The best for the best. Accept no substitutes.
You don’t need me to further evangelize Pedro Martinez, nor do you need me to further evangelize pizza. Both are the best. On we go.
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It’s not universally true, but most of the time you can make restaurant-quality food at home with the right ingredients and some practice. This is not true with pizza, for several reasons, the simplest of which is that your oven isn’t hot enough to properly cook it. If you say “yes it is!,” you probably have too much money for this discussion and/or know how to make and/or order pizza for yourself already, and while you’re welcome to stay, SILENCE!
I know pizza is hard to make because I’ve tried to make it. I’ve made my own dough, even using the fabled 00 flour, and I’ve used pizza dough I’ve bought. I’ve used a pizza stone, a pizza peel, a circular pan, a sheet pan, you name it. I’ve used cheap cheese and fresh mozz. I’ve tried it all. And I think my main takeaway is: Don’t. Just don’t bother. But if you do, put cornmeal on the bottom.
Here’s where I’d normally say something like “I live in New York, where all the pizza is pretty good, so it’s easy for me to say.” And honestly yeah, I live in New York, where all the pizza is pretty good, so it IS easy for me to say. But when I go back to Martha’s Vineyard, I’m not exactly inclined to make pizza there, and the pizza isn’t quite what it is here. It is still WAY better than what I make. Skill issue? Maybe. But just as there’s only one Pedro, there’s only one way to get truly great pizza: Go and pick it up.
Pedro’s Pizza
- A smartphone
- The ability to get somewhere
Bryan’s Notes
When I went to Australia with a friend 20 years ago we had a pizza I thought was great and he, as a real New Yorker, wouldn’t even entertain the idea, but I’m not gonna say your local pizzeria sucks. It probably doesn’t! That said, I asked around the Over the Monster offices for Boston recommendations and here they are.
- Fitzy Mo Pena: South Shore bar pizza (with a separate shoutout to the chicken sausage pizza from Woody’s on Hemenway)
- Mike Carlucci: Pleasant Cafe, Regina’s (main location only; he seconds Woody’s)
- Jake Roy: Ernesto’s and Mortadella Head in Somerville
- Dan Secatore: Santarpio’s. Well, he sent an article he did about it when his job was that sort of thing, but that was his takeaway
Anyhow those were the responses I got in the few minutes after I asked. So without further ado:
- Pick your pizza place of choice from the menu above (or otherwise, if you don’t live near Boston)
- Put 2287 First Avenue, NY, NY, 10035 into your map app of choice and go there instead because let’s be serious
- Do not, under any circumstance, go to a different Patsy’s
- Become Pedro’s daddy, pizza-wise