What makes a good pizza for you?

Pizza is and always we be one of my favorite foods, and it's so versatile that just about anybody has a kind of pizza they like (from different kinds of crusts/Thickness, to the sauce, to the cheese, to the toppings).

What makes a good pizza to me has to start with good crusts, average thickness (hand tossed), not worked too much (gives it a different taste and harder to chew), not overfloured; basically the opposite of how Mark's (you may have heard of them if you live in the United States, particularly in Western Upstate New York Area) does it.

Then when it comes to sauce I like it smooth, added in Herbs/Spices (like Garlic powder, red pepper powder/flakes, Oregano) can give a sauce extra character and flavor; sometimes Garlic Parmesan really hits the spot (the sauce my brother almost always orders on his Pizzas).

Cheese can be cheap and simple, but if I'm cooking at home I make my own cheese blend with 6 cheeses (4 off the block (Asiago, Grana, Smoked Gouda and Manchego), 2 pre-Shredded (mozzarella and cheddar) 50/50 ratio between the expensive ones and cheap ones).

Toppings I mostly stick to meats (Pepperoni, Sausage, bacon, Chicken are my Go To toppings), but sometimes I don't mind Banana Pepper pieces or Mushrooms, and lately if I cook pizza at home (even cheap frozen), I throw pepper flakes/seeds on top (from relatively mild dried peppers) and then cook it.

For Pizza Chain restaurants I usually order from Dominos more than anywhere else, but also sometimes Pizza Hut or Salvatores (not as wide spread as national Pizza Chains, really good but also expensive)

New Haven pizza is the only real pizza! You haven't had pizza, apizza, (ah-BEETs) if you've never been here. The chains are to pizza like Budweiser to beer and McDonald's to hamburgers a pale crappy imitation of the real thing forced upon brainwashed Americans by greedy corporation's advertisements.

Crust and sauce are important but the ham and pineapple are necessities!

I like pizza different ways. one of my faves is a pizza topped with prosciutto and ricotta, or even the pie that gave me the idea in the first place the sporkie from bertuccis. I also like a pizza topped with calamari and crab meat and red clam sauce. Calamari and shrimp is also yummy. A good quatro formagio is also amazing. Have a place that does a margarita with their unique twist being they top it with white truffle oil I really love. And sometimes I'll just do anchovies and capers.

Good crust, good spicy sauce, lots of meat( pepperoni, sausage and Canadian bacon ) pepper, onion, mushrooms, and CHEESE!

We have this...I dunno what to call it...a pizza boutique?

Anyway everything is made fresh right there. Well, what CAN be done there, they source the cheeses locally I think and the toppings and such. But the crust and sauce is all their own. It takes like twenty to thirty minutes to get a pizza, but oh. my. gourd. It's so good. Just thinking about it makes my mouth go "YUMYUMS? YUMS! YUM?!" XD

I'll paraphrase from Larry the Cable Guy: You put a slice of that pizza on top of your head and your tongue will beat your brain out trying to get to it. :laugh:

It's not one thing or another that makes it delicious, it's all of the stuff combined. You could eat the crust and be "That's a good crust", or taste the sauce and say "Decent sauce", but when you bite them all together it's a party for your tongue. :3

(It's one of the few pizza places I will go to and wait and pay the penalty for eating all of that dairy. LOL I had some last week and it caught up to me within eight hours.)

I love pizza.

I enjoy thin crust and thick crust but anywhere in between is best for me.

My preference is for tomato sauce that isn’t watery and acidic.... So many places have nasty thin acidic sauce which is an evil joke.

Mozzarella is a must buffalo mozzarella is better and with a bit of Parmesan.

Fresh basil should always be available in a pizza shop.

Chicken, bacon, pineapple, mushrooms, kalamata olives, capsicum all have a place on pizza.

Also love latte pizzas (no tomato sauce) but with some blue cheese and pear topped with rocquette after cooking.

For me its the use of butter and deepdish.
If you do deep dish, for me its GOTTA have a good use of butter.

Im really picky with my toping as well.
For those i gotta have bacon thats dry, not much grease, and not the fat. I love tomatos on my pizza also! But not cherry tomatos!!!
Chunky sauce is always a plus with cheese that wont dry up. <3

Im so picky!!! But man when you got it right, im in love!!!

There's two types of pizza I frequent, Americanized pizzeria pizza and authentic wood-fired Sicilian style pizza. I find the criteria for a good pizza differs depending on which type I'm having.

When it comes to pizzeria pizza, I like a nice thick crust, I hate when you get a pizza and the toppings and cheese go all the way up to the crust, it's just... unnatural. I also like it to have a decent amount of sauce, but nothing crazy or else you bite into a hidden pocket of scalding hot sauce, ouch! The sauce should also taste of tomatoes, basil and garlic, I despise super salty or sweet tomato sauces. Lastly, simple toppings, but a good amount of them, I like just a classic pepperoni pizza or pepperoni, mushroom and onion. The toppings shouldn't be piled high, but they should all be visible and they should never be from a can, I have actually been to pizza joints that dump entire cans of mushrooms on top of their pizzas... yuck!

When it comes to the Sicilian style pizza, the crust should be fluffy and soft with a slightly charred underside. I've had times where they have actually burned the underside and that just adds an awful flavour. The mozzarella and sauce is usually light on these types of pizzas, as it's the interplay between the toppings that is the most important part. My favourite style Sicilian pizza that I had was topped with Italian sausage, crumbled gorgonzola cheese, red onion, basil leaves and sun-dried tomatoes, it was super yummy :tongueout:

And that's what makes a good izza: for me

I prefer either pepperoni or the triple meat pizza.

Coming from the Jersey Shore, I love New York style pizza. Fortunately there's a real NY style pizza restaurant about a mile from my house. They all speak Italian. You can watch them toss the pizza dough. The crust is thin, the sauce hand made and cooked for hours, the cheese top quality. I like mushrooms on my pizza and that's about it. I also like veggie pizzas if they aren't real pizzas, but fast food pizzas.

Hand-tossed crust with Canadian bacon/ham and mushroom topping is my favorite. I also like a "supreme" pizza although pepperoni does not like me, nor do I particularly like the taste of pepperoni. My favorite chain restaurant pizza is Pizza Hut (I worked at the Hut when i was in college). I also like Breadeaux Pizza (Midwestern chain, based, I believe, in Iowa).

I subscribe to the "even when it's bad, it's pretty good" philosophy of pizza. I like some better than others but the best examples of any regional pizza I've had are good enough to overcome any of my prejudices. My ideals are thicker crust or Chicago style but I've gotten to enjoy thinner crusts as well as long as they're flavorful. I don't care for pineapple on pizza (I like it most everywhere else) and the time I tried anchovies, it didn't go well. I still think it might be okay if they were put on after and not baked on.

They're also fun to make at home and when I do so, goat cheese is often an important ingredient.

dogboy said:

Coming from the Jersey Shore, I love New York style pizza. Fortunately there's a real NY style pizza restaurant about a mile from my house. They all speak Italian. You can watch them toss the pizza dough. The crust is thin, the sauce hand made and cooked for hours, the cheese top quality. I like mushrooms on my pizza and that's about it. I also like veggie pizzas if they aren't real pizzas, but fast food pizzas.

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I always loved to go in and see the people tossing the dough up in the air. :3 It was like a show, and you could always tell the folks who were doing it because they freaking loved the job. Now we don't have any 'dough tossing' pizza places left in my area.

How many different American versions are there anyway?

I've heard Chicago, New York, Detroit...apparently 'Ohio Valley' is a thing? But I've lived here my entire life and never seen one like that. I think "West Virginia" might have been a better name. LOL

-edit-

Looked up that Ohio Valley variant and it looks freakin' disgusting. Unmelted cheese like a Lunchables pizza. XD I'd probably try it, just to see if there was anything to it, but I'm not going most of the way to West Virginia to do it.

I like a nice hand tossed dough. As for toppings, that's what makes Pizza interesting. I'll take a basic pepperoni or sausage, but some of the more interesting ones I've had:

Clam Pizza (Bertuccis) - actually not bad
Greek Pizza (Paisanos Pizza among others) - gyro meat and feta cheese, black olives
Buffalo Chicken Pizza (roadhouse down the street alas now out of business)
San Antonio Pie - This one was described by the maker (Harley's sandwich shops in Baltiomre, doubtful that Eastern Shore native Harnley Brinsfield, despite a stint in the Navy got anywehre near San Antonio) as "Something Like A Pizza -- Only Better." Essentially it was a pizza crust with chili on it. This led to us during college (Harleys was just down the street) referring to all kinds of things as "Someting like a..."

I make a pretty good Pesto (no tomato sauce), spinach, and cheese pizza.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Italy and the pizza I ate there changed how I look at it.
It was a thin crust baked on a stone by a wood fire, the ingredients were fresh from the market that day and was just perfect.

My favorite pizza here in the states is home made (by me) and while I don't have the bread recipe with me it does have sugar in the dough to give it just the right amount of sweetness. with a good tomato sauce, mozzarella, sausage, green pepper, and onion.

extra cheese, extra pepperoni, and extra mushrooms. izza:

The cheese and red sauce are such a good combo for me, that my favorite part of pizza. That's probably why I like mozzarella stick too... Lol

I would put seafood on my pizza when I worked for subway all the weird looks I received from my co-workers was priceless but it is really good