A16 - best Neapolitan (i.e. not crunchy)
BaoNecci - best Roman-style thin-crust
Cotogna - my favorite of the Delfina, Flour + Water, Zero Zero, etc. school
Dopo - sui generis, thinner and crisper than Cotogna
Little Star (Divisadero) - Chicago-style deep dish
L’Osteria del Forno - porcini slice
Nizza la Bella - best NY-style whole pie, my favorite is the “San Gennaro”
Rotten City - best NY-style slice
Tommaso’s - old school, West Coast-style thicker crust, great atmosphere
Zante - best Indian pizza (kind of junk-foodish)
I like Gialina in Glen Park if one is on the south side of SF.
I have never been to BaoNecci but it sounds very good.
I wish SF had a good Roman-style pizza al taglio place (like Pizzarium – http://luckypeach.com/inside-romes-pizzarium/), but I am pretty sure it does not exist. It is not just about the way in which the pizza is sold, but the whole way it is prepared.
The way PIQ and Bonci (formerly Pizzarium) make pizza is generally the same. The big difference is that PIQ is an average sort of place and Bonci is probably the best in the world.
SF has whole-pie places where they’re as obsessed with the dough and as seasonal and creative with the toppings as Gabriele Bonci.
By La Ciccia, do you mean La Nebbia? I admit I haven’t been yet, but it’s near my house and I’ve heard nothing but positive things from people I trust.
Delfina uses a gas oven, though, I believe…i was a bit disappointed with Delfina…very good but not deserving of the raves it got early on…Gialina was a superb pizza destination in the Glen Park barrio…I love Anthony Mangieri and UPN. Nothing like a true pizza obsessive! Ive never been disappointed in Tony Gemignani’s TPN…he is a true mad man, dont know how he pulls it off with 86 ovens going…the only pie i ever had next door at the Coal Oven joint was one of the best tasting pizzas Ive ever had…A16 was an early VPN pizzeria where i enjoyed several pies a few years back…I need to get back to SF…it has been too long!
Neapolitan pizza is not my favorite style, I prefer a crust with some crunch. A16 makes my favorite of the local Neapolitan pies though Tony’s “73 a day” one and UPN are also first-rate.
How is it strange? Those are all very popular choices, Golden Boy and Arinell in particular. If anything, my tastes are mainstream. Don’t know when you’ve last visited Victors, but I would definitely give them a shot.
I thought of you when I was in Golden Boy last week. I watched them make the pizza and they do so from pizza dough. It is a thick dough in which they bang lots of dimples with their fist and fingers. Then they smear on sauce and really rub it in. Then they add the toppings on that.
They don’t put the toppings on prebaked foccacia. I’m not sure if that is what you meant when you said it is foccacia. Or maybe you just meant that it tasted like foccacia. The dimples probably give it that airy foccacia like quality.