SF Bay Area pizza scene, 2016 to 2018

I see he took the pizzas off the menu at La Ciccia.

The pizza I had at La Nebbia was good. Better oven, maybe.

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!

Wow, for me, Mangieri’s UPN is at the top of my SF pizza list! by the way, i just noticed there are no photos here…whats up with that?

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.

Robert, Where would you go for a Bonci like experience in SF ?

No such thing anywhere to my knowledge.

Local dough fanatics:
http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/07/11/how-tartine-changed-san-francisco-pizza/

Got it , I’m headed to Bao Necci in a couple weeks for their pizza .

Looks like Buma’s is closing for the time being:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BALrspBhD4o/

My favorites in SF are:

  1. Golden Boy
  2. Victor’s (on Polk)
  3. Arinell
  4. Pizzaria Delfina - can be ordered for delivery through Caviar

Anybody been to Montesacro Pinseria - Enoteca on Stevenson St ?. Looks real interesting from the menu .

strange!

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.

Robert,

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.

Golden Boy makes focaccia from scratch. They call it pizza but to me it’s focaccia.

After reading your New York Times link, I am confused as ever. Several people on there stated that the toppings and cheese make it “pizza”, not foccacia. Also, the toppings are not kneaded into the golden boy dough, which is another differentiation mentioned.

Has anyone been to Montesacro Pinseria - Enoteca on Stevenson St . Apparently they do a Roman style pizza . I looked at their online menu and looks interesting .

ok, not anywhere i would go for SF’s best pizza…Golden Boy, if I were drunk and in my 20s, maybe

The dividing line between focaccia and pizza is kind of fuzzy, but Golden Boy isn’t very close to where I draw the line. It’s too thick, too bready, and too soft. It’s pressed into an oiled sheet pans rather than stretched on a floured board. It’s baked in the pan rather than on the floor of the oven.

I still like the stuff. I just don’t think of it is pizza.

We had this beauty last week at Piccino (SF, Dogpatch). It was snap pea, pea vine, cilantro pesto, goat cheese, and some incendiary Calabrian peppers. I thought it was quite good.

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I went to Fiorella in the Central Richmond district (Clement and 24th) specifically for their white clam pie, which is a favorite style I rarely encounter in the Bay Area. We also tried the margherita and spicy salami with onions. Pies are cooked in a wood oven and were all perfectly charred. The crust veers more to the soft Neapolitan style. Clam pie was excellent, but could have been a bit brinier. Delfina’s clam pie gets a nice briny flavor, but it is served with red sauce, so not like the white pie you get at Frank Pepe’s or Lombardi’s. The red sauce on the marg and salami was great, simple and bright tasting with a nice acidity. Their garganelli with ragu was perfectly done and the chicken liver crostini was simple and excellent with a heaping pile on two crostinis. Fairly large Italian wine list for a casualish spot. The menu is a bit like Gialina/Ragazza but with a broader selection of apps and 2 more pastas, but seems more traditional as far as pizza toppings etc. Good stuff.