Maybe it's a sign that I've grown older and turned into my mom, but I love Sunset magazine. The recipes are great, the gardening tips extremely helpful and I always drool with envy over the home renovation stories - even though the homeowners of the formerly dilapidated eyesore always turn out to be architects or landscape designers or someone in the building biz, so it's not that shocking that they transformed a lump of coal into a diamond. But one of the things I love best about Sunset is that we always seem to be on the same page (pun intended) when it comes to local stories of interest. A few months ago, they featured Temescal - the up-and-coming Oakland neighborhood in which I live. (OK, technically speaking, I live two blocks outside of what is historically the border of Temescal - but if you listen to the real estate agents around here they stretch the line much farther away than my house.)
The current issue of Sunset features a story called "Pizza Rises in the West," and it's about - surprise, surprise - the burgeoning San Francisco pizza scene. Of course, I was very eager to see what they thought since pizza is my favorite food obsession. Surprisingly, the number one slot was occupied by a place I've read a lot about from other pizza lovers on Yelp but haven't been to yet - Pizzetta 211 in the Richmond district. Happily, though, five of places on the list (Emilia's, Flour + Water, Pizzeria Picco, Howie's Artisan Pizza and Pizzaiolo) have received time in this blog. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but it does appear that I have pretty good taste in pizza.
The pizza joint which occupied slot number four - Tony's Pizza Napoletana - had been on my 'restaurants to try' list for months. This article reminded me that this needed to happen sooner rather than later. I think one of the reasons we hadn't made it there yet is because Tony's is in North Beach, which is one of the worst parking neighborhoods in San Francisco. And I HATE driving around looking for parking more than just about anything in the world. If I made a list of my least favorite things to do, it would look something like this:
1. Doing my taxes
2. Driving around San Francisco looking for parking
3. Going to the dentist
4. Driving around San Francisco looking for parking
5. Walking the dog in the rain
6. Driving around San Francisco looking for parking
You get the idea. Anyway, we did drive around for awhile looking for parking, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And since we had a 45 minute wait for a table, we had plenty of time to do it. Glad I dropped Mark off first to put our name on the list. Anyway, enough griping - back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Tony is Tony Gemignani, who is the only American to ever win the World Pizza Cup in Naples. Not only is he the first American, but the first person ever from outside of Italy to win this honor, so the guy obviously knows his stuff. Gemignani opened Pyzano's in Castro Valley with his brother Frank in 1991, when he was just 18 years old. It soon became obvious that the kid had pizza making skills: in 1995, he won the first of his eight World Pizza Acrobatics titles. He also made the Guinness Book of World Records twice - for "Biggest Pizza in 2 minutes continuously spinning," where he produced a crust measuring 36.5 inches, and "Most Consecutive Rolls Across the Shoulders in 30 seconds," rolling the dough 37 times. I'll bet you didn't even realize that the Guinness folks had pizza categories until now. (I sure didn't.)
As he got older, Gemignani decided he wanted to be taken seriously for the quality of his pizza and not just for his showmanship. He went to Italy to study pizza making and in 2007 stunned the pizza world by winning the Trofeo Citta di Napoli Campionato Internazionale per Pizzaioli (which translates to City of Naples Trophy, International Championship of Pizzamakers), a very prestigious competition. Besides giving him another title to add to his long list of accolades, winning the contest did two very important things for Tony. One, it got him a wood-fired pizza oven as a prize, which he didn't have at Pyzano's; and two, gave him the authority to open his own pizza school. The wood-fired oven now resides at Tony's Pizza Napoletana, as does the pizza academy (Tony Gemignani's International School of Pizza). The school offers certifications in Classic Italian, Neapolitan and American style pizza making, as well as acrobatics. There's even a two-day course for the home chef, and if I had an extra $500 lying around, I would sign up in a heartbeat. (I bet this would make an awesome Christmas present, if there's anyone out there wondering what to get me this year.)
Anyway, enough back story - let's get on to the pizza.
I think the coolest thing about Tony's Pizza Napoletana is that they don't just make one type of pizza. Tony's has four different kinds of ovens so he can authentically make several different styles. I don't know anywhere else that does that. The menu is broken down into four sections: STG Pizza Napoletana (STG stands for standard traditional guaranteed, which means it adheres to the strict rules of Neapolitan pizza making - such as the using the correct type of flour and tomatoes, having the oven at exactly the right temperature, not mixing it with a mixer than generates heat - the list of rules goes on for five pages), Classic Italian, Classic American, Pizza Romana and Sicilian. I had read that they pies were on the small side, so we decided to order two different styles and do a taste comparison.
Obviously, we had to order the Margherita since it's the one that won Tony the title. He only make 73 of them a day, and once they're gone, they're gone. Why 73? I read that it has something to do with the date he won the title. (July 3, I presume? Either that or the 73rd day of the year?) For the second pie, we went with the Original Tomato Pie (New Jersey style) from the Classic American section - described on the menu as "Sliced Mozzarella Cheese, Hand Crushed Tomato Sauce, Oregano, Garlic, Parmigiano, Olive Oil." Being such tomato lovers, it sounded right up our alley.
We were sitting at a small table, so the waitress said that she would bring the pies out one at a time. The Original Tomato Pie arrived first. The first thing we noticed about it was that the layers were inverted from what you would normally expect: the cheese was on the bottom and the top layer was tomato sauce with a little bit of Parmesan sprinkled on top. Now, as you know, we eat a lot of pizza, and there tends to be a lot of similarity in the kinds we eat - the predominant style of the moment being Neapolitan or New York. New Jersey-style Tomato Pie was like nothing I've ever had before. In most pizzas, the cheese plays a big role in the flavor of the pie; in this version it was all about the tomato sauce. It was sweet and had just the right amount of oregano to give it some dimension. You know that scene in "Ratatouille" where the restaurant critic takes one bite of the ratatouille and is immediately transported back to when he was a child? I had a similar experience while eating this pie, except I was taken to an east coast family pizza restaurant back in the 1950's, complete with red checkered table cloth and an Italian guy (probably named Tony)with a moustache and a thick accent saying something like, 'ayyy, howa you lika the peeetzza?' Not that I've actually been to a place like that in my life, but I can imagine that that's what an old school family pizza joint was like in Jersey back in the day. In a way, I was a little sad that the Tomato Pie came first, because I really didn't want to stop eating it - but I had to save room for the Margherita.
The Margherita looked gorgeous. The crust had the blistering and blackened edges that you only get from a 900 degree oven, and the basil was charred, too. Taste-wise, it was really quite good. The sauce seemed a little saltier to me (though Mark thought the opposite) than the Tomato Pie, and the mozzarella played a much more prominent role. But as good as it was, I didn't like it as much as I liked the Tomato Pie. This was probably due to the fact that we eat a ton of Neapolitan margherita pizzas, so it would take a lot to impress me - but the Tomato Pie was a completely unique experience.
After gorging ourselves on two pizzas plus a salad (which was completely serviceable but nothing special, by the way), we didn't have room for dessert. But we'll definitely be back to Tony's for more Original Tomato Pie, and also to check out the other styles: Romana, Sicilian and Classic Italian. Plus, the Sunset article said the meatball calzone is to die for. Sadly, Pyzano's doesn't do the Original Tomato Pie or we would just trek out to Castro Valley where the parking I'm sure is plentiful. But I would be willing to brave the North Beach parking to visit Tony's again. And that is saying quite a lot.
The deets: Tony's Pizza Napoletana, 1570 Stockton Street, San Francisco. Phone: 415-835-9888. Open Wednesday-Sunday, noon to 11 p.m., closed Mondays & Tuesdays. On the web at www.tonyspizzanapoletana.com.
