Food / Drink The Official Pizza Review Thread

Sprayin

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I'm going to be spending several weeks in the New York City area this month. I have always been a loyal supporter of Chicago style pizza and have actively gone as far as to say that New York Pizza is trash. However, I've traveled all over the country, and I've realized that "Chicago style" outside of Chicago is generally trash. Maybe the same is true for New York. So I'm looking for suggestions for the *best* pizza in NYC. I'd like to start with the famous ones designed for tourists (like Lou Malnati's or Giordanos is for Chicago). I will take any and all suggestions though.

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Bru

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Joe’s Pizza is fairly quintessential NY Pizza. Couple locations and Ive been to the West Village one. Been featured in a bunch of movies, TV shows and commercials. But to me they all pretty much tasted the same. One place I always try to go to is Lombardi's Pizza in Little Italy Manhattan, which claims to have the oldest pizza oven in NYC. Pretty classic Neapolitan style pizza. Nothing fancy but clean and good.
 

Sprayin

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Joe’s Pizza is fairly quintessential NY Pizza. Couple locations and Ive been to the West Village one. Been featured in a bunch of movies, TV shows and commercials. But to me they all pretty much tasted the same. One place I always try to go to is Lombardi's Pizza in Little Italy Manhattan, which claims to have the oldest pizza oven in NYC. Pretty classic Neapolitan style pizza. Nothing fancy but clean and good.
Joe's is one that I know of, and was definitely on the top of my list.
 

IZZy

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I went to a place a couple blocks from Times Square but I can’t remember the name and it was pretty amazing thin crust pizza, dare I say better than any Chicago style pizza, perhaps it’s just personal preference but i thought it was pretty amazing.
 

Sprayin

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So the place I'm working at is actually up in Yonkers, so it's a bit (20-30 mins) from Manhattan. Since I just got in today, I decided to try something just in town.

Pizza I tried today is Bella Rosa Pizzeria in Yonkers, NY. It is a place that you can get a slice at or a whole pie. There were several options available, but I wanted to keep it just cheese to keep it consistent. They happened to be making a fresh pie as I walked in, so I was able to get two pieces straight out of the oven. I also got a side of garlic knots.

The pizza is kind of what I expected from a NY pizza. Paper thin crust, sauce that is overly sweet, and cheese that wants to slide off the slice everytime you take a bite. The first slice was pretty good, as I got to it while it was piping hot. By the time I got to the second slice (the 3-5 minutes it took to eat the other) it had degraded *significantly*. The crust lost its crisp, and the cheese got tacky.

As a side note, the garlic knots were great. I wish they would have put that sauce on the pizza.

Judging by the 1st slice alone: 7.5/10
Judging by the 2nd slice alone: 5.5/10

Overall: 6.5/10

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If there is any consolation, it was pretty cheap, and everything else in this area is expensive as all hell. So I may go back if I don't feel like driving far one day.
 

The Broken Regal

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So the place I'm working at is actually up in Yonkers, so it's a bit (20-30 mins) from Manhattan. Since I just got in today, I decided to try something just in town.

Pizza I tried today is Bella Rosa Pizzeria in Yonkers, NY. It is a place that you can get a slice at or a whole pie. There were several options available, but I wanted to keep it just cheese to keep it consistent. They happened to be making a fresh pie as I walked in, so I was able to get two pieces straight out of the oven. I also got a side of garlic knots.

The pizza is kind of what I expected from a NY pizza. Paper thin crust, sauce that is overly sweet, and cheese that wants to slide off the slice everytime you take a bite. The first slice was pretty good, as I got to it while it was piping hot. By the time I got to the second slice (the 3-5 minutes it took to eat the other) it had degraded *significantly*. The crust lost its crisp, and the cheese got tacky.

As a side note, the garlic knots were great. I wish they would have put that sauce on the pizza.

Judging by the 1st slice alone: 7.5/10
Judging by the 2nd slice alone: 5.5/10

Overall: 6.5/10

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If there is any consolation, it was pretty cheap, and everything else in this area is expensive as all hell. So I may go back if I don't feel like driving far one day.
As hilarious as the office segement in that Mook Mook posted, not going to lie, based on your review and other people I know who've tried, NY style is just idk, meh
 

LikeABauce302

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I've only tried New York Style pizza a couple times and I agree. It was basically like getting a good slice of Sbarro's. I went to one place on Long Island that one of the locals raved about and brought me to. Then another random place in midtown. Both were okay, but nothing to rave about.

New York pizza is just a floppy, thin greasy mess. I prefer our tavern style. Chicago tavern style is a bit more hearty and easy to make a meal out of.
 
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Sprayin

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I'm actively mad about this one. So I found out that one of the "World Famous" New Haven style pizzas, Frank Pepes, had a location here in NY, and it was pretty close. So I drove on over to try it out.

So I read up on the back story of this place a little, and the original pie they made here was actually just tomato and without cheese. So I wanted to try that out, as well as a slice with cheese. So I did half with cheese and half "original" without cheese. The half without cheese actually wasn't too bad. The sauce was a little "Meh" but the crust stayed crisp and didn't get all greasy. It was edible at best.

The cheese side? It might have been the worst slice of pizza I have ever consumed. The cheese was the biggest greasy pile of watery disgustingness that I've ever seen. This is legit nightmare fuel for me. It totally saturated the crust, and made it a greasy floppy mess. The coal fired crust is supposed to be crisp, but with it totally covered in watery cheese and grease, it just felt hard and wet. I can't believe I was able to actually eat the whole slice.

This is, hands down, the worst pizza I've ever had. My entire day is ruined. The next person that says (and means it) that New Haven pizza is the best in the world is getting punched square in the face.

I actually feel sorry for people who grow up on this stuff and only get to experience stuff like this as "pizza".

This is the kind of thing that you get as a result when you get home drunk as fuckkkkkkkk after every food place is closed and you're hungry as fuck. And you think "shitttttt, I could make myself a pizza" and you slap it together with whatever you have laying around.

Score: 0.5/10

It gets half a point for at least being hot.

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The Broken Regal

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I'm actively mad about this one. So I found out that one of the "World Famous" New Haven style pizzas, Frank Pepes, had a location here in NY, and it was pretty close. So I drove on over to try it out.

So I read up on the back story of this place a little, and the original pie they made here was actually just tomato and without cheese. So I wanted to try that out, as well as a slice with cheese. So I did half with cheese and half "original" without cheese. The half without cheese actually wasn't too bad. The sauce was a little "Meh" but the crust stayed crisp and didn't get all greasy. It was edible at best.

The cheese side? It might have been the worst slice of pizza I have ever consumed. The cheese was the biggest greasy pile of watery disgustingness that I've ever seen. This is legit nightmare fuel for me. It totally saturated the crust, and made it a greasy floppy mess. The coal fired crust is supposed to be crisp, but with it totally covered in watery cheese and grease, it just felt hard and wet. I can't believe I was able to actually eat the whole slice.

This is, hands down, the worst pizza I've ever had. My entire day is ruined. The next person that says (and means it) that New Haven pizza is the best in the world is getting punched square in the face.

I actually feel sorry for people who grow up on this stuff and only get to experience stuff like this as "pizza".

This is the kind of thing that you get as a result when you get home drunk as fuckkkkkkkk after every food place is closed and you're hungry as fuck. And you think "shitttttt, I could make myself a pizza" and you slap it together with whatever you have laying around.

Score: 0.5/10

It gets half a point for at least being hot.

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Nothing makes me laugh more in the whole pizza debate than east coasters going "New Yawwk Pizzaaah is da best, you don't even know, you wouldn't understand" and then you see pics like your two examples and I already know its crap without tasting :rofl:

100% agree with people anywhere in the US that eat their local awful pizza and that is their "best", I genuinely feel bad
 

LikeABauce302

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Nothing makes me laugh more in the whole pizza debate than east coasters going "New Yawwk Pizzaaah is da best, you don't even know, you wouldn't understand" and then you see pics like your two examples and I already know its crap without tasting :rofl:

And then when Chicago pizza is brought up...tHaTs nOt PiZzA. iT's A cAsSeRoLe!!1!!
 

Sprayin

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I went into Manhattan tonight to see all the tourist spots. So I took that as an opportunity to hit up what seems to be the consensus #1 pizza in NYC: Joe's. I also made sure to go to the original location.

This place is a tiny hole in the wall where they primarily sell slices. They have the traditional thin crust NY style, and they also have Sicilian style (which looked pretty good, kinda wish I would have tried that too). I got myself two slices of cheese and waited while they warmed it back up.

It came out and it was piping hot. It was cooked to perfection. The crust was nice and crisp, the cheese wasn't stringy or greasy or anything. It was refreshing. The sauce was a little on the bland style, heavy on the tomato taste. The taste was very similar to Sbarro. Just a little sprinkle of crushed red pepper takes care of that.

Honestly, I was surprised with how good it was. That being said, it wasn't exactly Earth shattering. It was what I would expect when I eat a slice of pizza and nothing more. Having had the others around here, I now understand why everyone calls this the best. It's not that this is the best pizza anywhere, it's just the pizza in the rest of NYC sucks.

The value wasnt bad either. $3.50 for a slice of cheese and they were a pretty nice size. If I lived in the area, I'd be here a lot.

Score: 7/10

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