Dec 26, 2024: “Team” Pizza Wars

Matt was excited about our pizza wars competition and was eager to try some of the pizzas, so we staged a mini pizza wars competition with local competitors. This post also serves as an update to the original pizza wars post: https://brianbrandenburg.com/2024/12/01/nov-30-2024-pizza-wars-whos-winning-so-far/

Here are the results of our mini “wars” and an update to the overall “war.”:

Mini battle: Matt tasted the pizza at five different places, Ty at four. On the last day of their visit, we did a pizza-hopping experiment: one slice each from three different places, Rosetta, Francesco’s, and La Traviata, one right after the other. La Traviata’s stiff and tasteless whole wheat crust had put them at the bottom in earlier tests. Let’s see if they redeemed themselves with their regular crust. We also went out for pizza all together. We had a Christmas Eve lunch at Emmy Squared as a family with Jess (she liked her Vegan pizza), Matt, Ty, Sheila, and me.

5th: Fiorello’s, a local, not inexpensive Italian restaurant, has a reputation for good pizza. We tried it the night Matt and his fiancee, Abbie, arrived. We also tried other entrees, mixed and matched. I had high expectations that were disappointed. The thin crust was extra thin and somewhat flavorless. Cheese was tasty, but didn’t seem to be a lot of it to taste. Result, seconded by Matt (Ty hadn’t arrived yet): 5th place out of 5. Not a great showing Fiorellos.

4th: I have been talking up Rosetta’s bakery pizza to Ty and Matt since they arrived and wanted to join the pizza wars. Rosetta’s were the reigning silver medalists. We were all disappointed this round. We ordered a cheese slice along with a pepperoni slice. The cheese slice was cold, dampening any winning formula of crust/sauce/toppings. The cheese was not the thick mozzarella that first won us over, but a combo, a not so great combo. Very little sauce. Pepperoni was much better, but the mediocre temperature offset the tastiness and thickness (maybe their best quality?) of the cheese. Turn up your oven or re-heat your slices a little longer Rosetta.

3rd: Tough call between 1, 2, and 3. Emmy Squared ranked third after barely surviving disqualification. The service was poor, despite only two parties in the restaurant. But the near disqualification occurred when the server, who was nice enough but seemed to be a rookie, dropped not one but two pizza-sauce-coated knives on me. The stain on my pants came out, but the stain on my coat? Let’s just say it’s not the kind of permanent NY souvenir I was looking for. Back to the pizza. Emmy Squared does Detroit style, a rectangular pan pizza with a thick, chewy crust. We ordered the Good Paulie, which included smoked gouda cheese, carmelized onions, and sausage. It was good, solidly so–the gouda was especially flavorful. Burn spots on the crust (carmelized cheese) didn’t impact the flavor too much. Maybe if the service and “clean-up” were better, the pizza would have moved up the rankings. Third it is. Ty and Matt are on board.

2nd: Close call by all three of us. Ty favored Francesco’s by a nose over La Traviata Ty may have been the most objective judge; he tried the same pizza at each place: cheese. He thought Francesco’s had the best crust, cheese, sauce combo. Their crust is different than La Traviata’s. It’s a bit crispier, so you don’t usually need to fold it like you typically do with New York pizza. Sheila is a Francesco’s fan. So is Jess, but for different reasons: We call it FranJessica’s pizza. When Jess watched Shaggy Dog movies as a kid, she thought that Francesca was FranJessica. In her honor, we now dub Francesco’s as FranJessica’s forevermore.

1st: La Traviata. Pure New York pizza, down to the tiny space (three small two-person tables inside with little room to move). The crust was crisp, but not so crisp that it can survive without being folded. The cheese and sauce are fresh. The sauce had a rich tomatoey taste, like the tomatoes had just been picked that morning. The spice of the sauce was just right. Cheese could have been thicker ala Rosetta’s, but the flavor was excellent. Matt felt the cheese and sauce were similar to FranJessica’s, but the crust was more buttery and crisp at La Traviata. Matt also thought the experience was more NY: We ate the pizza outside (no room inside), and while we there, an exterminator came and was shown to the basement. I guess it’s good he was there, but not so good that he needed to be there. Let’s just assume it is a regular check-up…yeah, that’s it, just a regular check-up.

Overall pizza wars update:

1. Ribalta. Still the top–crust is amazing.
2. La Traviata. Moves up from 5th to second. Crust pushed it above the others.
3. Rosetta Bakery: treating the mini-battle as an aberration and hoping (they’re very close to us) they are still delicious.
4. Francesco’s (FranJessica’s). Very close finish to 2 and 3.
5. Max Brenner’s. First pizza in NY. We liked it, but it’s quickly fading from memory.
6. Pop’s pizza. Same with Pop’s. Remember is as good but fading from memory.

Note: Sheila and I work hard as missionaries helping not only job seekers find the right job, but also with church leaders to help the job seekers in their area. We want to continue working hard and effectively, but we’ll have some fun along the way. We don’t spend all our time eating and testing pizzas, but we thought it would be a fun way to show part of the NYC food culture.