Established in 2000, Rustica is located at 903 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA, which is the Northern Liberties area. Rustica is a hip pizzeria that serves various types of pizza. There is indoor as well as outdoor seating available. Their name probably comes from their rustic looking, particularly their old style hardwood floors. Rustica has won several awards from various sources and is a very popular pizza spot.
My pizza tour consisted of four spots so I had to make room for at minimum four slices of pizza. With this in mind, please understand that I am making these reviews with the best of my resources. For example, I usually review Margherita pizzas as they are very traditional Italian pizzas. Some of the pizza places today, however, only sell this pizza as a large and not by the slice. Since it wasn’t practical for me to order a whole pizza, I decided to choose what was available by the slice.
Rustica did not serve a Margherita pizza at all so I went a little fancy. I ordered a slice of their spinach and roasted peppers American style pizza (cheese on top). After a few minutes of warming up, round 1 was served. By the way, Rustica pizzas are mostly round. The crust on their pie was lightly darkened, average thickness, and burnt slightly on the edges. The crust was also foldable without much drippage. There sauce was sweet and tasty and did not slide off the crust like some pizzas do. The spinach was ok but nothing to brag about. The roasted peppers were a nice touch on top with the cheese. The sauce was tasty but I think a little more would have made it just right. The cheese melted well on top and was a little darkened in some spots.
I think Rustica pizza overall was very good. I would have just added a tad bit more sauce and spinach. For a fountain drink and a slice the cost was $4, which is a reasonable price considering the fancy location of the pizzeria. I wouldn’t say that Rustica is the best of the best pizzas in Philly but they still deserve a green light.
Rustica has a nice business going for them and would bet that they will be around many more years. I may have to revisit to give them my full attention one day by ordering an entire meal. Well...in a few moments I will post my next review of Cacia’s Bakery so stay tuned…
They are very popular indeed. But quite frankly their pizza is overrated. I think the lack of true competition is why they get rave review from folks. Yeah they are the best in the area the BEST OF THE WORST that is.
ReplyDelete