Best pizza on the planet

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p.s. sweet corn does not belong on a pizza, ever.

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NO

When I was in Toronto in the Summer I had a pizza from a place called Big Man in the Bayview area. It was a Ham and Pineapple (had to satisfy many tastes) but it was very good compared to a Sainsbury's special from their freezer isle.

When I'm over again in November I will be ordering another! Maybe a better flavour this time!!

Stevie

ack! pineapple should be banned also.
Canadian pizza? Was it deep fried?

For me, pizza comes in two forms - the fresh restaurant pizza, and the delivery pizza. Both are great, but must be treated as different concepts. Wouldn't be fair otherwise.

In Orlando, there is a MacDonalds that has a pizza bar, at the top of Sand Lake Road where it meets International Drive. Box pizza from here is seriously good. I think this is the only MacD in the world that does pizza. Otherwise, I have to say (duck and wait for the fallout....) pizza in the USA sucks.

In the UK, Pizza Express still, afer all these years makes the best pizza. They vary, but on the whole they are great. Lewes - nice building but the food is sub-standard - Hove - ditto. Th ebest Pizza Express is the one tucked just south of Sheperds Bush Green, in Rockley Road.

There was a restaurant in Bardolino on Lake Garda in Italy that has the best pizza I have ever eaten ever, ever.

I LOVE pizza

There are 100's of wonderful places in New York, of course. My favorite whose name I forget was in Little Italy (now mostly gone), served only Margarita pies, offered 2 slices and a drink for $3, and was void of napkins. There was an industrial paper towel roll on the wall, with that gritty industrial brown stuff. Top notch!

In Seattle, the only halfway decent place I've encountered, unfortunately, is Piecora's.

Rasher,

Pizza Express is probably the best the UK can offer - I've had it at the Angel, and two other places (nr. Chinatown and IIRC Chiswick High Street). Still, its psuedo-Italian thin crust. One even has an egg in the middle of it (but no beans).

MickeyD's pizza? Best in the US, surely you're joking - sheesh.

cheers,

Dan

In New York, the Chelsea area....Lombardi's. Even Lou Reed will vouch for it! Unbelievably good...the best.

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Originally posted by d marsh:
Rasher,

Pizza Express is probably the best the UK can offer - I've had it at the Angel, and two other places (nr. Chinatown and IIRC Chiswick High Street).

cheers,

Dan

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I went to the PE on London Wall last friday. Sloppy Guiseppe. Top notch

Stevie

A couple of years ago I would have agreed with the sentiments about Pizza Express, but think it's gone down hill a bit to be honest. The Pizzas are nice, but they seem to be getting smaller and the prices seem to be going up!

I'm rather partial to the pizza in Zizzi's. They do a nice thin oven baked base (can't stand the whole "deep pan" idea) and what I assume are more traditional italian toppings too (no pineapple in site). Favourite is either the pepperoni, or proscuttio and musroom. They serve huge portions at a very reasonable price too. Yum!


Cheers

Matt

Matt

Thank you for confirming that Pizza Express Pizzas are getting smaller, I thoght it was just me getting bigger.

I normaly find that the best pizzas are from indipendant resteraunts, my favorites are La Porchetta in Musswell Hill North London, they do a Pizza A Rucola with Parma ham and Rocket which is divine.

I had a great pizza in Naples last year. Sorry, can't remember the name of the place, it was one of the 500 or so pizzerias with a sign outside claiming to be the original...

-- Ian

Richmond on Thames used to have a superb Pizza Restaurant down by the river. It was there for decades, never changed, superb thin crust Pizza (not that doughy deepbase rubbish), low low prices and atmosphere as well. Took a lot of dates there in the 70s/80s. Then they tore it down and built a ghastly expensive pseudo American steakhouse called The Canyon. Bloody shame

Apart from PE, I wouldn't know where to go around here now for a Four Seasons or Capriciossa (even the new shrunken version).

David

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Originally posted by Matt Gear:
They do a nice thin oven baked base (can't stand the whole "deep pan" idea) and what I assume are more traditional italian toppings too

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Matt,
You've really got to try some good Chicago style pizza - it's just amazing. For me the thin wood fired oven pizza's fall into the appetizer category - nice and light snacks. But for a belt-loosening main course, deep dish is the way to go. This stuff is very different from the delivery pizza, which is really mostly bread with some sauce and cheese. Deep dish crust is actually quite thin in comparison. Now big floppy NY style slices you fold over are great too, but finding a good one is tough IMO.

cheers,

Dan

Well, it is conceivable that we're both getting bigger!


Not sure if Zizzi's qualifies for "best pizza in the world" but it's certainly pretty damn good....


Matt

Rasher, old chap:

For me, pizza also comes in two forms - good and bad. Anything from Mickey D's would be bad. And Pizza Express! FFS, man. I have eaten at two PEs in London (the second time was forced upon me). Once I got over the horror of seeing people eat pizza with a knife and fork, I had to contend with the "food". Awful, truly awful. A fried egg has no place on a pizza, my friend.

Good pizza can be had easily all across the USA. Where the hell were you trying?

But the best, obviously, is the deep fried variety from Glasgow chippies. Washed down with skoosh of your choice, as long as it's Irn Bru.

Davie the gourmand

Anyone that has the misfortune to visit Watford, you can improve your day by going to L'Arista.

This restaurant does a seriously good pizza and nothing more expensive than 7 quid. Can watch them make it and everything, makes Ask and Pizza Express look crap (which of course they are)

One of the best Pizzas I have ever had was near Termini station in Rome just up the road from our hotel. Simple cheese Tomato and ham in a street side bar superb. Pizzas in Naples were pretty bloody good too.

Howard

THe best pizzas I've ever had were, rather inevitably, in Italy - Naples and Ivrea.

I don't like pizzas in the US that much - tend to be a bit of cheese/dough overkill there.

Here in Blighty, the best pizza is at Pizza Metro on Battersea Rise, SW11. Divine pizza, worth making a detour for. The choice is very limited but who needs fancy toppings when you can have a basic Marg this good? The place is always packed, so if you're thnking of going, try to book. On the other hand, avoid the over-hyped and overestimated Eco in Clapham High Street - it's overpriced, the service is abysmal and they try to be experimental.

Pizza Express IMO is pretty piss-poor these days. It was once unrivalled but corporate greed and general management crassness has led to a formulaic chain with a tired menu that is poor value for money. You can get just as good a pizza at a branch of the ASK chain. The best chain pizzas now are at Strada, I think - well worth a go. In fact, I think I migh go to my local one this lunchtime.

But Pizza Metro is the best pizza you can get outside of Italy.

Kevin (tummy rumbling)

Not quite a case of me too!

The second best are those I make myself. After trying many base recipes /methods I found the one in The Pizza Express Cookbok to be by far the best. This little book, which is actually also a good read on how the business was founded, must be the best kept secret of Pizza Express.

But for me nothing beats Da Michele in Naples. It's so good you have to take a ticket and queue outside in the street until its your turn.

Cheers

Max

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John's Pizzeria on Bleecker St (I think) in NYC was excellent. Truly enormous, thin crust, wood fired oven....delicious.

AG

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Ah yes, I used to live right across the street from John's Pizzeria - Happy days.... I agree that for "Americanised" Pizza it was hard to beat although Bleecker Street seemed to be blessed with many excellent Pizzerias - Joe's "by the slice" was irresistable on a really cold day!

In London, I would have to rate the traditional Pizzas from La Delizia in Chelsea Farmers Market as the best I've ever had. Anybody know if it's still going?

Richard

Dan – Yes really – McDonalds pizza, for a box jobbie was really good. Unlikely I know. There is obviously a limit to the pizzas I’ve had in the whole of the US of course. I’ve done a fair few though, NY, SF, LA, Couldn’t find one in Pheonix, only BBQ places for some weird reason.

Davie – You see, our tastes in Pizza are obviously at different ends of the spectrum. I hate thick soggy doughy ones – Ugh. I have generally found USA pizzas to be warm slabs with paste spread on top. Over here, we call that a paste sandwich.

Stefano – I’m coming over.

Yes – “Arse” is quite good for pizza, and I MUST try Pizza Metro. Maybe next week then.

Pizza Express went through a bad time a couple of years ago when the pizzas and the salads became smaller, with the result that their business did too. They had a financial crisis last year, and in an effort to get customers to return, increased the pizza and salad sizes to what they were. I think you will find them generally OK now.

I too make my own pizza, and I’ve found that its best not to let the dough rise, just knead and roll it straight out – I like thin & crispy. I shove the oven on Full (electric), with the top and bottom elements blazing AND NO FAN!! Done in 7 minutes. For years I used a fan oven. Switch it off.

This is probably the most important thread ever on this forum.

One year I was in Poland and a group of us ordered a Pizza....

It had a dough base - good start
The tomato puree bit was ketchup - hmm interesting!!
There was appx 5 strands of grated cheese on the top and two of the biggest sausages Polish pigs could produce - Unsliced obviously.

This said it did not taste that bad. I think the 25p pints had something to do with that. They also used a giant spoon to remove the massive head from the beer. Genius!!

Stevie

Electric is what I have

I thought Greek food was the worst (In Greece that is, over here it's better IMHO), until I went to Poland. "Cooking" means applying heat to the raw ingredients. Not much imagination really. I am amazed they even attempted pizza - well...I suppose they didn't really, did they

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This is probably the most important thread ever on this forum

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100% with you on that, Rasher.

To go back to the Chicago vs the rest just for a moment, both are extremely important in the Pizzarista's lexicon but Geno East's has gone downhill since it moved. Frankly it's become a sad parody of it's former self and I was hugely disappointed when I took some friends there during a recent visit to the States. Uno's are probably closer to the original deep dish vision and apparently was the inspiration for the sadly now defunct Pizza Pie Factory in Hanover Square in London.

In New Yoik, it's got to be Lombardi's on Spring Street. Stunning stuff and they do a very interesting clam pie as well (I'd always thought 'clam pie' was Zappa for 'twat').

It's good to see some other recommendations for pizza here in England. Express is simply not as good as it used to be and the best is home baked, by me.

[This message was edited by Dave J on THURSDAY 23 October 2003 at 14:10.]

The worst meal I ever had was in Moscow about 15 years ago. It was described as "Seafood Mexicana". What I got was a plate of the smallest prawns known to humanity (krill, basically) covered in the Soviet version of ketchup.

-- Ian