Pizza Wars Part 1

The Retail Fronts

 

I eat a lot of pizza. I eat it after it has been served to me in restaurants, after it has been delivered to me in my home, after I have warmed frozen discs of it up in the oven, and after I have crafted it with my own two hands plus a grater, a knife, and copious amounts of ingredients (which do not include my hands). Many of you eat a lot of pizza too, and it is my hope that the following disquisition will allow you to upgrade your pizza-eating from pedestrian to extraordinary. Even if it does not do that, it will allow me to memorialize a lot of otherwise-useless knowledge I have collected over the years, so for me at least it’s a surefire winner.

 

If You Are Willing To Go Anywhere in the United States for the Tastiest Pizza Possible

 

The best pizza I have ever had that was not made in my home all came from restaurants in Chicago. Of the many, many outstanding options available to the pizza lover in this city, the finest is probably still the original, Pizzeria Uno. The achingly rich but never-greasy crust, chewy yet crunchy …the generous helpings of properly stretchy, chewy and flavorful cheese, piled directly atop the crust in the Chicago tradition…the piquant yet robustly tomatoey sauce…the toppings, holding their own amidst the riot of flavor…you just can’t ask for more than that. Gino’s East has its partisans as well, but I’ve never tried it. Readers in other cities should be aware that the original Pizzeria Uno is to the Pizzeria Uno franchises approximately as Johann Sebastian Bach is to John Tesh.

The best pizza I had in New York City during a month in which I ate pizza nearly incessantly came from Two Boots, which adds to the essentially bland NYC pizza template a wealth of interesting toppings and funny names for the topping collections (the Jackie Mason was really good). Otherwise, the best NYC pizza is the pizza that just came out of the oven, because it ain’t getting any better. For more on the eternal city pizza wars and my personal prejudices, see “Making It Suck.”

 

If You Live in the D.C. Metropolitan Area and Wish to Be Served Some Tasty Pizza

 

Armand’s Chicago Pizzeria makes a claim with its name that its pizza doesn’t back up, as pizza eaters will find the sauce in between the crust and the cheese. However, this should not turn those who seek fine pizza away from Armand’s, as it both serves in-house and delivers to your house an outstanding product. Its primary distinction is its crust, thick and sensuously gnawable, full of the simple but savory flavor of a classic white crust, and in the restaurant brought to you in its deep-dish cast-iron pan, whose warmth imparts a little crisp on the outside of the crust that finishes the mouthful irresistibly. (Delivered pizza obviously cannot come in the pan, and the crust thus lacks that nth degree of specialness, but it’s still quite a satisfying munch.) The sauce has just the right balance of spices, and the toppings show their freshness.

For those who prefer a thinner crust, Pizzeria Paradiso in Dupont and Georgetown is often cited as a destination, and the lines that stretch out both branches’ doors certainly attest to a dedicated clientele. Due to my prejudice against thin crusts, I was a bit underwhelmed myself, but the crust is certainly both crispy and yeasty enough to be chewy, and the toppings are of a high rank, with quality cheeses and subtle, efficient use of vegetables and savory meats. (The prescribed topping combos are recommended over trying to build you own, as it’s easy to overload that crust if you’re not careful.) It’s worth a look.

An effective compromise for those whose party contains both thick- and thin-crust partisans is Faccia Luna, which if it were near a Metro stop (it’s down Wisconsin about equidistant from Tenleytown and Georgetown) would be a regular destination for yours truly. A crust that strikes a Platonic balance between thick and thin and between crusty and chewy is topped by characterful sauce and a vast array of toppings that present engaging problems of effective assembly on one pie. The restaurant also features a lovely selection of beers, making for what pizza devotees will recognize as a complete dining experience. I am chastising myself for not going down there more often as I write this review.

Reader nominations of their own favorite pizza haunts, in D.C. or elsewhere, are welcome; I will post them, albeit with snotty commentary if necessary.

 

If You Live in Strip-Mall Suburbia and Want To Know Which Chain is Best

 

The competition, as far as I know, is basically California Pizza Kitchen, fake-ass Pizzeria Uno, and a bunch of restaurants named things like T.G.I. O’Farley’s Wild American Stovetop and Alcohol that serve pizza as part of a menu also featuring steaks, sandwiches, and pastas; appetizers whose sobriquets include the words “extreme,” “awesome,” or “rockin’”; and gigantic margaritas made with Lowest Price Tequila, sugar and food coloring. Pizza from the latter type of chain should not be consumed.

CPK, a thinner-crusted entrant, does some things well. The buffalo chicken pizza blends its flavors admirably, the five-cheese pizza balances its fromage roster well with reasonably fresh tomatoes and basil, and there are free refills on the lip-smacking lemonade. Unfortunately, many of CPK’s pizzas have so many toppings piled on that they’re essentially sandwich wraps that someone forgot to roll up; this is fine in terms of taste but a gross violation of pizza standards. On the other hand, the adulterated Pizzeria Uno, with its sad parody of the original Pizzeria Uno’s crust, still does do things Chicago-style, and the deep-dish crust, greasy as hell but still flavorful and crunchy, comes off pretty well against this level of competition. The key here may be predictability; some of the Pizzeria Uno franchises (for example, the Cleveland Park and Georgetown locations in D.C.) are way better than others (for example, the excreable Bethesda location), despite the best attempts of the franchiseurs. CPK does what it does more reliably. Neither is particularly inspiring, but both can be satisfying.

 

If You Are Too Lazy For All That and Want Someone To Bring You Pizza

 

A quick rundown of Silver Spring’s operations just for completeness’ sake: Manny and Olga’s is mediocre. Pizza Boli is quite good, with a nice yeasty crust and assertive sauce. Pizza Castle’s sauce is its best feature, but it’s doomed by an uninspiring crust and generally lame toppings. Armand’s beats ‘em all, but Pizza Boli makes a good regular-crust change of pace.

On to the national operations, which are what is relevant to most of you. Sad to say, I have never tried Papa John’s, mainly because the losers manning the phones at the local branch consistently refuse to acknowledge that they are running whatever special the TV informs me the Papa is currently running. (I’m not going to pay full price for non-Armand’s delivery pizza.) I will attempt to rectify this omission at some point, and I will update this when I do.

Of the remaining competitors, Domino’s is the clear winner over Pizza Hut and Little Caesar’s, with a crust that regularly approaches interestingness and reasonable toppings. Pizza Hut’s Pan Pizza might as well be renamed Grease Pizza; its thin crust reminds one of a Ritz cracker; its regular pizza, bland beyond belief in all ways, might as well not be there at all. (See “Making It Suck” for more thoughts on Pizza Hut.) Little Caesar’s greasy pan pizza’s crust at least packs some flavor in with the excessive fat, but its sauce and toppings are below par; those ingredients do not do any favors for the regular crust either. LC’s Crazy Bread, however, is a way better use of leftover dough than any of its competitors have yet invented. (CinnaSticks and CinnaBread and CinnaSweetDough or whatever are just sugar-delivery vectors and thus irrelevant to the pizza-eating experience.)

 

If You Have Concluded That Ordering Pizza Can Be Something of a Sucker Deal, or If You Are Very, Very Tired, and You Wish To Heat Up A Frozen Disc of Pizza

 

DiGiorno frozen pizza, which costs about the same as Tombstone, Freschetta, Red Baron, and the other national competitors, simply blows all other frozen pizzas out of the water. Admittedly, Tombstone has no cause to be ashamed of itself, with pretty good crust and toppings, but Freschetta and Red Baron both sport lame, soggy crusts, sauces with no tomato flavor at all, and toppings inadequate to cover the entire freaking pizza. Meanwhile, DiGiorno has a comparatively wonderful chewy crust, sauce that, if tomatoish in name only, at least has a nice oregano note balanced against its red pepper, and toppings I would not be (too) ashamed to put on my own pizzas. How come this is? How come Freschetta and Red Baron can even keep their shelf space when put up against a competitor that kicks their ass so incredibly hard? I’m curious but not concerned.

(As a side note, DiGiorno does beat most delivery pizza, just like the ads claim. It’s fresh from your oven, and that’s an advantage that even Domino’s slight quality advantage cannot conquer. I’ll still take an Armand’s over it, though.)

 

But suppose you are tired of depending on the creativity, skill, and labor of others in crafting the pizza of your dreams. And suppose you feel that you could theoretically expend the creativity, skill, and labor necessary to achieve that dream of a pizza. Well, you know what? You’re right. And you’re in luck: I have some opinions on that too. Click and enter Part 2 of Pizza Wars: The Home Front.

 

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