who travel there come from Boston, New York, and other cities with sophisticated food scenes, for whatever reason, most seem perfectly happy settling for not-so-great food. Except for a handful of exceptions, most of the decent restaurants that open there don't stay in business very long. Spiritus Pizza, located in the heart of downtown on Commercial Street, is one of those exceptions, having served up its thin-crust pies since 1971. We ourselves don't eat out much when we stay in P-town, but we always get to Spiritus at least a couple of times each trip. It's not world-class pizza by any means, but it's very good, and certainly better than just about anything else you can get in town, especially on the cheap.
278 Bleecker Street, New York NY 10014 (near Jones Street; map); 212-243-1680; johnsbrickovenpizza.com Pizza style: New York–Neapolitan Oven type: Coal-oven, baby! The skinny: John's on a good day makes a pretty respectable coal-oven pizza. It's thinner than most of its Manhattan coal-oven brethren, so you'll probably be able to eat more slices than you'd think. Ask for it well-done Price: $12 for a medium plain; $16 for medium two-topping
Every city needs at least one older-than-old restaurant with a certain kind of cultivated rakishness—hard, straight-back wood booths that don't encourage lingering; graffiti-carved walls that conjure visions of 1950s hooliganism; grumpy signage.
If you style yourself a pizza aficionado and have not been to John's, you're not doing it right. There are those who say it's lost its luster, that it doesn't stack up, but I've always been a fan. Before we get to the pizza, though, there are two things you need to know before visiting: CASH ONLY and NO SLICES (i.e., whole pies only).
Posted by Erin Meister, September 8, 2011 at 3:30 PM
Classic thin-crust bar pie meets Neapolitan-American at Emma's.[Photograph: Meister]
Emma's Brick Oven Pizza & Cafe
101 North Union Ave, Cranford, NJ
(map); 908-497-1211; emmasbrickoven.com Pizza Style:bar pie Oven Type: Coal-burning brick The Skinny: Very! Cracker-thin crust with good top char Price: $13–$20 per pie, toppings $1–3 each
You're probably not going to just stumble upon the quaint and quiet center of the suburban-Jersey commuter town of Cranford—but hey, if you ever do, rest assured that at the very least, there's decent pizza around.
Emma's Brick Oven Pizza & Cafe has been firing up solid-quality pies and a pretty vast menu of other Italian (often pronounced "EYE-talian," in these parts) fare since 2004, steps away from a NJ Transit station and a breezy 40-minute jaunt from Manhattan. Part bar pie, Emma's tops a fine crust (and we mean fine—practically paper thin, at times!) with an even hand.
Posted by Jim Bonomo, September 7, 2011 at 10:00 AM
The Bufalina at Cornuto Pizzeria [Photographs: Jim Bonomo]
Cornuto Pizzeria
7404 Greenwood Avenue, Seattle WA 98103 (map); 206-812-0416 Pizza Type:Neapolitan Oven Type: Wood-fired Price: $13+ for 12-inch pizzas
Cornuto Pizzeria is the most recent pie-centric addition to Seattle's Phinney Ridge neighborhood: a second-cousin of local microchains Via Tribunali and Caffe Vita. It's a small space with a cozy patio and a cramped, dark indoor seating area. The combination bar-kitchen covers just as much real estate as the sales floor, but the true spacehog is the brick oven; it's a beautiful specimen of volcanic rock from Vesuvius decked out with hand-tiling, the mouth a firey glow. Cornuto's pizzaiolo, Valentin, is stoking that thing up to 1200°F like a madman, delivering traditional Italian-inspired Neapolitan pies by way of his Eastern European heritage.
221 Ossington, Toronto, Ontario (map); 416-532-8000; pizzerialibretto.com Pizza style: Neapolitan The skinny: Naples-style authenticity in Toronto Price: Prix Fixe lunch, $15, add anchovies, $2, Anchovy Pie a la carte $17
On a recent 12-hour layover in Toronto, I felt like my tastebuds somehow ended up in Naples. Pizzeria Libretto, located in Little Portugal, makes one of the best pizzas I've had in Canada. It's also the only place in Toronto that's certified as a producer of Vera Pizza Napoletana.
Alongside importing San Marzano tomatoes from Italy and using Ontario-made Fiore de Latte mozzarella, their dedication to Naples-style methodology entails baking pies for less than 90 seconds in a 900 degree wood-burning oven (hand-built by a 3rd generation pizza oven maker in Naples, then delivered to Ontario). They're so fastidious about adhering to tradition that their website even lifts a wonderfully precise definition from the E.U.-accredited association's strict "Disciplinare" manual:
Description of the product: Pizza Napoletana is an oven made circularly shaped culinary product, of a variable diameter which should not exceed 35 cm, with a elevated border (crust) and with the central part covered with toppings. The central part should be 0.3 cm thick, and the crust 1-2 cm thick. The pizza as a whole should be soft, elastic, easily folded as would be a pamphlet.
As you may have read last week, the Artichoke Basille boys, Francis Garcia and Sal Basille, have partnered with A&P on an Artichoke-branded line of frozen pizzas. According to the company's press release, all A&P stores and its subsidiaries (Waldbaum's, Food Emporium, Pathmark) should be carrying the pies now. I was one of the first to highlight Artichoke on this site back in early 2008, so you know I'd be there to grab a frozen pizza or six to test out for you.
Posted by David Kover, September 1, 2011 at 9:45 AM
[Photographs: David Kover]
Pizzeria Avellino
2769 Lombard Street, San Francisco, CA 94123 (map); 415-776-2500; pizzeriaavellino.com Pizza style: NY-style Oven type: Gas The skinny: NY-style pizza made with the same recipe as local favorite Arinell Price: Regular slice, $3; medium pie, $15.50; large, $19.50
If this pie from San Francisco's Pizzeria Avellino looks familiar, that's because we've written about it before. Well, not directly. But Avellino was founded by a former employee of beloved San Francisco slice shop Arinell, and apparently he took the dough and sauce recipes with him when he jumped ship. In fact, it's probably best if you hop over and read what we've had to say about Arinell before you continue here. Go ahead—I'll wait.
Okay, so Avellino's solid pizza genealogy means that you get a NY-style slice that looks and feels right. No puffed up collagen end-crust or giant slick of pale white cheese here. Yet, when it comes to flavor, Avellino comes up just a bit short of Arinell and, by extension, its NY-style forebears.
600 Washington Ave N., Minneapolis, MN 55401 (map); 612-342-2625; blacksheeppizza.com Pizza Style: Coal Oven, Thin The Skinny: Extremely popular Minneapolis pizzeria, home of the area's first coal oven, doesn't come close to living up to the hype Price: 12" pizzas start at $6; 16" pies start at $12 Notes: Second location in St. Paul
Ever since Chef Jordan Smith opened Black Sheep amidst Washington Avenue's trendy strip of renovated warehouses, diners and professional food writers have fallen over each other to get a table and sing the praises of Minnesota's first coal-oven pizzeria. The press page on the pizzeria's website is filled with high praise. Unfortunately, this review is not going to be added to the list. I wanted and expected to love Black Sheep, but my four dining companions and I all walked away underwhelmed.
305 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Washington DC 20003 (map); 202-544-4008;
wethepizza.com Pizza Style: Roughly New York–style Oven Type: Gas deck Price: Slices, $3 to 4; 14-inch pizzas, $16; 16-inch pizzas, $18
When Slice reporter Dave Konstantinpreviously reviewed Spike Mendelsohn's (of Top Chef fame) new pizzeria We, The Pizza, he pointed out some serious flaws in their basic product. Namely, the dough was dense, and the bones were far too fat.
Seeing as I'd just made a quick detour through Washington D.C. to check out Spike's next door burger joint Good Stuff Eatery (check out my review over on A Hamburger Today. Spoiler: it's not good), I figured it'd be worth an update to see if any of the problems have been fixed in the half year that's passed since they first opened.
The good news: most of Dave's concerns had been addressed and remedied.
Look, I'm not going to do a better job with a Patsy's review than Nick Solares did with this one from early 2010. Seriously, go read it. It's a thoughtful piece of food writing that captures the essence of this historic coal-oven pizzeria in East Harlem.
After re-reading that post, I was almost going to skip my pizzeria review this week and go hang my head in shame knowing I'll never match it. But, you know, Patsy's Pizza — the original Patsy's Pizza, which this is — has come up quite a bit lately 'round these parts (here and here), and I wanted to revisit myself. It is, after all, a New York City pizza institution.
Posted by David Kover, August 18, 2011 at 11:30 AM
[Photographs: David Kover, unless otherwise noted]
Rosso Pizzeria
53 Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95404; (map); 707-544-3221; rossopizzeria.com Pizza style: Neapolitan-inspired Oven type: Wood-fired The skinny: A blistered, flavorful—if slightly tough—cornicione surrounds an array of toppings that includes a spaghetti and meatball pie. Yep, you're reading that correctly—and it's actually quite good. Price: Pies, $12.25 to $17
Refer to Rosso Pizzeria'swebsite, and you get an image of another one of those Bay Area restaurants that takes its food darn seriously, with fresh-local ingredients and an artisanal, slow food approach to cooking. Nothing better exemplifies this than their spaghetti and meatball pizza.
Wait. What?
OK, yes, Rosso does serve a pizza with spaghetti and meatballs on top, and I promise to tell you about it in a second (it's good!). But don't let it distract you from the whole of what this pizzeria has to offer. Because I did mean it when I said that the folks at Rosso take their pizza-craft quite seriously.
Here, I'll prove it. Pizzas cook in a wood-burning Valoriani oven stoked with White Oak and Almond. At 800-degrees, it takes about 90 seconds for pies to reach readiness.
A plain pizza with mozzarella on "traditional" crust. Throwback: This photo was shot on Fujicolor Xtra 800 film with a Nikon FM2! [Photographs: Adam Kuban]
The Little Rendezvous
256 Pratt Street, Meriden CT 06450 (map); 203-235-0110; thelittlevous.com; on Facebook Pizza style: Connecticut-style Oven type: Coal-oven The skinny: When most outsiders (like me) talk Connecticut pizza, the usual names usually come up. The Little Rendezvous has been off the radar for too long, but this historic coal-oven pizzeria deserves a visit if you're in the area Price: Large plain pie, $11.75; large mozzarella pie, $13.75; large house special, $18.75 See also: The United States of Pizza: Connecticut »
Connecticut has a lot to be proud of pizzawise. Even if you're a casual reader of Slice or know even a little bit about pizza history, you're probably already familiar with the New Haven pizzerias. I mean, Do I even have to name them? But a mere 20 miles away stands another historic Connecticut pizzeria that doesn't get much play—The Little Rendezvous.
As you know from reading Scott Wiener's column, coal ovens are a little bit rare and a lot bit neat. I've had the place on my to-try list for almost a year (thanks, JoJo603!). I was excited to finally make the trip there.
Posted by Lauren Sloss, August 10, 2011 at 3:30 PM
Described as 'Roman-style,' the pizzas are cooked in a fast-burning wood-fired oven at 986°F
[Photographs: Lauren Sloss]
Delarosa
2175 Chestnut Street, San Francisco CA 94123 (map); 415-673-7100; delarosasf.com Pizza Style: Wood-fired, Roman-style The Skinny: Roman-style crust is neither flavorful nor thin enough to impress, but high-quality toppings more than make up for it Price: Margherita with burrata, $15; summer squash pizza, $15
The third time's often a charm (usually in games of rock-paper-scissors). With pizza, at least when considering San Francisco's mini pizza empire comprising Beretta, Starbelly, and Delarosa, the third doesn't quite make the cut. Delarosa, while still a great exemplar of the power of seasonal, fresh ingredients on pizza, falls short of its two predecessors.
This isn't to say that Delarosa is not good. It is—very, and the Marina restaurant is almost always packed to the gills. However, when considering their pizzas, I continually find myself drawing unfavorable comparisons to the Italian-style classics of Beretta and the winning California pies at Starbelly.
