I’ve been meaning to try this place! Gotta get there soon.
I love Racanelli’s, but they closed the one closest to me, in the Loop.
It’s not my neck of the woods, alas, but the best pizza I’ve ever had, far and away, is Truby’s, formerly of Whitefish, MT, now relocated to nearby Columbia Falls. (Basically, a stone’s throw from the west entrance of Glacier National Park - hike the Highline trail in the day, then head over to Truby’s for a world-class pizza.)
The pizza in the foreground in the first pic in this article is their Thai pizza, my personal favorite, an absolutely amazing pizza. Fighting it out for second would be their Athenian, Jamaican jerk, and Cajun pizzas, which are all amazingly good as well. And all this from a wood-fired oven, with a great selection of regional beers and ales.
‘Gourmet’ pizzerias in the DC area seem to think margherita pizzas are a big deal. Sigh.
Ya know, I keep passing by Lido’s Pizza, and I always think I should try it some time (it looks so old-school) but haven’t gotten around to it. I need to remember and give it a try!
The best pizza in L.A., is actually a bit of a drive, in Eagle Rock. But the pizza at Casa Bianca is worth the drive. Not the greatest pizza in the world I’m sure, but for a city not known for great pizza, it’s still very, very good.
In the Detroit area, Buddy’s. The absolute best comes from their original location in what is now a somewhat iffy area of Detroit now. I’m not going to try to describe it, because I haven’t had any other kind of pizza in at least five years, probably longer.
I LOVE wood-fired oven pizza. sigh
-XT
As do I. But what I’d really like to try is a good coal oven pizza, like those found in New York, or even better, like the apizza I’ve read about (and drooled longingly over photos of) from New Haven, Connecticut.
::sigh:: Someday.
MMmm…that looks SO good. Sometimes, I really miss working in New York or living on the East Coast (or California for that matter). As I said, New Mexico is sort of a pizza wasteland…
-XT
I’m not sure I could really tell the difference between coal-fired and wood-fired pizza. They’re both hot and quick-cooking (under 2 minutes.) The wood-fired may have a little bit more smokiness to the flavor, but they both get pretty damned hot (over 900 degrees.) My favorite abuse of the whole point of a wood-burning brick oven pizza was some joint in Hoboken I visited a few years ago. I get drawn in by their “brick-oven pizza” advertisement (after having a favorable experience at the Hoboken outpost of Grimaldi’s), order a pizza, and start talking to guy who owns the joint. I shoot the shit for a little bit and then ask him about the oven and what kind of temps he’s got going in there. 450F. I don’t say anything but, really, what the fuck is the point of using that kind of oven if you’re only going to fire it up to 450?
Still, I decided to reserve my judgment until the pizza came. It was terrible. Bland crust, no charring whatsoever, a uniform blonde color. What were these people thinking?
Houston has a million pizza joints, but I’ve never found one that rose above mediocre.