Pizza snobs often complain that you can’t get good pizza in California, but we are very fortunate to have several East Coast ex-pats who have moved to sunny San Diego and brought their secret thin-crust pizza recipes with them.
The most famous of these pizza joints is Bronx Pizza, which has built up a cult-like following in San Diego. In the 10+ years since Bronx has opened, lots of New York-style pizza places have opened - some by former Bronx Pizza employees.
Now that Bronx Pizza is not the only pie in town, we decided to do a blind taste test of NY-style pizzas. We bought a pizza from San Diego’s finest pizza places, and saw how they stacked up. We visited only NY-style pizza places (so no complaints about missing Fillipi’s, Pizza Port, Woodstock’s, Lefty’s, Oggi’s, etc, but do let us know if we’ve missed any other good NY-style pizza places).
So what were the results? Well, this proved to be our most difficult taste test so far, probably due to most of the entrants being pretty darn good. There was a clear winner, but the rest of the results felt like noise. I’ll show you the overall results and the individual rankings too so you can see what I mean.
| Rank | Name | Photo | Photo | Comments |
| 7 | Liberty Pizza |  |
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Liberty Pizza didn’t have too many fans amongst the tasters. Comments included “Insipid sauce”, “bland”, “cardboard and paste”, “soft crust”. But it wasn’t all bad, some noted “salty, tasty crust”, and “little sauce, but sauce is good”. |
| 6 | Hoboken Pizza |  |
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Hoboken’s had it’s defenders: “Good cheese, good crust with pull”, “my favorite texture”, but in general, it scored on the low side: “herbs taste old”, “too herby”. |
| 5 | Knockout Pizzeria (Carlsbad) |
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Photo didn’t come out  |
A lot of people people commented on the soggy crust on Knockout’s Pizza - “Soggy crust in center, doughy & chewy on the outside”. But others noted its “good overall flavor”, and “not too spicy, but not bland”. |
| 4 | Knockout Pizzeria (Sorrento Valley) |
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The comments on this pizza were very contradictory. One taster wrote, “Good, but greasy” while another said, “not greasy”. As for the crust, we had both “chewy crust - almost tough” and “good crunch on outer crust”. * Note that this Knockout is not technically related to the one in Carlsbad. |
| 3 | Bronx Pizza |  |
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Bronx came in third. Its fans proclaimed “greasier tasting, but in a good way”, and “sauce mild, but balanced”. But its detractors said “more grease - not much flavor”, “cheese - salty”, “thin crust, but somehow tough”. |
| 2 | A Sicilian Thing |  |
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Sicilian Thing scored well with some for its “good tomatoey & herby sauce” and “flavorful cheese”, which one called the “best of the bunch”. But others said, “crust too soft”, and called its sauce “very mild” and “non-descript”. |
| 1 | Luigi’s |  |
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Luigi’s takes the top spot in our showdown with its universally loved crust: “tasty charred pieces in crust”, “good crisp crust”, “crust crisp, more brown & flavorful”, “excellent dough”. The sauce had its fans also (”sweet sauce w/ good spice”), but some dissenters noted “sauce a little sweet” & “cheese lost in sauce”. |
Individual Rankings
| Cathy | Craig | Eric | Howie |
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| Jen | Liz | Mike | Tom |
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The only dominating pattern is that lots of people loved Luigi’s. It ended up in the top 2 in all but one taster’s rankings (mine). Though there are definitely trends like Hoboken and Liberty not doing as well, the rankings in general seem all over the place.
The tasting was almost like Rorschach test - revealing our own personal gastronomic fetishes. For example, apparently I have a big thing for greasy, salty food - which is why I picked Bronx as my #1 pizza. All of us had a lot of trouble coming up with our rankings since we felt that a lot were comparable in quality. And despite the rankings, all of the tasters said that they would happily eat most of the pizzas.
Hey Howie - Wow, it really was all over the place….I guess this adds even more fuel to the fire with regards to the best NY style in San Diego! Wonderful post!
Comment by Kirk — April 25, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
Hi, Kirk!
Yeah, I’m not sure if we’ll settle anything this one, but doing a blind taste test was eye-opening for me personally. I had thought that Bronx wasn’t my favorite anymore, and I ended up being the only one to rank it #1. And Hoboken, which I thought was my current fave, ended up second to last!
Comment by howie — April 26, 2008 @ 11:07 pm
Great writeup Howie. It was a tough taste test for sure. Only by sampling all 7 pizzas and looking for differences in them could we say which was better. Each pizza on its own would be just fine if it were the only one to eat. (Except Hoboken, IMO)
It was pretty surprising to see such a clear winner and then the other 6 sort of grouped more closely together.
I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to more of them.
Comment by Mike — April 27, 2008 @ 5:12 am
Sounds like it was a fun battle! I’ll have to try Knockout - I’ve driven by them a million times and never gone in.
I will add another place to the list for the north(ish) county dwellers - when I lived in Carmel Valley I used to go to Mario’s NY Pizzeria all the time (http://mariosnewyorkpizza.com/) They have excellent NY style pizza with that awesome crisp-chewy-charred crust and a nice balance of sauce and cheese. It reminds me very much of the pizza from my family’s favorite pizzeria when I was growing up in Queens, and you can’t get much higher praise than that
Comment by Julianne — April 29, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
Mike, thanks again for lending us your tasting talents!
Julianne, thanks for the tip on Mario’s! I’ll have try it the next time I’m up there.
Comment by howie — May 1, 2008 @ 8:41 am
You did miss one good NY style pizza place in San Diego - Regents Pizza in La Jolla, on Regents Blvd. east of the 5. They sell both NY style and Chicago, but the NY style is, at times, excellent. Lucky for me, I live nearby, but they deliver too.
Comment by Hollie — May 29, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Hi, Hollie,
Thanks for the tip on Regents Pizza. I will definitely add it to my to-eat list.
Comment by howie — June 1, 2008 @ 10:40 am
You missed a couple of good ones in Poway, Coney Island Pizza and Bongiornos. The White Pie at Coney Island is sublime…try getting out of the San Diego box and giving these guys a shot.
Comment by AJ — June 14, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
Thanks for the tip, AJ! I heard about Bongiorno’s right after we posted these results.
I’ve also heard good things about a new place downtown called Pauly’s, which was opened by an ex-Luigi’s employee. I’m going to try it out on Monday.
Comment by howie — June 15, 2008 @ 7:46 am
I can’t believe you guys missed Bongiornos! Just like back home in the Bronx!
Comment by Lance — June 24, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
Lance, I fully admit to not getting out of the metro area often enough, but I’ll definitely make an exception for Bongiorno’s and Coney Island.
By the way, it turns out that Pauly’s Pizza Station downtown is not a Luigi’s ex-employee, but actually a co-worker of Luigi’s when he worked at Bongiorno’s.
I tried Pauly’s pizza and it was very good. The crust is thin and crisp with a nice chew. And I really liked the sauce and balance with the cheese. I think I like Pauly’s sauce and cheese better than Luigi’s, but Luigi’s still has the best crust in San Diego, IMHO.
It’s hard to say, but I would guess that Pauly’s would have scored in the top half of the pizza battle.
Comment by howie — June 25, 2008 @ 10:14 pm