Top Tomato Pizza Kitchen Review

Top Tomato Pizza Kitchen is located at 1107 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. This is another typical Center City Philadelphia pizzeria. They have been established now for several years and are open seven days a week.

Top Tomato Pizza Kitchen has a very colorful place and has a nice layout inside. It is not a fancy place the way the name makes it sound but it is not a hole in the wall either. It is a nice laid back yet attractive open space pizzeria/restaurant. They serve a wide variety of foods but pizza is their specialty.

The reason that I say that this is another typical Center City pizzeria is because their pizza was average. I didn’t form a bad impression about the Top Tomato Pizza Kitchen but I wasn’t positively impressed either. The counter pizza that they had also appeared to be sitting there for a long time. This includes the slice of plain cheese that I ordered. They reheated it for me but I felt like I was eating leftovers because the slice didn’t look fresh.

The cashier was polite unlike the other pizza places in Center City that I have recently been to but that is just one element worth considering when looking at the big picture. The slice of the pizza was $2.15, which is actually cheap by Center City standards but not by Philly standards as a whole.

The crust neither was charred one bit nor was it crunchy or crispy. The pizza that I ate was American style with the cheese on top. There was a good amount of cheese but the problem was the slice was too small compared to many other slice shops throughout Philly. The slice was cut from a 14-16 inch pie instead of an 18-20 inch pie. Thus, it was narrower and shorter. The crust at the edge was about 2 inches long before you hit the cheese. I don’t agree that this style of pizza should have an edge like that as it takes away from the space you could be using for more cheese and sauce. The sauce used was your standard bland tomato sauce and spread very thin. There was definitely more cheese used, which made the sauce a very miniscule background flavor.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend the Top Tomato Pizza Kitchen into the Best Philadelphia Pizza Club now. But I thought the place was nice, the staff was friendly, and the price was reasonable for Center City Philadelphia. They need to work on their pizza though to stand out from the competitors. For these reasons, I give Top Tomato Pizza Kitchen a yellow light (proceed with caution) for their pizza.

Celebre’s Pizza Restaurant Review

Celebre’s Philadelphia Pizza Restaurant Review

Celebre’s pizza restaurant is located at 1536 Packer Avenue in South Philadelphia, PA, 19145. Established in 1948, Celebre’s pizza is an extremely popular Philly pizzeria full of tradition and history.

A place like Celebre’s needs to be reviewed on Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog for many reasons including: popularity amongst locals, 61 years of selling pizza in Philadelphia, their signature pizzas, etc. I like Celebre’s pizza restaurant for several reasons. First, they serve alcohol. You can eat your pizza and wash it down with a nice cold beer. Pizza and beer are amongst the world’s best food combinations. There aren’t many pizza places in Philadelphia that have a liquor license. For example, Santucci Brothers Square Pizza was a treat because you can bring your own beer as many pizzerias don’t even allow this. But when beer is served in the same facility as your pizza…that is a good start.

I also like Celebre’s pizza restaurant because of its atmosphere. Celebre’s is an old style Italian pizza place that has made it through an era when people didn’t eat out. If they could be successful in the fifty then they are true survivors. The people who work there and own the place have deep South Philly Italian roots. These roots are reflected in the pizza recipe that they use as it has probably been passed down for generations.

I also like Celebre’s for their pizza. I do want to make a disclaimer for all New York pizza critics. Philly is a world of its own in America, just like New Orleans is different than the rest of the South (they call it a Banana Republic). Specifically, this conversation applies to South Philly. The terminology that may be common in the rest of the world for various pizzas types are not commonly used here. It doesn’t mean that the pizza is bad or that the pizza chefs in this neck of the woods don’t know pizza…it means that they know it the way their region of Philly knows it. What am I talking about? For example, Celebre’s, amongst many other local Philly pizzerias, doesn’t make a Margherita pizza and if you asked them for it (as a New Yorker would) you may be reciprocated with a dirty look. This doesn’t mean that Philly pizzerias don’t know pizza it is just that they are used to it their way and if you know the Philly attitude you will understand that this is good enough for them.

Celebre’s sells a pizza called the “Old Way” pizza. Fancy New York pizzerias would translate this pizza to a marinara pizza. There is mainly tomato sauce placed on top of a small amount of cheese. This pizza is phenomenal. I think that I am most impressed with the sauce that they made. Their tomato sauce is very chunky, thick, and spicy, which is my favorite style of Italian tomato sauce. A sauce without flavor is not sauce at all it is just tomato in a liquid form. Celebre’s uses a good amount of their sauce on top. The cheese was hidden underneath and probably would account for 20% of the pizza ingredients. That is the point of this pizza: to create more of a tomato pie the old Italian way. So you see they call it “Old Way” and modern food critics would call it marinara. Who is right and who is wrong? This is just a small example of how Philly works – they like to be unique. It doesn’t mean that they don’t know how to cook pizza. Celebre’s have been successful for 61 years so that must be doing something right.

The crust of this pizza was slightly darkened. I think that New Yorker pizza critics may like their crust for this reason. I only tried the Old Way pizza as it was one of their signature pies and more in line with my taste buds. They do serve a pizza called the “Pizzaz” though that they are famous for. Maybe I’ll come back to try that another time.

The total cost for a 16 inch pie was around $10, which is worth the money. Celebre’s is a good time and a place where you can experience a real local South Philadelphian Italian style old fashioned pizzeria. They use high quality pizza ovens in the back and have a very fun, energetic, and friendly staff. Celebre’s gets a green light vote in my book for Best Philadelphia Pizza!

Couch Tomato Café Pizza Review

The Couch Tomato Café Margherita Pizza Review

The Couch Tomato Café is another very popular pizza place located in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia. They have outdoor as well as in door seating and are conveniently located near Main Street.

The Couch Tomato Café, located at 102 Rector Street, Philadelphia, PA 19127, was established in 2003 by Michael Cassano and Craig Mosmen. Michael and Craig were 2000 graduates of the University of Delaware and were highly interested in the restaurant business. They have successfully created a very solid business in Manayunk that is well organized and ripe for expansion. The Couch Tomato is a beautiful little place with outside seating to watch the passer bys along Main Street. They also have indoor seating where you can sit on the popular giant tomato looking couch. The décor inside is very appropriate to their theme, “tomatoes.”

The Couch Tomato has won many awards since their inception and is continuously in the Philly restaurant spotlight. Their pizzas focus mainly on New York Style Thin Crust pizzas. I tried the small personal Margherita pizza and was extremely impressed for many reasons. Their pizza is truly unique in that they use all fresh ingredients and in the method that they use it. Let me elaborate.

The Margherita pizza had mozzarella cheese balls (not melted) arranged on the pizza. This is very unique as most pizza shops will usually melt the cheese. I thought this style of using mozzarella actually produced a very tasty unique pizza. Also, their Margherita pizza had tomato slices in addition to their sauce on top of the pizza. This is a very healthy way to eat pizza and provides more of a natural taste. The sauce was good enough by itself being very sweet and tangy but with the tomato slices…that was a treat. The crust is thin crust New York style. It was not slightly burnt the way New Yorkers like it but it was foldable without cracking, which is a sign of a good thin crust. I also ordered the wheat crust instead of the original white crust and was very impressed with the quality of its taste.

The basil used was fresh whole leaves strategically spread over the four slices that came with the personal size pie. This is the way that Santucci Brothers Square Pizza should have done their pies instead of their chopped slices, which were chopped way too much.

The cost of the pie was relatively inexpensive ringing in at $8.99 for a small pie with 4 slices. The value was in the freshness of ingredients. I really liked the Couch Tomato pizza. I think that New York pizza critics may agree too. I am confident that a place like this would rightfully represent Philadelphia to the pizza world as being a representation of what the best Philly pizzas have to offer. So congrats to the Couch Tomato Café as you have made the cut and our now a part of the Best Philadelphia Pizza Club!

Santucci Brothers Square Pizza Review

Santucci Brothers Square Pizza Manayunk, Philadelphia Review

Today’s review is on Santucci Brothers Square Pizza. Santucci Brothers is something similar to a franchise as they are very big in the north part of Philly and there are many locations. Today’s review will be of the Santucci’s located in Manayunk, Philadelphia, PA, 19128 (3862-64 Terrace Street).

A review of Santucci’s pizza requires some history. Santucci pizza was started in 1959 by Joseph and Philomena Santucci. The Santucci story is best told by them so I have provided a little excerpt from their website here for your convenience.

As the post war era in America produced a dramatic increase in population,
demand for these time-tested neighborhood specialty foods also increased to the
point where it became impossible to prepare enough tomato sauce to keep up with
the volume. In California, tomato producers addressed this need by preparing a
canned sauce made of the most premium fresh tomatoes (not from concentrate) and leaving the seasoning to the discretion of the local pizzerias.

It was these very circumstances that gave the Santuccis their most famous
creation: Santucci Square Pizza. By increasing the size of the baking pan to a
full 12 x 18 inches, Joe and Philomena were on their way to a taste sensation.
Next, they combined the most superior seasonings to produce their famous
Santucci sauce. Instead of placing in underneath the layer of grated cheese like
most other pizzerias they took the finest 100% whole milk mozzarella cheese,
sliced it and placed it directly on the dough and placed the sauce on top. Then,
to remove any acidity in the sauce and to melt the cheese they raised the oven
temperature from the standard 300 degrees to 550 degrees. The result? A
revolutionary product that began to make history.

The "Old World Quality" of Santucci Square Pizza is evident in every
pizza produced. Since 1959, the Santuccis have produced superior quality and
service. With state of the art equipment and streamlined procedures, what used
to take fifteen minutes to produce the original Square Pizza now takes less than
seven minutes. Store layout and design has been improved so that overall
production is done with higher efficiency and store cleanliness exceeds the most
difficult standards. With superior customer service techniques and an aggressive
marketing program, the Santucci system is one that its competitors could only
hope for.

The key to this success story is a direct result of a growing family
that began with Joe and Philomena, who have all devoted their entire life-long
energies to be the best. The legacy of Santucci Square Pizza has become the
standard bearer of quality. Try a Santucci Square Pizza for yourself. Since
1959, Always in Good Taste!

The two original Santucci pizzeria’s are located at 4010 Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19135 and 1701 Welsh Road, Philadelphia, PA 19115. Today the Santuccis rent out their last name for other pizza shops who want in on the great pizza recipe. The original owner’s son Joseph Jr. now has taken over the business and has his own place called Joe Santucci’s Original Square Pizza Bar and Grill located at the Knight’s Road Shopping Center, 4050 Woodhaven Road, Philadelphia, PA 19154.

I like Santucci’s pizza regardless of the locations for a few reasons. First, they put their sauce on top of the cheese for every pizza style and toppings. This goes against the traditional American style pizza and is more in the tradition of the original Italian style. Second, Santucci’s pizzas are all square pizzas, which make them very unique. Most pizza places in Philly make only round pizzas unless they also offer Sicilian pizza. Santucci makes square pizza but not in a Sicilian style. That is, the crust is not as thick as what we traditionally think of as Sicilian pizza.

Santucci Brother Square Pizza in Manayunk is a nice place. This area of Philly is known to have many young professionals and college students so it is more of a party scene. Santucci Brothers have addressed their niche by making their place a B.Y.O.B. and allowing customers to bring their own beer. They are also open until 2:30 on Friday nights. The place looks very clean inside and well taken care of. It is a nice place to sit inside and relax with a group of friends. Santucci’s is located only a few blocks from Main Street, the most trafficked street of this neighborhood. They are on a quite block and have a decent amount of parking.

I ordered a small personal Margherita pizza. The crust is average thickness and I was able to get 4 slices out of one pie. The crust was nice and crispy along the edges. It was not blackened like New York style but it was still tasty. The melted mozzarella cheese was spread evenly with the sauce. The sauce was very sweet and tangy and worked well with this pie. The basil was spread around evenly but was chopped in very small pieces.

The price was very reasonable for a small pizza at about $8. After adding the soda and a few more items, I easily passed the $12 mark that qualified me for the $2 off coupon.

Overall, I really like Santucci Brothers pizza. The only part that I didn’t like was the way the basil was arranged on the pie. I think that they should have used whole fresh basil and properly organized it (maybe one or two leaves per pizza slice). The way that they left the basil on top was not appealing for a Margherita pizza.

Although Santucci Brothers may not meet the standards of many New York pizza critics, I still vote it one of Philadelphia’s best pizzas because it is unique; it has deep Philly pizza history, overall good pizza, and cleanliness. All of their pizzas are fresh and each Santucci pizzeria must abide by certain rules (like a franchise) in order to be considered part of the club. Santucci Brothers also had very friendly staff that went the extra mile. These are all qualities of a best Philly pizza!

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria Review

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria Review

Today I will review La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria, which is considered by many to have the best Philadelphia pizza. My overall response was a green light which means go try their food. I highly recommend their pizza and will elaborate below on my reasoning why.

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria is located at 636 South Street, Philadelphia, PA. Established in 1994, La Fourno (translates to oven in Italian) has become a very popular and trendy pizza place. They are known also for their various Italian foods that they serve including the following: Veal Parmigiana, Fresh Pasta Dishes, Daily Fish Specials, Home Made Soups & Salads, Gnocci Gorgonzola, Lobster Ravioli, Al's Mom's famous Linguini & Meatballs, Chicken Valdostana, Farinatta Bread, Penne alla Vodka, Grilled Calamari & Tiger Shrimp, Stuffed New Zealand Mussels, and Artichoke Romano.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the ambience here. La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria is a very small, yet cozy, restaurant. There is some form of European appeal all in the convenience of the most popular street in Philadelphia, South Street. There are all types of people that eat here including locals and tourists.

I was very impressed also with the respect that was given to me from the minute I walked in the door. The waiter and the manager (owner?) greeted me with welcoming arms and were very polite and hospitable. This is rather unusual for a Philadelphia pizza place, which usually has the indifferent approach: I don’t care if you eat here or not. The waiter was also consistent the whole time with his manners. La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria is a small business run by two owners. With this kind of size, an Italian restaurant such as this can focus on the customer more.

The main attribute of this place, which has helped contribute to its popularity, is its wood burning brick oven. This pizza oven greets you at the door so you can actually watch your pizza being made. That may have helped with their CitySearch Best Pizza award for 2004-2009 amongst many other awards. Well, they can add another award to their list: Voted one of the BEST Philadelphia Pizzas Award by Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog. Let me elaborate.

La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria’s pizza was excellent. As usual, I ordered a standard Neapolitan Margherita pizza. I order the same pizza for all reviews for consistency plus it is the true original pizza.

The crust was not black at all (this may be considered a negative). It should have been cooked a little longer but it still was very good. The crust also was very soft and not crackly like the pizza at Slice.

The sauce was very basic tomato (deep red) sauce. There wasn’t much spice to it, which is the style preferred by many. I like a little more spice to it but I was content.

The mozzarella was fresh and equally mixed with the sauce. This is the way I like my Margherita pizzas: not too much sauce and not too much cheese.

The basil leaves were sprinkled evenly throughout the pizza. By the way, the pizza size was a 10 inch personal pizza (a good sized portion). Even though the crust was thin it is still very fulling when combined with a salad and an appetizer.

The thing that I didn’t like is that I originally ordered a Margherita pizza and an American pizza came out. When I questioned the waiter he said that this is the way they serve Margherita pizzas there (rather strange). If you want a true Margherita pizza then you need to specify exactly what you want or an American pizza (cheese on top and all over the sauce) will become your meal.

The waiter did correct the order for me and was very polite in his approach to bringing me out a new true Margherita pizza. This is the reason why I give them two thumbs up for excellent service.

Aside from the Margherita pizza confusion, when the real pizza came out it was really tasty. I validate all of the positive reviews this place has received. La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria has the total package: a great atmosphere, great pizza, great Italian food, a full bar, warm staff, all on a hip street in Philadelphia.

I hope that you have enjoyed my review from the Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog on La Fourno Ristorante Trattoria!

Sam's Wildwood NJ Boardwalk Pizza

Sam's Pizza Palace Wildwood New Jersey Boardwalk Pizza

I wanted to make a quick announcement that I reviewed Sam’s boardwalk pizza on Blog Pizza. This is a staple food for those people from Philly who visit the New Jersey shore in the summer and need to have their pizza fix. There are so many good things to say about Sam’s pizza.

Sam’s Pizza Palace is one of the best New Jersey Pizza restaurants and the best New Jersey boardwalk pizza. Sam’s is located on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey. So come visit Blog Pizza and read the rest of my full review.

Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Review

Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Italian Pizza Review

This article will provide a review of Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Italian Pizza located in Philadelphia. This is my first major review of Philadelphia pizza on this blog. For those of you who don’t know the affiliation, the owners of this blog also run Blog Pizza, the premier pizza blog. I have decided to set this blog on Philadelphia pizza up because this is the area that I live and believe that the Philadelphia community needs some recognition in the pizza world. Who would be best to do this job other than Blog Pizza?

In order to determine who has the best Philadelphia best, I would like to start at the top of the chain. I am going after the so called “Philadelphia best pizza” joints through public recognition. Eventually I will be targeting the pizza places that us locals know of. Keep in mind that what I am doing is letting out Philadelphia secrets. Philadelphia pizza is not known to be famous like New York or Chicago for a reason.

Philadelphians choose to keep pizza a secret as when their foods get well know like in the cheesesteak scenario, our town becomes flooded with tourists littering our streets with Geno’s and Pat’s Steak dirty rappers. This issue will be dealt with another time.

Why am I letting the cat out of the bag? I would prefer our city to be known for pizza than cheese steaks. Pizza parlors can contain traffic indoors and have a better system to deal with tourists. The major Philly cheese steak places have lines 24 hours a day in the public’s way. What do I mean? If you ever drove by Geno’s or Pat’s on a Friday night you will see lines blocking the street because the sidewalk cannot hold them. This is a public nuisance to most Philadelphians. At least famous pizzerias are usually indoors with crowd control procedures.

Anyway, welcome to our new Philadelphia pizza blog called Best Philadelphia Pizza Blog. The first review will be of Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria. Pietro’s is a family style restaurant owned by one family. They have several locations in the Philadelphia area. Pietro’s South Street is located at 121-123 South Street, Philadelphia Pa 19147; Pietro’s Marlton, 140 West Route 70, Marlton, NJ 08053; and Pietro’s Walnut Street, 1714 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

The location of my review of Pietro’s is based off of the South Street location. First, let’s take a look at the positives. Pietro’s South Street pizzeria is beautiful. Aesthetically you could not ask for more from a pizzeria. The building is two commercial buildings wide with the party walls knocked out to form a giant restaurant. The inside is mesmerizing with refinished brick all along the walls. Pietro’s are truly demonstrating that they are serving gourmet Italian food and pizza.

Second, the staff at Pietro’s pizzeria was very friendly. The waiter was courteous and that says a lot.

Third, the atmosphere was soothing. You feel like you are in a fancy restaurant yet with a twist of a calm welcoming that only a family run business can provide.

Fourth, I have eaten there before and can attest that most of their pasta dishes are very good. This visit I was focused solely on the pizza though. The menu includes family style for all of your dishes including the salads. By the way their salads were very good too.

Now the fun part…negatives. I don’t like their pizza. Let me tell you why. First, the cheese that they use on their pizza is a buffalo mozzarella style. For those of you who need to watch what type of cheese you eat...all I can say is “be careful.” This type of cheese is of a stringy, curdled format. To some it is the best in the world but not for me.

I ordered two types of pizza: a margherita pizza and a pizza with sun dried tomatoes and roasted peppers. The crust on both pizzas were very good. They have the formula down for crust well: thin, lighted darkened, but not burnt. The sauce was ok but here is the problem. If I had to quantify their pizza into parts I would say that their pizza is two parts cheese and one part tomato sauce. I don’t know about you but I would think that most people would rather have more sauce than cheese on a traditional pizza such as a margherita pizza. I love the taste of tomato sauce. If the sauce is made really well a pizza chef should be highlighting it on the pizza.

The toppings were good and plentiful on my second pizza. But the issue keeps coming back to their lack of sauce and more importantly, the cheese. There was too much cheese on this pizza and of the wrong kind (for me at least).

My final conclusions on Pietros… if you go just proceed with caution. This equates to my yellow light from our stop light system at Blog Pizza. Be careful of the cheese on the pie and be forewarned about all mentioned above. I don’t want to give this a red light because I know that others may not of had the same results as me. When I give a red light (which means don’t think about going) I am serious.

Thanks for visiting our article on Pietro’s Coal Oven Pizzeria Italian Pizza Review.