What is your idea of the perfect pizza?

2 Amys (in Washington DC) neopolitan Margherita.

I must say it depends on what kind of pizza I’m craving.

I really enjoy the thin crust, medium amount of sauce and lots of cheese so it’s kind of oily and gooood. Plain cheese all this one all the way. Then I like to add hot sauce sometimes and dip the crust in blue cheese.

If I’m making pizza at home though I make the crust so it’s a little on the thicker side and it’s wheat dough. Lots of sauce, lots of cheese and veggies veggies veggies.

Ok, that settles it, I’m definitely getting pizza for dinner tonight! :-P

Dipping the crust in blue cheese—I never heard of that, but I love the idea. I will try that.

Rays pizza in NYC

I’ll second the blue cheese business. We always order a couple of sides for dipping.

As far as pizza goes if we order out we get Jakeenos. A liitle mom and pop joint we’ve been going to since we were about twenty. Always thin, crispy crust. If it’s just my wife and I we’ll get a “white” pizza with jalepenos and pineapple. If it’s the kids and I we’ll go red sauce, peperoni, and green olives. My ten year old and I also like to add the hot pepper flaked and parm.

Most times we make pizza at home. May Day, our kick ads coffee house, sells par baked crusts Saturday mornings. I get a couple and freeze the extra. I make up my own sauce for these. I insist on whole milk mozarella. Toppings run the gamut. Pepperoni, olives, spinach, beets, apple, smoked duck. It’s all good.

Any Pizza!!!!!!!!

The” Classic Longboarder” from Pizza My Heart in Capitola, CA. Thin crust with sauce, cheese, garlic, fresh basil and Roma tomatoes. Simple, but easily the best.
Any pizza from Gino’s East (Chicago) if you want deep dish.

It sounds like we are thin crust people…
I love a nice thin crust with a little sauce, some cheese and fresh pineapple, or if im in the mood for garlic, just garlic and mushrooms, maybe some black olives. Artichoke hearts and italian tuna are great on pizza as well. And of course, quality cheeses, and a variety at that.

@AstroChuck That place sounds great. I will add it to my list. And I’m glad to see the first mention of deep dish!

wow! I’m from the south and my absolute favorite pizza is with tender shredded BBQ chicken with spicy spicy BBQ sauce, and loads of mozz and parm cheese. Hand tossed- when you get to the crust, you dip it in ranch. If I’m feeling spunky, I might add red onions…. No matter where your from- pizza is king!

Patsy’s. Brooklyn, New York.

I’m going to have to second Donato and go with Patsy’s (Grimaldi’s) under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brooklyn pizza, yum!

For those of you in NYC, have you tried Mariella’s at 960 8th Ave? I stumbled upon it on a day trip there, only to later find out it had been featured on Oprah. I’m not kidding, we took it to go and were eating as we walked. I only made it 1 block down and turned back to get some more.

Thin crust, BBQ sauce, double cheese, chicken, bacon, mushrooms, onions and sweetcorn.

I agree with Randy, as long as it doesn’t have onions. I absolutely cannot stand onions on anything! Ugh.

Here’s some I like:
– The Godfather: Regular crust, alfredo sauce, chicken, garlic, black olives, and Parmesan cheese.
– The Californian: Regular crust, pesto sauce, chicken, artichoke hearts, and black olives.
– Hawaiian: Regular crust, marinara sauce, Canadian bacon, and (EXTRA) pineapple. Sometimes I ask for black olives on it.
– Mediterranean: Regular crust, marinara sauce, spinach, feta cheese, Greek peppers, black olives, oregano, and tomatoes.
– BBQ Chicken: regular crust, bbq chicken, cilantro, gouda, mozzarella, and BBQ sauce.

Pepperoni, sausage,shrooms and a lite dusting of bacon crumbs. Grate some extra sharp cheddar and I think I’m good….
Add a pitcher of Beer to the equation….
Sounds really good….
I’m getting hungry…

Beer does go so well with pizza. =)

There’s this place in little rock called Damgoode Pies. Its quite possibly the best pizza I’ve ever eaten. They have one called the hog or razorback or something like that. Its every kind of meat you would put on a pizza with a mix of red and white sauce and loads of cheese. All said and done, its probably close to an inch thick. I’m a big eater for my size and I can only eat one slice, but its totally a slice of heaven!

@ all the bacon lovers. I feel about bacon the way I do about green chiles, there are not many things that can’t be improved with the addition of bacon!

@donato
Patsy’s can’t be beat!

the free kind that comes with beer!!!

Zachary’s deep dish pepperoni pizza in Berkeley. When I go to visit my aunt, I swear every night we eat it for dinner and then the next morning for breakfast…. Man my stomach is growling! :)

I like Woodstock’s Pizza and Steve’s Pizza in Davis. There’s something special about Steve’s crust, it’s always done perfectly.

Chicago-style stuffed. New York pizza is a ridiculous sham.

That’s right, I said it.

I love a white pizza which has no sauce…just olive oil Roma tomatoes fresh basil and ricotta cheese (just some cheese not covering the whole pie like mozzarella)

@andrew – BOO!

Homemade, we do it every Friday night. :)

double cheese with cheese inside the crust. yum…BUT NOTHING ELSE ON IT!!!!!

@ randy: my friends make fun of me for saying god- damned pies. I can never remember the right name… There’s a group of co workers at my job who go there every week and just sit around and eat pizza and drink beer. They call it “pizza Mondays”

Hahaha! That’s pretty funny. Your coworkers sound like they know what’s up. Beer and damgoode every week! I would be in paradise….oh, and weigh 500 pounds! Hahaha!

@Andrew
Have you ever had NY pizza!? No offence, but I have to completely disagree with you. Chicago deep dish is good, but a fresh slice of pizza from Manhattan is like a slice of heaven.

@ Andrew ~ I , too used to think NYC pizza was overrated… then I had pizza at Mariella’s (960 8th Ave) ‘nuff said.

I’ll go ahead pipe in on another yummy pizza variety while I’m here: wood-fired Tomato Basil Crispani used-to-be-available at Panera Bread but they cancelled it for-some-unknown-reason.

BBQ-sauce, chicken & corn. Don’t laugh.

I also have to represent the Chicago style lovers. Deep and cheesy. But the best is from Gino’s East.

California Pizza Kitchen’s Peking Duck pizza with Hoisin sauce drizzled over it. Sadly discontinued.

@steveakimbo Toss the crust. Just give me the Peking duck and hoisin sauce!

The perfect pizza is one you don’t have to pay for.

Right you are, AC! I lurved you.

Ah. Those three little words. I love it when a woman tells me that.
Of course, it sounds better without the past tense.

I used to work as an assistant manager at a Pizza Hut while attending college, so the “Meat Lovers” is popular with me.

Yum, meat, she said, unrepentantly.

I like pizza hut, but I don’t catagorize it with real pizza. I guess the whole heating up frozen pizzas thing doesn’t work for me.

When I worked at Pizza Hut, all of the pizzas were made fresh, and none were frozen.

Pizza Hut is pretty freakin good..

I think so. Thank you!

E, are you sure you’re not thinking about Papa Murphys?

I’ve never heard of papa murphys. I love pizza hut, but fast food just doesn’t belong in my best pizza list. That’s all I’m saying.

Pizza Hut=Yuck!

CHains yuck! Lurve to you AC.

Actually, when all is said and done, the PERFECT pizza is one purchased with someone else’s money!

August 23, 2008, 9:10 PM EDT

I had Zacharys pizza last night… Yum!

Giovanni’s pizzaria in Ny. and Gino’s pizza in Queens.
But i love pizza’s with rhe crust stuffed with cheese.. Mmmm its so qood. And pasty’s is deliicious as well. =]

RIP Totonno’s
:`(

@Marina You said it right at the start: … my favorite of all time is a hot, fresh slice of a cheese pie as can only be found in New York City.

There is simply nothing better. But to narrow it down even more, I’d have to say that Brooklyn is the seat of the absolute best pizza in the universe. Pizza from Queens, Manhattan, New Jersey, Long Island, even Boston and Philly are nearly as good. Italy is not even in the running; real pizza comes from Brooklyn, not Italy.

@Joe_Freeman Welcome to Fluther. I actually have never had pizza in Brooklyn. Maybe I’ll meet you there someday for a slice. Do you have a favorite place?

Oddly I used to despise Pizza and or pasta. But now I love any pizza with hot things on it, chilli’s ground beef, yum. Oh and thin base. Thick base is just toooo over the top.

@Just_Justine I agree with a thin crust!

Yea!! Totonnos reopened!!

@andrew just doesn’t know pizza. He mistakenly believes that good pizza is pizza piled high with toppings. The perfect pizza is a straight cheese pizza; anything piled on top makes it worse. This is basic knowledge for any New Yorker, knowledge that somehow eludes those from Chicago and especially California.

@marinelife, good pizza in the New York area is so universal, especially in Brooklyn, that anything sub-standard quickly dies out. That’s why I am always amused by people from New York who talk about this is the best or that is the best; all New York pizza is so good that it is foolish to distinguish one from another.

Put more quantitatively, all NY pizza is between 95% and 100% perfect, whereas outside New York pizza varies much more widely, perhaps from 25% to 100%. So in San Diego, where I now live, it makes sense to say Marino’s (at 98%) is far better than Filippi’s (at 55%), but to say that Totonno’s (at 99%) is much better than Ray’s (at 96%) is splitting hairs, since Ray’s is still better than 96% of the pizza out there and the difference between Totonno’s and Ray’s is lost in the noise of day-to-day variation and other fluctuations.

I’ll tell you what I do think is way, way overrated is the new breed of gourmet yuppie pizza that is taking over New York. Typically they are made in a coal- or wood-burning oven instead of the usual commercial Bari oven, they cost a lot of money, and they are not available by the slice. People, wake up! Plain old New York street pizza does not need to be improved and does not need to be expensive! Yuppie pizza is for suckers.

@eambos, I have to agree with you:

“Chicago deep dish is good, but a fresh slice of pizza from Manhattan is like a slice of heaven.”

Unfortunately @Joe_Freeman has mistaken “thin slab of grease you eat like a taco” with a pizza.
@eambos Many, many times. And while I have enjoyed it from time to time, there’s nothing that beats a good stuffed pizza.

And that has nothing to do with toppings.

@andrew, for the record, I never fold pizza in half to eat it. I know many New Yorkers do that and I think it’s unfortunate, as I feel each square inch of pizza should be savored. I do, however, have no objection to pizza being oily. A dry pizza, such as you’d get at Dominos, is an unmitigated disaster and cannot be rescued. It’s natural for the fat to be released by the cheese as it’s cooking. That fat may not be particularly good for your body, but it’s very good for the taste of the pizza.

The best pizza is the one that comes off my weber grill. Thick slices of cheese not that shredded crap that falls apart. Homemade pizza sauce. My favorite is mozzarella, provalone, mushroom and deer sausage. Thin crust with a nice smokey flavor from the oak coals.

@WestRiverrat When are you inviting me over for pizza off the grill? Sounds delicious!

New York style The best kind there is. When you can fold it and eat it is the best way to eat pizza. I like mine the traditional way made by Big Mike’s. Red sauce, lots of mozzarella, thin crust, and sometimes sausage.
You don’t have to go into the city for great NY pizza. My sister lives upstate and it’s still the same type of pizza you’d get on a street in Brooklyn. Absolutely delicious! No one else can make pizza like NY no matter how they try to copy it. They just can’t get it right.

@Aesthetic_Mess I agree!

“I actually have never had pizza in Brooklyn. Maybe I’ll meet you there someday for a slice.”

@marinelife, I’d love to take you up on your offer but, alas, I now live in San Diego, where one must choose one’s pizza very carefully, as there’s very good but also very bad here. Fortunately, after 40 years of research, I know where the very good is and that’s where I go. But in Brooklyn — or the New York area in general — you just can’t go wrong. I’ve had some outstanding pizza in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Remember, many of the Italians from the inner city move out to Long Island.