The Sunday travel news in our local South Florida newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, had an article about how to find two of the best pizzas in the United States in our local community. Apparently, in South Florida, we need to go to either Miami or Delray Beach! Is that why, Mike Mayo, the author
“The Eat Beat” article “Two South Florida Pizzerias Make National List,” appears in The Travel Section? There are two more, a total of four, best pizza restaurants “locally,” if you count outposts of New York pizza restaurants.
If you are in South Florida, here are our four from the 2016 Daily Meal (there is such a thing!) pizza rankings, that goes through a list of 800 nominations to come up with 101, of which 29 are in New York (of course):
Lucali, Miami Beach (Brooklyn main location #9)
Paulie Gee’s, Miami (Brooklyn main location #21)
Scuola Vecchia Pizza e Vino, Delray Beach (#82 on its own)
Harry’s Pizzeria, Miami (#93 on its own).
We grandmas can agree that pizza is our grandchildren’s favorite food. This Grandma says “Pizza for Breakfast!” Pizza for breakfast was one of the first grandma lessons this grandma learned from a long (we never say old) friend. We grandmas should serve pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After all, it has all the food groups! And we can be sure that this is something our grandchildren will love and love us for giving it to them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
First, I was interested in Mike Mayo’s short history of pizza. He tells us that the margarita pizza was named after a 19th century Italian queen and the colors of the pizza mimic the colors of the Italian flag, red tomatoes, white mozzarella cheese and green basil. We grandmas can now act so smart when we next serve pizza to our grandchildren. If you want more history, go to Wikipedia.
Second, I was curious about “The Daily Meal.” This website touts itself as “All Things Food And Drink.” Here is the link for the article on the pizza rankings.
This Grandma was not crazy about the search feature which put this third when I asked for the 2016 pizza rankings, and then brought me to the 2015 rankings first to click again to get the 2016 rankings. When I hit “list” nothing happened, and many pop up ads and videos interrupted even that. There was just too much advertising to get to what I wanted to see. And the thumb nails to click on went from 101 to 1 at the end and took forever to see the pizzas! It was hard to find and realize you could just click on a list. You can find the list here.
Thank you to Mike Mayo. Except that Scuola was listed at #71, not 82. Yes, this Grandma went through all 101. You never know where you might find yourself and pizza is a great go to safe food. Why not the best? Regina Pizzeria, our go to grandchildren favorite in Boston came in at #38. I go to New York often and grandchildren live in Connecticut so I had to see what was there. Yes, there were 9 in Connecticut and the grandchildren’s favorite was on the list. #70 is Pizza Paradiso in Washington, DC, the area where the other grandchildren are.
This Grandma paid close attention to those in Manhattan. For thick crust Neopolitan #18 is Keste Pizza and Vino in Manhattan, which is what its name means in Neopolitan. #14, Joe’s Pizza, this Grandma knows she has passed in Manhattan, and now I know to stop! Rubirosa’s Restaurant in Nolita in Manhattan is #10 and worth a journey for a vodka sauce pizza. Motorino Pizza in Manhattan does clams and even brussel sprouts pizza coming in at #6. John’s of Bleeker Street is #2 but it may be worth a journey with grandchildren to go to
2016 #1 in Brooklyn, Di Fara.
Yes, this Grandma agrees. Pizza is worth a journey, and trying to navigate the Daily Meal website to find the best pizzas in the United States in 2016 was surely one. Too bad. The website has recipes, articles and much that looked interesting. But, it is not worth wading through all the “sauce” if you will.
Joy,
Mema