Monday Morning Open Thread: Favorite 🍕🍕 Joints
11/22/21
I went to college at Columbia University, in New York’s Morningside Heights, where my local pizza joint was a place called Koronet Pizza. Koronet is famous for a NYC slice that is, square-inch-wise, as big as your average complete pie from other spots:
In the olden days when I was an undergrad, a Koronet slice was $1, making it a bargain for a college student on a budget (at $4.50 a pop now, it’s still a pretty good deal). The Koronet slice isn’t amazing, by any stretch, but it’s still pretty solid stuff, and I ate the hell out of it when I lived nearby.
For today’s Monday Morning Open Thread, why don’t we all share the details of our favorite pizza joints, fancy, quotidian, or otherwise. Add links if you have them!
—Andrew
As you all know, I live in MA/Boston now, and while I generally grumble that Boston isn't great for pizza, I do have my spots:
Galleria Umberto in the North End (https://www.thefoodlens.com/boston/spots/galleria-umberto/), for soft Sicilian slices.
The Detroit slice at Otto, in Coolidge Corner (why they don't have that slice at their 57 other locations is a mystery to me)
Greek Pizza at George's of Harwich Port. (https://www.georgespizzahouse.com)
South Short Bar Pizza at Cape Cod Cafe (various locations, none of which are on Cape Cod, go figure)
The OG Pizzeria Regina in the North End, if you order the pizza well done. (I even like the satellite Reginas, but only for nostalgic reasons).
Here in Oakland I love Emilia's (actually in Berkeley). Keith, the owner, makes a wonderfully crisp-chewy, flavorful crust and keeps the toppings classic, high-quality, and spare. I really dislike the overloaded pizza of my youth (Round Table), though of course I loved it at the time. Another Berkeley favorite is Pollara Pizza, also in Berkeley. The call it Roman style I think and it looks like focaccia. The crust is something else - ethereally light with but with a thin, crisp crust on the bottom. A new find is from square pie guys, advertised as Detroit style. VERY rich which is a departure from the other too. But so so good also.
One of my great pizza memories comes from the day I flew down to LA (Burbank) because I had a Southwest ticket that was about to expire and going to Mozza in Hollywood for lunch seemed like the best thing I could do. Flew down in the morning on a rare day off, took public transportation and my walking shoes to the restaurant, and had a fabulous pizza at the counter, followed by Nancy Silverton's justly famous budding for dessert. Then did the reverse and had leftover pizza at home for dinner. Totally unlike me to do something like that. A total blast.