Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

from 1 wareen nite to another i wish you luck

Belated congratulations. It is always great to see someone turn their passion into their living. The story is kind of inspiring to all those that wish to do the same one day.

Anyway, I am sure that the pizza will be great and that the venture will be prosperous, because of the care and commitment that will go into the product.

Best wishes,

Anthony A

As I was catching up on pizza news, I was shocked to read this from the Darsky interview from SF Weekly:

Favorite music to cook by?
Johnny "Guitar" Watson, "Superman Lover."

What!? That was MY song at Pizzaiolo. In fairness to Darsky, that might have been before his time - I think Johnny "Guitar" Watson was banned from Pizzaiolo before he started.

In any case, Fela Kuti is better for cooking, anyway. As are the Talking Heads and Mingus (esp. "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion"). "Superman Lover" is still pretty fly though.

@egadman: Yeah. For some reason lately, I've been seeing a lot of chatter about the interrobang on Twitter.

Adam out of respect for the Wooster St legacy I kept Pepe's at #3 because of the respect issue and because there are other pies Like the Clam which are out of this world. But I observed other people cutting into their pies and everyone was having the same issue and looked upset that it was taking so much work to eat their pies.....

the slice when you would pick it up would stay straight that's how tough the actual crust has been coming out of the oven lately at both locations.

I've eaten Pizza in quite a few cities and I've followed the GQ Pizza Article on a few of the Detroit pizzeria's since I have family on my wife's side who live out that way.

I really enjoyed buddy's pizza and actually found photos on my cell phone that I sent in. Way different pizza squares and such....

But back to New Haven, for the health conscious Pizza eater up the road about 4 miles up on Whitney ave in Hamden there is Olde World Pizza they do lo carb and even wheat pizza. It's not coal oven but it's pretty good stuff as well.

I haven't eaten yet at the new Yonkers location or the Mohegan Sun for Pepe's but once they went to 7 days a week and opening up at 11:30am something has changed, you need more staff, different people making the pizza and it's just different at Pepe's right now...

I should send them an email because I'm asked all the time 6'3 300lbs which of the big 5 is the best and I tell anyone depends on what you like on it. Sausage hands down is Zupps...... Modern is bigger in seating capacity, very thin Apizza...But they have won best pizza in the Advocate for the past 7 years....Ballot stuffing who knows..... But everyone I know loves Modern. The one thing I do love in regards to the peperoni used at Sallys and Pepe's is that it's cut off the stick.....It doesn't get any better than that......

Then you have to go down the block on Wooster for Italian Ice at Libby's.
Libby's has a new location in North Haven right down the street from me.
Homemade just awesomeness is all I can say. You want any Italian Cookie or Angel Wings, expresso , etc.....It doesn't get any better than Libby's after throwing down.....

Anyone ever wants to do a Pizza throwdown with a Former/Transplanted New Yorker.....

Just drop me a line.....

Enjoy the weekend and holidays everyone...

Antica is better than Mozza. It's easer to get into, the atmosphere is far more relaxed and, more importantly, the pizza is better.

@ serious pizza
i know ha ha the guy from the voice must be confused by this.
but he need not be cuz it was awesome.
yes you're right, keste makes it to look much different.
it tastes very much the same. of course the ingredients are better in italy cuz they are grown there and brought to your table asap as opposed to being imported. and of course zucchine flowers are not only hard to come by but extremely expensive here in the u.s.
but keste does a great job with it. even if roberto isn't making the pizzas. there's other great pizzaioli there who make fantastic pizza.

Wow. Thanks for the great intel, offthemeter. Interesting that Pepe's still comes in at No. 3 even from what you say above. Before I got to your ranking, I expected it to be somewhere after Bar or Zuppardi's. It's now clear we'll have to go back and do Bar and Zuppardi's (and re-try Pepe's).

"My experience is also that Pepe's is much more variable than it was when the previous generation was running it and before its expansion, but I have had some remarkably good pizza there recently...."

IMO, I strongly feel that product AND consistency is what makes a great pizzeria. Most pizzerias, either because of lack of ingredient quality, lack of skill sets by the pizzamakers and/or lack of passion are not even capable of making a great pizza to begin with.

A "great" pizzeria is capable of making a great pizza and is driven to get as close to that greatness as often as possible.....which is most of the time.

It sounds like Pepe's is in the process of falling, or has already fallen from greatness, even if it can still crank out a great pizza from time to time. That's really sad to this pizza lover and a situation that hopefully will right itself sooner than later.

Adam, the pic of the Sally's pizzas look delicious BTW. I need to get to New Haven ASAP! --K

As a New Haven whose exposure goes back 47 years and who simply won't put up with the treatment at Sally's, I have mainly frequented Pepe's with occasional detours at Modern (as well as other places not as good and some really great ones, alas no longer with us). My experience is also that Pepe's is much more variable than it was when the previous generation was running it and before its expansion, but I have had some remarkably good pizza there recently and disagree with Ed's verdict (of course, I didn't have the pies he had). You get superb pizza more often than not and I haven't had a BAD one. My experience with the Fairfield location has actually been quite good, but I haven't tried the others.

I'll have to try Zuppardi's in West Havenm. Do they have a coal oven?

@Luca Sweet? Your cousins? Absolutely. The Slicemeister? NFW.

@Wiki Thanks for the visuals.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee

I was just in SF this weekend and did a Delfina Vs. Tony's head-to-head. My Delfina margherita easily came out on top, with a perfectly baked crust—crisp, yet pliant with the edge revealing soft spongy innards—sweet and tang-tastic sauce, and a drizzle of fragrant olive oil. Tony's margherita was good, but the sauce lacked the flavorful punch of Delfina's and the cheese was not entirely melted. It did benefit from the added smokiness from wood-burning oven. Extra kudos to Tony's for being open for lunch.

I also tried the clam pie at Delfina and Tony's Cal Italia (Asiago, Mozzarella, Imported Italian Gorgonzola, Sweet Fig preserve from Croatia, Prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano, Balsamic). Both were delicious. The Cal Italia is baked in a domed, gas oven, and uses a different flour (higher gluten content, it seemed) than their margherita. It was overpowered by the sweet fig to some degree, which was heavy-handedly dolloped into the center of each slice, with a small piece of prosciutto and a couple shavings of the parmigiano stuck on top. The gorgonzola was used sparingly and counterbalanced the sweet figs with its bitterness. It was pretty delicious, but maybe too rich and I had a hard time getting through my third slice.

Delfina's clam pie was fantastic, with toothsome shelled clams scattered about on a sea of spiced tomato sauce. All underscored by a salty pecorino.

I also tried a slice from Arnell's Pizza, which would give most NYC corner slice establishments a run for their money. A thin, crisp crust, topped with your standard greasy, cheesy fair. A good sauce-to-cheese ratio. And served up by a gentleman with a slightly toothless grin.

... I second the motion to hit up the Bi-Rite Creamery after—or before!—hitting up Delfina. I sampled their salted caramel and malted vanilla. A+ in my book. I also had the pleasure of tasting Humphry Slocombe's off-kilter ice cream flavors: secret breakfast (bourbon and cornflakes), peanut butter curry, blue bottle coffee, and balsamic caramel. Victory for the forces of good!