Gloria, hallelujah! Among Queens residents who've been around long enough to remember it, the second coming of Gloria Pizza is kind of a big deal. The stuff of Chowhounder legend, the original Gloria, in Flushing, closed in the mid '90s but lived on in the memories of fans and on the message boards of the foodiesphere. The reincarnated version opened in Forest Hills on Tuesday of last week. More

The atmosphere is comfortable (much brighter than the previous incarnation, which required night-vision goggles), and the staff is friendly. I could see this becoming a go-to for me not because the pizza is AMAZING but because it is good enough and nearby. More

The Sicilian at John's Pizzeria tastes much lighter than others around town―probably due to the many micro-air bubbles within its crust. More

There are only a handful of celebrated slices in Queens. Why is that? I don't know. Maybe it's that the borough is more residential than most and good slices tend to pop on a local level rather than citywide. One Queens sleeper that's slowly gaining some larger buzz, though, is John's Pizzeria in Elmhurst, where the classic plain slice is satisfying, comforting stuff. More

Basil Brick Oven Pizza makes what some folks might call Neapolitan pizza, but pizzaiolo and co-owner Daniel Barbois, a native of Piedmont, Italy, would dispute that. The pizzas here look like their Naples-based counterparts, Mr. Barbois, says, but the crust is more crisp, the edges a little more flat, the cheese a bit more generous. More

Pickled Italian peppers and home-grown basil, oregano, and rosemary. An award-winning apple pie recipe from Ohio made from (somewhat) locally harvest fruit. Heat in the dining room supplied by a wood-burning stove. Nope, not a trendy "Ball jar joint" helmed by Midwestern transplants in Brooklyn. This is all going on at Sac's Place in Astoria, Queens, run by a couple brothers who grew up around the corner from this coal-fired pizzeria and restaurant on Broadway. More

We hoi polloi listen to Bono when he talks about third-world debt relief, Angelina Jolie on refugees, or Tracy Jordan on voting — so why not Alec Baldwin on pizza? More

The "China Town" slice at Pizza 8 in Flushing's New World Mall food court is topped with Cantonese roasted pork, Taiwanese sausage, fried onion, green pepper, basil, and mozzarella. None of those things on their own are horrible. And in fact, some of them (the cha siu and the Taiwanese sausage) are AWESOME. More

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's going to draw pizza- or bread-heads from outside the borough or even the neighborhood, but if you're live in, near, or are looking to explore this part of Astoria, you owe it to yourself to make the detour here. More