Buono’s New York Style Pizza – Review
- Posted by Pizza Locust on March 6th, 2007 filed in Arizona, Mesa, Pizza
- 4 Comments »
Buono’s is a New York-style pizzeria located near Dobson and Guadalupe in Mesa.
I happened upon Buono’s in a new technique I’m trying for locating pizza places to try: Google Earth. My wife and kids were attending a gathering “on the other side of town” and so I used Google Earth, with the Primary Database | Dining | Dining – Pizza option turned on. After driving up and down the virtual street I discovered Buono’s and a quick check online and found a couple favorable reviews, both calling it “the closest thing to New York pizza in town.”
With a destination in mind, I set out for Buono’s New York Style Pizza, but I can’t tell you how close I came to not eating there. When looking at the virtual streets of Google Earth, I didn’t realize just exactly where Buono’s was. When I arrived, I realized that it was across the street from one of my all-time favorite restaurants in town, The Copper Kettle, a Balti food place that I rarely get to visit. The thought of Ginger Chicken Balti and fresh-baked naan was almost too much, but my resolve held and I ate at Buono’s.
The story of how I came to eat at Buono’s might be more interesting than my evaluation of their pizza.
I had a 14″ Italian Sausage pizza. The sausage was sliced rather than ground and had a strong, not bad flavor. The cheese and sauce were acceptable and the crust was a little bit sweet around the cornicione. Nothing outstanding, but perfectly serviceable.
My biggest complaint was that it was very thin, but had no crispness to the bottom whatsoever. Even folded there was no possibility of holding a slice until you were less than one inch from the outer edge. That is a failure in the cooking and I could see other pizzas were similarly undercooked.
(As a side note, I took half this pizza home, and, while I don’t ever recommend this, reheated it in a convection over. 10 minutes at 350º produced a much crisper crust that didn’t suffer much from reheating. My assumption is that Buono’s cooks their pizzas with the eye for selling them by the slice, where they would put them back in the oven for finishing.)
When cooked, not a bad pizza and I would cautiously recommend it if you’re in the area and looking for a local pizzeria.
Buono’s New York Style Pizza
2023 W. Guadalupe Rd.
Mesa, AZ
(480) 345-0565
www.buonosnewyorkpizza.com (This web site was “not found” when I tested it, but is still listed on their menus.)
14″ Sausage pizza, $10.20 = $0.07 (0.066) per square inch
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June 12th, 2007 at 9:04 am
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I started documenting where I get pizza about 3 years ago when I’d forget how bad a place was. I’ve had pizza at roughly 35 restaurants since then, always get pepperoni. I tend to Google map the zip code i’m at, then do a business search of Pizza and see what pops up.
I’m on the east side so there isn’t a ton of crossover, but what we have both tried we have similar opinions of.
Buono’s does sell a lot by the slice and can be very inconsistent. When they put out a good pizza though, it’s one of the best in the Valley.
It’s all personal taste obviously, but I have to guess you were there on a bad day. I live a few miles from the place, eat there a couple times a month – not really a fair perspective of what they produce after that many tries to get it perfect.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
There’s certainly a whole lot of truth to that. There’s the factor of personal taste, which is impossible to eliminate, but there’s also variability in the product.
It’s a bit of a depressing situation, the places the produce the most consistent pizza are the chains, which spend bazillions of dollars developing their techniques to “foolproof” the product. And even that doesn’t always work because the Dominos pizza near me, at 19th Ave and Indian School consistently produces the worst Domino’s pizza in town. (Leaving aside any discussion of how good Domino’s is in the first place, this one always produces an inferior product compared to the others.)
When you get to the smaller mom and pop stores there’s a lot of indifference out there.
Often (not always) they start well, but eventually, if things are going well, they start hiring help – often indifferent teenagers who don’t know what they’re doing, and without the mechanisms in place to keep the product always the same, the quality can suffer.
It’s feast or famine sometimes.
Anyway, I’m more than willing to concede that Buono’s may have been having an off day. Unfortunately, given the location, it might be some time (if ever) before I get back for a second chance.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I eat at Buono’s all the time and it is the best there is AZ. If you like a crispier crust, ask them to cook it well and it is the best around