With the advent of affordable and portable high-end pizza ovens for home (like the Ooni and Gozney ovens), home-made pizza has evolved a long way from the Chef Boyardee kits of earlier generations or the dormitory staple of English muffin pizzas. Is there still a market for a middle ground approach for a make-at-home pizza that is better than a frozen pie but not striving to be a restaurant quality Neapolitan pie? The pre-fab "Round & Thin Pizza Crust" roll-out dough from Jus-Rol seems to be addressing that niche. This inexpensive ($4.99 at Randall's Supermarket in Austin, Texas) cylinde ..read more

Our first encounter with “Buffalo style” pizza was a good one. The local newspaper had an article about a pizzaiolo who was getting great social media responses. His pizza shop, very unassuming as you see from the photo, is only 20 minutes away and next to a park where we wanted to go for a walk on a nice day. Of course, we had to check it out.  Buffalo style characteristics include a crust that is described as bready, fluffy, or spongy, tomato paste-based sauce, lots of cheese, and "cup and char" pepperoni (sliced thin, curl up into a cup shape in the oven’s heat—similar to the upper la ..read more

Who thinks about finding great pizza in Nashville? During our recent visit to America's second-best music city (after Austin), we indeed were scouting for the top rank pizzas. Our short list included Smith & Lentz, Nicky's Coal-Fired, a branch of Emmy Squared, and Dicey's Tavern. But we ultimately were persuaded to visit City House because they've won a James Beard award. Beyond that, in June 2024, the New York Times chose "22 of the Best Pizzas in the US" and City House made the list. The article noted: Can pizza be Southern? Can Italian food? The answer is yes, at least when y ..read more

Costco's new refrigerated take and bake rectangular pizza - everything you need to know about it. Is it tasty? Is it worth $16.99? Sneak preview: it's shockingly good!  Every Costco shopper knows the food court pizza - a huge slice for $1.99 in most locations. Read our review here: tinyurl.com/FoodCourtPizza. This offering hasn't changed in years, but the take and bake pizza in the deli section at the back of the store comes and goes. And it hasn't always been very good. Costco's newest take-and-bake option Some years back, Costco offered a round "Artisinal" take and bake pizza ..read more

Stracci Pizza opened in a trailer during the pandemic in early 2021 to sell their Roman style pizzas, but had grown to become a full brick-and-mortar operation before the end of the year. By 2023, Stracci was ranked #11 in a Washington Post roundup of DC region pizzas, and chosen as #1 by readers of Northern Virginia Magazine. The Stracci (image from straccipizza.com) The pizzas are Roman style, where the high-hydration dough is cold-fermented for 72 hours before baking directly on the hearth ("alla palla") in rounded rectangles. Stracci is named for its signature stracciatella c ..read more

Need more evidence that we're living in a Pizza Renaissance? More than 12,000 feet above sea level in Peru is the city of Cusco, which was the hub of the Inca civilization 2500 years ago.  Cassandra, Mike, Tom, and our guide Efrain. See the Inca stone walls! The same indigenous people who built Machu Picchu used their advanced stoneworking skills to construct buildings that are still intact today; many buildings in Cusco have Inca walls in their ground levels.  Exterior shot, again the Inca walls In this relatively remote and high altitude place, our tour group set ..read more

After five years in Texas, it's no longer surprising but still a delight for this Jersey boy to find great pizza here, because I had arrived in Central Texas with modest expectations. I had already known about and experienced most of the bigger names in the region, such as Via 313, Salvation Pizza, Home Slice, and Pieous. But in the western suburbs (Bee Cave, Lakeway, Spicewood) I expected to seek out BBQ and Mexican food as surrogates for the great pizza I could easily find in the Philadelphia region, my home for decades. In late 2020, a small take-out only shop popped up on Route 620 ..read more

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in America; it has more people than Boston, Dallas, San Diego, Detroit, Seattle, or Atlanta. Among its many charms are the Pearl District, the River Walk, fabulous Mexican food, an ample supply of affordable housing, and of course the Alamo. San Antonio's RiverWalk What is lacks is great pizza. Among America's ten largest cities, San Antonio ranks 10th in regard to the number of pizza destinations worth your time and travel. It does have a few gems: Stella Public House and Dough Pizzeria Napoletana are making top-shelf Neapolitan pizzas; there i ..read more

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2024 Not long ago, we visited Pedroso's Pizza in their trailer on Burnet Rd, not far from Route 183. We were smitten with both the NY slice and the Grandma style slice, and our full review follows this update.  On a recent revisit, we found a Wednesday slice special featuring  Sicilian style pizza. In fact, the menu for whole pizzas includes thin crust New York pizza, slightly thicker American style pizza, square Grandma pizza, square Sicilian style pizza, and a Trenton tomato pie! (There are now two Pedroso's locations, including a "Pedroso's Square Pie Trailer" in ..read more

Here at Pizza Quixote, we do a wrap each January to highlight the best new discoveries of the previous calendar year. Keep in mind, these are not the "Ten Best Pizzas Ever!" but simply our ten best *discoveries* of the year past. Marinara slice at Papa's in Robbinsville Naturally, Texas pizzas (surprisingly excellent) have been prominent in the year-end reviews ever since a 2019 relocation from the Philly suburbs to the Austin suburbs. Never more so than in 2020, when the pandemic really constricted travel opportunities. But 2021 did include a few trips to NY-NJ-PA, and New Jersey rea ..read more