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Just visited Pepe's again...and Modern. Agree that the clam pie at Pepe's is great. The others, though.....aren't. In fact, they're way down the list on my criteria. Sort of tasteless....and laboriously chewy.

Though Modern's crust is floppier, the taste of their "red" pies is quite memorable, and delicious. Their clam pie suffers by comparison (the fresh clams at Pepe's are unbeatable on a pie.) IMO.

I have recently found another pizza place in Providence Rhode Island that will put Alan Richman's 2 Providence best pizzas to shame. It's called Zooma's on Federal Street. I put the whole review on my blog at the following link:

http://www.blog-pizza.blogspot.com/2009/06/zooma-bar-ristorante-best-pizza.html

Blog Pizza

Here's my thought. Been to all of the New Haven pie places many times. (My favorite place is in Trenton, NJ: Delorenzo's Tomato Pies; for me, nothing comes close.) The closest to really "top three" pizza in New Haven is Modern Apizza. Tasty cheese, nicely chewy crust.

The pies at Pepe's are not "bad", though the place is "overrated" and "overhyped" , as the person says. When I go there, I feel like I'm chewing on baked cardboard....my jaws hurt with every bite. I guess it's an issue of density of the crust. (Personally, I think coal ovens are way overrated: the crisp the outside and top of a pie, but the dough in the middle remains a chew-challenge. ) When I pass through NH, which I do 3-4 times a year, after much research and experience, I go right to Modern. No wait to speak of; great pie; good, albeit not as rigid, crust.

The clam pie at Pepe's is indeed in a league of it's own. The chewy crust isn't as noticeable with the chewy fresh whole clams they use.

Sally's is the most disorganized place maybe I've ever visited. Good. But, not worth the aggravation as it is just Pepe's cooked a little more, seemingly.

My top three, FWIW: Delorenzo's (Trenton and a new one in Robbinsville, NJ), Modern , Totonno's on Coney Island (hopefully, it will reopen sometime from the fire.)

DiFara: also, like Sally's...not worth the aggravation, though the pies are ok/good..if a bit oily.

That's my view....of the pizza world, which is mostly the "pizza belt" from MA to PA.

I hit UPN last night for the first time in a while. I had forgotten how flavorful his crust is. Although his Bufala Margherita was a bit too soupy for me (especially having to cut it myself), the combination of the flavorful dough and tangy bufala was an awesome combination. Perhaps I'm a bufala fan after all. I also had the Fileti for the fist time and was very impressed. Garlic and raw tomato are typically not my favorite combination on a pie, but it worked for me yesterday. What made it for me most though were the course sea salt cyrstals that I bit into. I've never experienced that on a pie before. I don't think it was applied post oven, so they must have been very big granules to not have melted into the pie. Bottom line is there is no way UPN should be relegated to the last spot on Richman's list. This list is very subjective and has been taken way too seriously.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee

This review by Alan was acceptable but I had some problems with a few of his comments. If anyone is interested, I posted the full write up at:

http://blog-pizza.blogspot.com/2009/05/best-pizza-restaurants-gq.html

Blog Pizza

I disagreed with this post the moment I saw it, and had some real-world experiences over Memorial Day weekend that only confirmed these feelings. First off, some history - I have been visiting Pepe's for more than 20 years, and while it isn't always "perfect" it is consistently the best pizza I've ever had in my life, bar none. And we eat a lot of pizza... Totonno's was on auto-dial when we lived in the city... Nick's in Forest Hills (and, more recently, Rockville Centre), Mario's on Arthur Avenue (a close second to Pepe's I have to say), Una Pizza Napoletana, we've been all over the place and there is nothing like Pepe's.

We drive between New York and Vermont at least four or five times a year and always hit Pepe's on the way up, and usually on the way back. Sometimes we get lucky and hit it right and there's no line, more often there is a line - and we wait. We tried to get into Sally's one freezing night, probably 15 years ago, just out of curiosity. Stood there for probably an hour and kept watching "regulars" come up behind us and wander in sit down at waiting tables. That's the way they roll, apparently, the tourist schlubs can stand out there until their fingers and toes fall off, Sally's is going to take care of their regulars. Fine for them, we never went back.

We were headed up to Vermont Thursday night and got stuck in terrible traffic south of New Haven, it was clear we weren't going to make Pepe's by the time they closed at 10, but there was another place I'd heard good things about, Modern Apizza... no lines, a full menu including salads, etc., open until 11 p.m. on Thursdays. So we went there instead, hit the place at 10:40 and maybe they stopped feeding the oven at that hour or something but all I can say is the pizzas we got (one regular red sauce/mozz, one red sauce, mozz and mushroom/onions) were both soupy messes. Almost inedible. Literally the first 2/3 of every slice, on both pies, could not be eaten without a fork, you couldn't pick the thing up, the "crust" was the approximate consistency of yogurt. And the flavor of the part of the piece you could actually hold in your hand was a sharp and unpleasant saltiness. In short, it was terrible. I asked the waiter if this was normal and he said yeah, that's the way the pies come out. Found that a little hard to believe for a place that had been in business so long. Needless to say, I heard about my bright dinner idea from my wife and two young daughters all the way up to our destination (until they fell asleep) and over the course of the weekend.

Ride home came Sunday afternoon, and we hit Wooster Street around 7 p.m. Graduation weekend at Yale and one of the longest lines we've seen outside Pepe's in a while. We waited. Took about 45 minutes to get to our table and we ordered a red pie with mozz and our favorite combination at Pepe's, red sauce, spinach/onion and just grated cheese. Both pies were perfect, phenomenal char, even the spinach/onion slices could be picked up and eaten by hand, no soupy mess.

Tastes vary and people have every right to like what they like... but I have to tell you, we know pizza, we eat a lot of pizza, we've been all over the place and we've hit all the bright spots and there is nothing like Pepe's... there's a reason people have been waiting in line outside that door for more than 80 years, and it's going to take a lot more than a 30-second video of someone making chippy comments and banging some crust against a pan to lay a glove on the place.

People never seem to give Indianapolis the attention that it deserves. There seems to be a unique identity of pizza shaping up in this humble Midwest city. Places like Bazbeaux's, Some Guys, and Jockamo's, all have a similar style and delicious taste. The pizza almost feels healthy, not that they are. They are typically thinner crust with lots of gourmet ingredients. After growing up in Boston and living for many years in Chicago, I feel Indy gets over looked.

Pegasus Pizza in Seattle is also pretty good...although for some reason it sucks as a leftover, so be sure you eat it all when it is still hot.

No lists for me. I make my own pies just the way I like them. No argument here, mine are the best!

I'd really be interested to see the 109 pizza joints he went to. It does appear the NW got snubbed.

imo, you get to a certain level of quality and it becomes a question of palate. But prior to that, there are a lot of relatively objective factors that can be referenced along with traditional standards. There's an established language around pizza and some agreement within styles about what makes a good pizza. It's not just up to one man's opinion.

So it seems right that there should be some diversity unless he just wants to call it "Alan Richman's Favorite Pizzas". But, of course, that doesn't sell magazines like "the best in the USA" does.

We currently have 5 strong contenders in the Portland area: Apizza Scholls, Nostrana, Ken's Artisan, Al Forno Ferruzza, and Tastebud. If you extend down to Salem (45 minutes away), there's also a place that does an excellent New Haven style pie. The place is just called Apizza. All of these places use top quality ingredients and hot ovens. They all use long ferments for their doughs. Two of them have all wood ovens. Two of them make their own cheese (one makes a ricotta for calzones, the other mozzarella). I think three or more make their own salumi/charcuterie. Several of the owners were bread bakers before opening their pizza shops. These are classic pies with slightly varying styles, all falling in the Neapolitan, New York Neapolitan, and New Haven range, probably. But they're all just fricking good.

Admittedly, the offerings get thin after this with rather standard-issue stuff, though at least we have a decent number of places making actual pizza rather than just the chains.

But Portland should be on any pizza lover's radar and I have to wonder if Richman came here at all.

There are still a lot of places I'd like to hit. I was talking to a friend today who called to ask me questions about improving efficiency at Great Lake. Sounds like they really have a product they care about and I'm eager to get back to Chicago to try it. I still haven't hit Bianco. And I'm going to Mozza in July.

But I've been to a lot of the best around the country and Portland holds its own really, really well. I'd be surprised if there is any city in the US, except maybe NY, where the craft of pizza is being renewed as strongly -- ie, places that are only a couple years old as opposed to 100 years old. Is there any place that defines the next generation of honest pizzerias better than Portland? Prove it.

@Pizzablogger: There are way more than 7 pizza styles in the U.S. See: A List of U.S. Regional Pizza Styles

Alan forgot to even mention midwest tavern style pizza...Chicago's true signature pie. This list is garbage.

http://chibbqking.blogspot.com/search/label/tavern%20style%20pizza

@Pizzablogger Thanks for the suggestion. I will be sure to check it out. This time though I have a real yearning for lobster bisque and Obryckis doesn't have it on their menu. Concerning parking, it's never a problem at The Inner Harbor. The Sheraton parking lot never seems to be full unless there's an Orioles game and they have a bridge that connects right to Harborplace. Whenever we were on family roadtrips, we'd hop off 95 and hit the Phillips takeout stand in Harborplace for some lobster bisque. Sadly they stopped serving it about ten years ago. As far as Philly goes, we are stopping there tonight for that city's true culinary treasure. No, not the cheesesteak. A Roast Pork Italian at Tony Luke's. If you don't believe me, just ask The Slicemeister:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/03/tony-lukes-roast-pork-italian-broccoli-rabe-sandwich-philadelphia-philly-pa.html

BTW, I am always looking for a stop and pop.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee