The Pizza Locust

Pie Zano’s Kitchen. What can I say about Pie Zano’s Kitchen?

It was named the “Best New Restaurant” in 2005 by Phoenix Magazine, a “Best of Phoenix” winner from the New Times and came in sixth in the City Guide Best Pizza.

Is it really that good?

Not on your life.

This pizza climbed meekly halfway up Mt. Mediocrity and then gave up.

Pie Zano’s builds the pizza in front of you. They start with a small, thin, pre-made crust which is about 8″ in diameter when cooked. You have a choice of white or wheat crust, which can be “flavored” in a variety of styles: italian blend, garlic, cajun, cayenne, taco, southwest chipotle, poppy seed or sesame seed.

Next you choose your sauce. In addition to a proper red sauce they also have a selection of truly revolting choices like A-1 Sauce, wing sauce, mild salsa, enchilada sauce, BBQ sauce, pesto and alfredo sauce. If the bizarre pizza crust flavors weren’t enough to scare you off, the idea of steak sauce should have you running in terror. You are now deep in the heart of poseur country and nowhere near pizzaland.

Cheese comes next and, like everything else, it comes with choices ranging from traditional mozzarella to a slightly more exotic three-cheese italian blend and all the way to such choices as pepper jack, gorgonzola and feta.

When it came to toppings, just for a mad impulsive moment I thought I’d go with the sweet potatoes instead of sausage or pepperoni, but sanity won in the end.

So, you have all these “choices” in making your pizza, but I would argue that if you took a Cajun crust, added A-1 Sauce, pepper jack cheese, sweet potatoes, a pickle slice and gyro meat you might have many things, but you have not got a pizza.

For the sake of consistency in our review pizzas, my choices were a lot more conservative. This was a plain crust pizza with red sauce, mozzarella and both sausage and pepperoni.

They assemble it in front of you and it has all the charm of watching a school child assemble one of those Oscar Mayer Lunchables Pizzas. Then they plunk it down on the conveyor belt leading into the little toaster over. (I wish I was making this up.)

Once out of the toaster, the pizza was delivered to the table. The cheese was melted – just. The crust was warmed and slightly browned.

About the best thing I can say for my pizza was that when eating it, I carried on a conversation and the pizza disappeared without a trace. I literally was able to eat it without realizing I had. It was completely unremarkable and unnoticeable in every way.

Add to that, inch per inch, it’s one of the most expensive pizzas in town.

As for the places that voted Pie Zano’s as being good, clearly they are misguided. Perhaps they don’t really like pizza or even know what one is.

Pie Zano’s Kitchen
4743 N 20th Street
(602) 955-4225

8″ Pepperoni & Sausage Pizza, $6.25 = $0.12 (0.1243) per square inch.
For fair price comparison of other 1 toppings pizzas, a 8″ one-item pizza would be $5.70 or $0.11 (0.1134) per square inch.

Not Recommended.