The Pizza Locust

Can a legend live up to its name?

Today’s foray into pizza and the anticipated highlight of Pizza Week ‘07 was a lunchtime visit to Patsy Grimaldi’s in Scottsdale.

The winding story of Patsy Grimaldi, restaurants bearing his name and its predecessors could fill a chapter in a book. Suffice to say that, if I understand correctly, Patsy’s Grimaldi’s in Scottsdale is owned by Patsy (retired) and his partner, and run by his partner’s son and that the pizzas have been lovingly recreated and are faithful to the originals from New York. I have no way of evaluating those statements, so take them as hearsay.

Patsy Grimaldi’s uses a coal-fired brick oven which obtains almost unimaginably hot cooking temperatures. The crusts are thin and the toppings are laid down in a “backward” fashion. First sliced (not shredded) cheese is laid down, then the sauce and toppings. My guess is that it is necessary to put the cheese under the sauce to avoid burning it in the high temperature oven.

The arrangement of the cheese and toppings produced a unique pattern to the pizza which the proportions of cheese to sauce to crust of each bite were subtly different.

The foundation of the pizza was thin and perfectly cooked. The bottom was browned nicely, but not burnt. The top edge had a few darkened spots, but not completely blackened.

The cheese was good. The sauce was excellent and definitely towards the tart end of the spectrum. The sausage was very tasty.

Overall, my review pizza was excellent. If I had any reservation about this pizza, it would be the unique flavor apparently imparted by the coal oven. There’s a certain charred flavor to the crust that is difficult to describe, but it wasn’t burnt. It’s a flavor I associate more with steaks cooked on a grill rather than something cooked in an oven.

Legendary pizza? The best in Phoenix? One of the best in the country? If they can demonstrate to me that their pizza comes out consistently that good time after time then maybe they deserve all that and more.

Patsy Gramaldi’s
4000 N Scottsdale Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(480) 994-1100

12″ Sausage Pizza, $10 = $0.09 (0.0884) per square inch

Highly recommended

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