To earn the status as one of the Best Boston Restaurants for Pizza does not come easily. It takes the perfect combination of ingredients and technique. There’s no store bought sauces in jars or pizza dough here in the North End.
To earn the status as one of the Best Boston Restaurants for Pizza does not come easily. It takes the perfect combination of ingredients and technique. There’s no store bought sauces in jars or pizza dough here in the North End. And if you ever tried to bring that weak stuff to this neighborhood you would get tossed right back out. Pizza may have been invented in Italy, but it was perfected in the North End. Here is what it takes to make the best pizza.
It starts with the sauce. Crushing tomatoes by hand and slow cooking is the usual start. Cooks will quietly and steadily stir in their perfect combination of sugar, garlic, wine, oregano, parsley, basil, and whatever else. These cooks follow the secret recipes that have been handed down to them for generations. These supreme chefs do not deviate from these sacred scraps of paper; it is these ingredients that separate the two levels of restaurants in the Best Boston Restaurants. Some cooks like to keep the sauce chunky, with slices of tomatoes and onions in it; and in my personal opinion they can keep it. I do not want a series of speed bumps that interrupt my intimate moments with my pizza. Give me smooth sauce any day. The better the sauce the less it is noticed, that is the key.
The sauce may be the start but everyone agrees that the crust is the base of the whole operation. Gently kneading the dough by hand and letting the yeast sit and rise for the perfect consistency. Then there is the battle of thin versus thick crust. Many people say that thin crustwas the original crust and allows you to enjoy the other ingredients without getting lost in a sea of bread. However, others argue that the deep crust is where it is at, and I tend to agree. There is nothing like biting into a thick crust and having that bread crackle and rip away. The soft and tender bread soaks in the sauce and blends nicely with the melted layer of cheese and toppings. I do not want my sauce and cheese on top of a piece of cardboard, I want to taste the bread and the time that it took to create it.
The last obstacle in the race for the best pizza is the cooking style. There are three different ways to cook a pizza; oven, grill or wood-fired oven. The conventional oven is the standard at-home way to cook a pizza. You can heat the oven, throw you pizza on a tray and cook it for 20 minutes and call it a successful night. Another at-home trick is to throw it on the grill and come out with a sizzling pie of goodness in less than 5 minutes. This is a great way to cook a thin crust pizza; just be careful not to burn it. The last and more traditional method is the wood-fire oven. This is what the true masters use. Jack up the heat on that baby, toss your pizza in and that baby will be down within 2 minutes. There are very few places that have earn the title for the Best Boston Restaurants for Pizza but the ones that have
, have perfected these processes.
, have perfected these processes.