Caroline McCarthy

Question to all: What is it with San Francisco’s reputation concerning pizza?

Is it because I only ever eat from Little Star and Delfina that I’m ignorant to some twisted, dark underbelly of San Francisco, where terrible cheese-lathered bread-product unworthy of the name ‘pizza’ is rubbed against a dog and baked in the warmth of someone’s flatulence? Is there really pizza that bad in this city? Is New York really that good? Am I going to have to fly across the country to find out? Who wants to come? When?

(via benw)

Delfina is fine. Paxti’s is fine. So are Beretta, Pauline’s, Pizza Nostra and Flour + Water. (Little Star is very fine.) But none of them are great, really. I have no idea what the magic ingredient is, but visit Lost Dog Pizza in Arlington, Pizza Paradiso in Georgetown, or Two Amys in DC and you’ll have had a better pizza than I’ve ever had in San Francisco.

I haven’t had a lot of pizza in New York—definitely nothing exciting, anyway— and I’ve never been to Chicago to try their deep-dish offerings. So this is just me, saying, after only having great pizza in DC, that San Francisco’s pizza really, really, weirdly!, oddly!, isn’t that great.

My running theory is that, since American-style pizza is kind of the anti-slow-food, Bay Area chefs really can’t get into it.

(via timoni)

I’ve had this conversation numerous times. I love Flour + Water, Contigo, etc, but it’s true that San Francisco doesn’t have a fantastic pizza reputation. That said, I don’t know if it’s a bad thing. Perhaps wondering why SF doesn’t have amazing pizza is like wondering why New York doesn’t have fantastic burritos or why Chicago isn’t know for great sushi. Maybe it’s just that due to the way SF grew up, pizza wasn’t part of its culinary vernacular. And I’m OK with that.