The Pizza Conundrum

My Struggle to Find Good Pizza in Pittsburgh

NOT a Margherita

My absolute favorite food is pizza. I love it for its simplicity, convenience, and versatility. In the movie Wedding Crashers, Vince Vaughn compared sex to pizza stating, “…even when it’s bad it’s good.” But is it?

I grew up on Long Island where pizza parlors are a mainstay in most strip malls and main streets. The majority of them are good. Some are great. Many of the rest are at least passable. This rule continues as you move further west into Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, and eventually into New Jersey. I went to school in Oneonta - a city nestled in upstate New York situated halfway between Albany & Binghamton. We also had very good pizza there. So naturally, it was my assumption that passable, good, & great pizza could be found everywhere and that Vince Vaughn’s words would ring true throughout the United States and the rest of the universe. But alas, I moved to one of those odd places that just can’t seem to get it right.

Let me be fair - we live in the northern Pittsburgh suburbs. We’ve had pizza down in the city that I would rate as either passable or good. A couple of places have even bordered on greatness. But the majority of what we’ve consumed in our slice of suburbia has rated from passable down to inedible. Take, for example the pie in the photo at the top. This is what a local pizzeria thinks is a Margherita. It is not. A Margherita should have a thin, crispy crust, fresh tomato and mozzarella, olive oil, salt, and basil (applied after cooking.) This wet, limp mess did not resemble that at all. I have attempted to find Margherita pizza at other locations in the area that have been met with similar results. Moral of the story is to stick with the very basic New York style pies, maybe add a topping or two, and call it a day.

The “Burrata Top Shelf” at The Grove, Austin, TX

On a recent trip to Austin, TX I got a pizza craving and was able to satisfy it as a restaurant called The Grove Wine Bar + Kitchen on West 6th Street. I ordered their version of a Margherita which they called the Burrata Top Shelf. And top shelf it is! Note the crispy crust, fresh tomatoes and cheese, and sprigs of basil. It looks like they also used a bit of sauce and cooked the basil, but it worked perfectly well. Pizza should crunch a bit. It shouldn’t fall apart when you lift it to your mouth. It should bring happiness. I left The Grove very happy, indeed.

The Margherita from Pizza Rock, Las Vegas, NV

Outside of opening my own pizza restaurant or attempting to franchise something like Pizza Rock, Las Vegas - a fabulous restaurant near Freemont Street where I had one of the best versions of a Margherita ever - I don’t see a future here in the North Hills that includes great pizza. Which is why I’m glad my wife and daughter bought me my own pizza oven a couple years ago for Father’s Day. I’ve been working on perfecting my own version of the Margherita since receiving it. Mine are still a little too wet, and I can’t figure out how to get the crust to the level of crispiness I prefer, but I’m working on it.