I was recently interviewed for City Cast Pittsburgh ahead of National Pizza Day. Check out the interview below. Stay up to date on my pizza adventures by signing up for the weekly newsletter that is updated way more frequently than the website. Sign up here and pizza ya later!
Mun’s Pizza from the Mun’s Pizza Instagram
Mun’s Pizza is operated by Dan, one of the newer pizza popups getting started in the city. His HQ is primarily the Northside, spending time slinging pizzas outside Government Record Center and soon to be coming to Allegheny City Brewing most Monday’s.
Dan has been toying with pizza dough for years. He’s spent time working at Badamo’s and Driftwood Oven, learning to appreciate the attention to detail and honing his craft to deliver a superior pizza product. Right now he’s working in the Neapolitan realm, but has plans to open up a pizza shop within Government Records to better serve the clientele and, hopefully, provide some light night food.
In this episode of the podcast, I don’t get close enough to the mic so I’m a tad quiet, but we talk about his history with pizza, what Pittsburgh pizza is and how the pizza scene has changed over the years.
Driftwood Oven in one of their first pop ups on Greenfield Ave.
Hi there! Back in the feeds. Driftwood Oven is a pizza shop I've been covering since the inception of this website. When they burst onto the scene I knew that my site was perfect for covering the development of Driftwood Oven. It's been eight years, a lot has happened in the mean time. Driftwood Oven hardly shifts anymore, they now have a shop. They deliver. They do a lot of fun events and pastries. Listen to Neil dissect his business and how he got to where they are today.
Join the Pizza Walk With Me Discord to talk about all things pizza with your new pizza besties!
Spak Brother’s Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Long time no pizza! Hard to believe we took a bit of a pizza hiatus. Funnily enough I was at the doctor today and they told me I need to “take a break from tomato sauce”! This means nothing but white pizzas for next week’s episode.
In the month or so we’ve been gone, too much has happened. We recap the wonderful winners of Pizza Expo. Winners include Eric Von Hansen who can’t seem to stop making award winning pizzas. Additionally, Pete Tolman from Iron Born placed second to Eric with his forager pie.
Pizzas We Ate
We go through our inventory of pizza and we ate a variety of slices between recordings. The biggest surprise for me was a box of frozen pizzas that arrived on our doorstep. Made in Italy, then put to sleep until they’re ready to be eaten, Pizza Talia is a clever and novel pizza invention. It’s a remarkable product that replicates authentic Neapolitan pizza. Check out Pizza Talia.
We eat Spak fairly often, but hardly dip into their specialty pizzas. We are big Buffalo Chicken Pizza fans so we gobbled up Spak’s take on the legendary style of pizza. It’s quite good!
During a recent trip to NYC, we got pizza from the “under rated” pizzeria F&F pizza. This is a newish shop in Brooklyn and is some of the juiciest pizza I’ve ever had! I’d compare it to a Pizzeria Davide. Very delicious, worth the trip.
Join the Pizza Walk With Me Discord to talk about all things pizza with your new pizza besties!
Altoona Hotel Pizza 24 hours removed from a fresh Altoona oven
Well, the fates have conspired once again to deliver a majestic pizza miracle to our humble doorstep. That’s right, a few days ago I received a text to “check my doorstep” where there was a suspicious package sitting. I figured we were beyond the days of “see something, say something” so I scooped up the package and unraveled it with excitement. My prize? Two day old slices of Altoona Hotel Pizza, straight from Altoona.
Christa and I couldn’t wait to dig in. We recorded a live episode of the podcast so our reactions are fresh out of the oven. Join us on our journey as we dissect Altoona Hotel Pizza, admire its character and sturdiness.
As you can see from the picture above, the pizza is a Sicilian style slice. There’s a thin layer of sauce, a green pepper and then it’s covered with a few slices of impenetrable American cheese. The cheese forms a protective layer around the pizza, like a tarp covering a classic car from the elements in a suburban driveway.
Our Order
24 hour old slice of Altoona Hotel Pizza
Altoona Hotel Pizza News
Altoona Hotel Pizza via PGH City Paper - Ryan Deto does a deep dive on the origin of Altoona Hotel Pizza, including its origin of creation dating back to 2013.
Join the Pizza Walk With Me Discord to talk about all things pizza with your new pizza besties!
Delicious pizza for all your summer outings
In this episode we declare Pizzeria Davide the official pizza of the Dogs Day of Summer. This is an elusive prize for pizzerias because eating a hot slice of pizza on a sweltering day may be overwhelming. But because Pizzeria Davide uses such fresh, delicious, ingredients their pizza is instantly refreshing. I could blend this up and drink it like a pizza smoothie!
Our Order
Pizzeria Davide Old World Style Pizza
The Lebanon Sweet Bologna & Hot Pepper Relish Pizza
The house salad
A secret meatball dish!
Pizza News
The Best Pizza City in America is Portland, Oregon - We can’t go one episode without discussing a list anointing a new city the pizza capitol of the world. This week we discuss how Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya ate their away through a handful of cities to decide the best pizza city. They of course missed out on Pittsburgh, but that’s okay, because I already documented the next generation of Pittsburgh Pizza in my Guidebook.
East End Brewing Opens Up Permanent In-House Pizzeria, East End Chewing - East End Brewing has been a staple in the Pittsburgh beverage scene since I can remember. They are always celebrating every aspect of the city in unique ways. Ways that don’t seem pandering, they love the city with such earnestness. They’ve been experimenting with serving pizzas throughout the pandemic and have decided to make the move permanent. Much like their series of beers for each Pittsburgh neighborhood, it sounds like each week they’ll have a new pizza for a specific Pittsburgh neighborhood. Excited to drink the Bloomfield Pizza with an Italian Pilsner!
Chuck E Cheese Frozen Pizza Arrives in Krogers Across the Country - Take the rate’s pizza home with you! It even has tickets in it!
Questions We Answer
What is the best cold one to have with a pizza?
Can dogs eat pizza?
What is the opposite of pizza?
When are we doing a Sir Pizza episode?
and more!
Join the Pizza Walk With Me Discord to talk about all things pizza with your new pizza besties!
It was only a matter of time before we would bump into local pizza heroes, Caliente. Maybe you’ve seen their billboards along 376 East heading into the city? About five miles out from the Liberty Tunnels is a billboard explaining that Caliente Pizza & Drafthouse is a multi-Pizza Championship winning pizza parlor. We of course broke the story of their first victory back in 2016 where they premiered the Quack Attack.
Caliente has wasted no time in expanding their pizza empire across the Pittsburgh area. As I write this, Caliente is working on opening a new story in Sewickley (in the old Sharp Edge) which will be their sixth location.
Their menu is vast. Clearly not sticking to any specific guidelines their mantra seems to be “develop the best, most interesting pizza on earth.” So far they’ve been awarded with enough accolades to fill up a few billboards.
On this week’s episode, Christa and I sample a sliver of the Caliente menu. We bite into their absurdly large Brooklyn pizza (which requires a custom box!) and their garden salad. Does it pass the crunch with your munch test?
We also get in touch with a real life Brooklander to give us the deal on Brooklyn pizza.
Spak Bros pie with capicola and pineapple!
Well it certainly was a hiatus, but we are back to bring you some greasy, gooey, ooey takes on Spak Brothers pizza. Spak Brothers is one of our classic go-to shops. With a wide selection of toppings, hoagies galore and salads that will bust your gut wide open.
Our Order:
Large pizza, half capicola half plain
Spak Bros. Mediterranean salad
Half of a buffalo chicken hoagie
A couple of items we talk about:
Driftwood Oven is closing for a month for some supreme renovations. We talk about what some of those renovations are and how excited we are for this upgrade.
Rockaway Pizzeria has created a Buffalo Chicken pizza, sans ranch. Is it really Buffalo Chicken pizza?
The international pizza expo is adding an Italian Sandwich category to their championship competition. What hoagie would you submit?
Spirit and the Vandal turned six years old! HBD to them, true staples of Lawrenceville.
Join the Pizza Walk With Me Discord to talk about all things pizza with your new pizza besties!
Spak Bros Mediterranean salad
The spicy one from Woodfired
Welcome back to another great episode of Pizza Talk With Me! It’s been a while since we recorded so there was a huge back log of news and updates to provide. We talk about:
How Pittsburgh is secretly a world-class pizza incubator.
This extensive Food and Wine article that covers the best pizza in every state.
There is a mini review of Black Lotus Pizza in Lawrenceville.
The star of the show is Wood Fired, a new pizza shop in the old Pizza Taglio location run by the folks behind Lorelei.
We also discuss our experience with an Ooni!
Join the Pizza Talk With Me Discord to talk pizza and everything else!
Newman’s Own white pizza abs supreme pizza
In this episode of Pizza Talk with Me, Christa and I devour Paul Newman’s best pizza he has to offer. We devour the White Pizza and the Supreme Pizza from the lineup of Newman’s owns pizzas. Anyone in America is familiar with these wonderful products. Paul Newman’s face graces the cover of all these items with a hearty smile like a promise that you are going to love whatever you put into your body. Plus, all the proceeds go to charity. How is that even possible!
We dig into the creamy white pizza with spinach, ricotta and other delicious items as well as the classic frozen pizza style, Supreme. Tune in to hear our reviews and all sorts of fun Paul Newman trivia and anecdotes.
We also crunch on some buffalo chicken salad with our munch.
We also answer a ton of grease bag questions. Including:
Is it gross?
Is 50 eggs on top of a pizza a good topping for pizza?
Robert Redford or Paul Newman?
Can I have it?
Do you ever jazz up your store bought pizzas with your own ingredients?
Driftwood Oven Buffalo Chicken Pizza
After a week hiatus, we are BACK to go deep on Driftwood Oven. If you’ve been following Pizza Walk With Me, you’ll know that we’ve been covering Driftwood Oven since their inception as a mobile pizza unit. They would travel from brewery to brewery and Christa and I would trace their path willing to brave the wait to get a bite of their Archer.
Now Driftwood Oven has a brick and mortar spot on Butler St which has allowed them to expand their offerings, experiment with the majestic power of sourdough and churn out an assortment of quality pies, salad, desserts, baked goods and more. They are constantly improving and evolving, so I’m excited to see what they accomplish in the next few years.
Also, look forward to playing “guess the belch” and Christa provides her salad rankings thus far!
Our Driftwood Oven Order:
Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Red Top Omni Slice with Pickled Peppers
Blanca Omni Slice
Kale Caesar Salad with Anchovy
Other Discussions and Pizza News:
Connecticut lawmakers propose making pizza the official state food.
Spirit Pizza Update: Their round pies are about to get better.
Can anyone get through this paywall about frozen pizzas in the Wall Street Journal?
Omni slices from Driftwood Oven, a Red Top and a Blanca
Kale Caesar salad from Driftwood Oven
Monte Cello’s pizza, half plain half ham and green pepper
On this week of Pizza Talk With Me, Christa and Dan take a trip down memory lane and revisit a pizza place that was a keystone in their lives. Monte Cello’s, previously on McKnight road and now on Babcock Boulevard, has played host to after-football game hangs, family outings and after church meals. Their pizza buffet is state of the art, offering up a variety of pizzas to satisfy any pizza craving.
In this visit, Christa and Dan devour a plain pizza, dip into their Sicilian and grab a small buffalo chicken to round out the pizza trio. A Monte Cello’s meal isn’t complete without zucchini planks and, yes, there is some crunch with our munch via a house salad!
Other Items:
We talk about the winning pizza from the Pizza Expo 365, the virtual version of the legendary Pizza Expo. The overall winner was The Sweet Canuck, a pizza by Joe Leroux from Amadio’s Pizza in Ontario. Recipe here.
The people’s choice was a meaty Charcuterie Pizza by Paul Basset from Montebella’s in New York. Make it at home with this recipe.
We also talk about the beta run of Pizza Date With Me, new ranch / hot sauce hybrid, and more!
Monte Cello Zuchinni Planks
Monte Cello’s Buffalo Chicken Pizza
DiGiorno Croissant Crust Pizza
Growing up DiGiorno was the premier frozen pizza. It broke new ground in the freezer aisle and transformed the frozen pizza landscape. While it couldn’t compete with the local shop, it was a solid substitute in a pinch. Years later the pizza industry has never been more competitive and DiGiorno has evolved to meet the needs of their constituency by creating a product that goes beyond the traditional pizza: Croissant Crust Pizza.
In this episode of the podcast Christa and Dan devour a three meat croissant crust pizza from DiGorno, a standard supreme hand-tossed pie from DiGiorno and crunch on a pre-packaged salad.
Spirit Grandma Pie
Well we had to get to Spirit eventually and why not celebrate our fifth episode in style? In this episode we gobble down the infamous Butt Patrol pizza from Spirit as well as a sheet of their fabulous grandma pie. Crunch Meets Munch as Christa waxes poetic about their simple, yet sufficient, Caesar Salad. We also discuss a variety of other incredible pieces of pizza news and topics.
Only 21 more weeks until our live show at Spirit!
We also talk a lot about Frasier and this video of Kelsey Grammer at the Just for Laughs festival.
Pizza News:
NY Times article about pizza shops adapting to the pandemic.
Lorelei in East Liberty has opened a pizza shop called Wood Fired! They are doing pop-up type stuff, so stay tuned. They are cooking out of the old Pizza Taglio place.
Pessario’s on Butler St had a fire issue! They hope to have renovations staring soon.
More Pizza ATM updates!
Questions from The Grease Bag
What do we think of rainbow pizza?
Should we put French fries on pizza like Primanti Sandwiches?
Stuffed crust pizza, yay or nay?
In this Grand Opening SLICE episode, Christa and I delve into the world of Cappello’s frozen pizza. These pizzas aren’t your traditional gluten based pizzas, no way, these are almond flour crust. If you’re looking for an alternative crust pizza tune into today’s episodes for our thoughts! Plus we talk about a bunch of other things. Like:
Driftwood Oven is hiring! We talk about why their compensation package is exciting for workers and the community.
The grinch!
Christa goes deep on a kale Caesar salad in the Crunch with My Munch Corner.
Pizza questions we answer:
What’s the deal with pineapple on pizza anyways?
What’s up?
What are some healthy items you’ve seen at pizza places?
And more!
The prized pizza: Sausage and red peppers from Cappello’s
The plain pizza from Cappello’s. Looks like quite the environment!
Pizza Lupo Grandma Style Pizza
Hi there! In the third episode of Pizza Talk With Me, Dan and Christa take their time diving into the newest entrant to the Lawrenceville Pizza Family: Pizza Lupo. Listen to them dissect the variety of pizza and ponder the origin story of their name.
Other pizza items covered:
Spirit has a new menu item - The VIPER “Rollie”
Xavier University’s Pizza ATM is on the fritz and it’s bumming everyone out. This was one of the first pizza ATMs!
Detroit Style pizza is sweeping the nation and we miss Michigan & Trumbull.
Pizza questions we answer:
What are our deep thoughts on red pizza vs white pizza?
What do you do if your broiler handle breaks?
Are there any toppings that are an absolute no go?
What’s your favorite alternative crust pizza?
Pizza Lupo Margherita Pizza
Join Christ and Dan for a SLICE episode where they open up the grease bag to answer your burning questions and chomp their way through a frozen pizza from Eat Pizza. Here’s some of the topics covered in this episode of Pizza Talk With Me.
New hours at Spak Bros. Pizza.
Correction - in last episode we thought that caciocavallo was a type of meat. It is in fact a type of cheese. Photo below.
Some of the questions answered:
How do you reheat a slice of pizza?
Do you prefer having your cheese on top of your sauce or vice versa?
Where is the best NY Slice in the city of Pittsburgh?
And more!
Some photos to help you visualize the podcast
Caciocasvallo cheese
Pizza Taglio nestled itself into East Liberty at the pinnacle of change. The Shadow Lounge had departed, Conflict Kitchen moved to Schenley Plaza, and a row of shops remained empty. It would eventually become home to a variety of restaurants and bars that would cater to the high rise apartments and tech employees in the area. Pizza Taglio was one of the first tenants and Tony Giaramita, the owner, made his mark on East Liberty. It was an absolute bummer when Tony announced they’d be closing on August 1, 2020.
I’ve had so many great memories at Pizza Taglio that it’s hard to sum up how much this restaurant meant to me. It was everything I wanted in a pizzeria. A place you could become a regular without trying too hard. A spot to meet friends for an easy lunch or a very long dinner. A great area for celebrations and date nights. It was a pizza utopia that fit your every need.
Pizza Taglio brought personality and flavor to the rich Pittsburgh pizza tapestry that you couldn’t get anywhere else. The layout of the spot was basically an empty building with an oven. There was a counter separating you from the pizza making, but each seat felt like you were at the Chef’s table. That’s great when it’s nice and slow on a weekday and you would get the occasional banter from Tony.
Going to Pizza Taglio was like going to the pizza zoo. You would be exposed to foreign and exotic combinations of cheeses, meats and vegetables that you have only heard tales of. You could see the pizza being made, from start to finish, and then dine on your dish to finish off its lifecycle. It was an experience, something that was as entertaining as it was tasty.
How purposeful that setup was I’m not sure, but Tony is a wizard of creating a memorable experience that stays implanted on your palate. During Tony’s residence in East Liberty I can recall every time I was at that shop. Each pizza was memorable, delicious and I left thinking “that was the best experience of my life.”
By my calculation I have had that feeling that this was the “best experience of my life” nearly 20 times in my life. I have had the pleasure of going to Pizza Taglio 17 times during their 5 year span and I know that 90% of my visits included the Green Pointer. Going through the documentation it’s fascinating to see how the relationships in my life ebbed and flowed, Pizza Taglio was the backdrop to a number of key moments in my life. As a pizza journalist, I have carefully documented every pizza I’ve eaten at Pizza Taglio. This includes over 500 photos of pizza from Pizza Taglio alone. I’m surely spoiled to live in the digital era as my cup overfloweth with photos of pizza. This is to say, if you need a photo of a Green Pointer pizza I have about a hundred of that pie alone.
Let’s recap these visits as we plot the rise, and eventual departure, of Pizza Taglio, a shop many call the best pizza in Pittsburgh.
Tony introduces me to his pizza collection at Espresso a Mano. Unreleased footage of Pre-Taglio pizza.
My introduction to Tony was prior to Pizza Taglio opening. To get started Tony was playing around with some dough recipes. He’d make thick Sicilian-esque pizza and sell it at Espresso a Mano in Lawrenceville. The pizza was thick, simple and delicious. Barely any cheese, the sauce and crust provided the flavor. The pizza sold out quickly on weekends.
I was blown away by the pizza and got in touch with Tony. As a fledgling pizza journalist, I knew I had to tell this guy’s story. I was experimenting with putting out more video work at the time so I decided I would record my meeting with Tony. I had no tri-pod so I held the my phone as steady as I could to get the footage.
One of the softest slices I’ve ever eaten.
Tony talked non-stop about pizza for nearly 45 minutes. He talked in depth about his history, the cheese, his pizza philosophy and the distinct regions of Italy he’s pulling flavors from. I believe I said one word which triggered him to spit out a waterfall of pizza knowledge.
The only reason we stopped was because my hand was cramping up. You try holding an iPhone 6 still for 45 minutes.
I never did do anything with that footage. Sometimes it shows up in my “remember this?” photo feed and of course I do. I remember how great and soft the pizza was. How foreign it was to Pittsburgh, like a bug or animal that had mistakenly migrated to this city. I was so excited for Tony to open his shop because this pizza was unlike anything I’ve had before.
My first official visit to Pizza Taglio was a festival and celebration of everything pizza. They had opened a few weeks earlier, but I don’t recall the restaurant being packed of spilling over. It’s a small venue, tucked into East Liberty with enough space to fit about 12 tables of four.
Christa, my wife and partner in pizza who has accompanied to nearly every trip to Taglio, sat at a table where we could see all the pizza action. I caught Tony’s eye and that was the beginning of a wonderful pizza friendship.
That trip, which I wrote about here, was like going to the Disney World of pizza. I was treated to my first ever Green Pointer, a pizza that will go down in history as one of my favorites. Tony brought us out a special kind of Parmesan to taste. Yes, just huge blocks of Parmesan for fun. And to end the night we had a pizza carbonara - a cracked egg topped a freshly cooked white pizza and slowly sizzled its way to the outer crust.
This was my first encounter with the famous Greenpointer pizza. I’ll be referencing this pizza often (because it was a required purchase on every visit) so let me describe it here for those unfamiliar with this mystical pizza.
The Greenpointer is a Neapolitan pizza that mixes together sweet and spicy elements. Its name is a homage to Paulie Gee’s pizza in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This is of course where Mike’s Hot Honey was invented, a key ingredient to this pizza. On the Greenpointer is mozzarella cheese, standard tomato sauce, but the pie is topped with spicy soppresatta and a drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey. The hot honey is key here because it adds even parts of spice and sweetness. It mixes with the other ingredients to deliver a taste to your mouth that is the best of every flavor on the canvas. It is infinitely edible, gooey and delicious. There’s a wonderful feeling when you get a bite of the crust and the base and there’s a drizzle of honey on both parts - grab a piece of soppresata in a bite and you’re in heaven.
Finally, after stuffing some cannolis down my throat I stumbled out of the building about 5,000 calories heavier. This would become the norm for most Taglio visits.
Tommy T carefully cuts his pizza.
This was the trip where I introduced my dad to Pizza Taglio. Taglio would become a staple in our family dinner outings where we would all show up with a wine bottle per person, get a pizza per person and wonder why we all felt like garbage the following day. A true mystery.
During this visit we enjoyed a Green Pointer, a spicy red top pizza with only a minor dusting of Parmesan, and the carbonara pizza. Tony wanted to bust our guts wide open so he brought a Nutella filled calzone to our table complete the meal.
Christa, my pizza partner, and I arrived at Pizza Taglio at 7pm this evening. Naturally we started with a Green Pointer, the proper warm up, which arrived at our table at 7:18pm. We also got a solid white pizza with mozzarella and arugula. Two pizza for two people. What more could we need.
At 7:56pm Tony brought out another Green Pointer. A pizza error? Or a calculation from Tony to earn our love? No one can say, but you bet we did our best to suck it down.
Unfortunately, 30 minutes later a white pizza with slices of potatoes showed up. We are delirious and plump. We politely shove a few slices in our mouth. We have been at this restaurant eating pizza for nearly two hours. Are we being punished? A sysiphus-type curse where we eat pizza until the end of time? Or are we in nirvana?
My brother was visiting Pittsburgh from Chicago and if you want to impress a Tallarico you take them to a pizza place. Making the pilgrimage to Taglio was a no brainer. It’s simply the place to be eating a pizza if you have a choice.
This trip, like many others, was an excercise in excess. We ate multiple pizzas, our table was littered with bottles of both wine and beer. And, according to my records, we were treated to a little aperitif to end our meal.
My sister was visiting Pittsburgh from Austin and, like I’ve said before, if you want to impress a Tallarico you take them to a pizza place. This meal was bookended by calzones. To start this adventure, we dipped our toes into a new menu item: a calzone stuffed with arugula, meat and mozzarella. It was of course delicious and the scissors it came with to cut in half was a fun novelty. A perfect way to kick off an evening of eating pizza.
Yes we ate multiple Green Pointers, and what looks like a pizza with meatballs on it. To end the evening we were treated to a dessert calzone. A monstrosity of bread covered in chocolate sauce and filled with Nutella and ricotta. The size of a sea bass, when you cut its belly open instead of guts you are treated to gooey, rich chocolate. Divine.
Christa’s dad is a bit of a pizza guy himself. He has visited Italy a handful of times to take legit Pizzaiolo pizza courses. Of course, visiting Taglio would be at the top of his list.
This may have been his first outing to Taglio and there must’ve been something in that dough that piqued his interest. A few months later he would be helping Tony out by making pizza behind the counter and playing host. I know that if I could eat unlimited Green Pointers I’d happily wash dishes, throw logs in the oven or sweep excess flour off the floor.
This was almost my final pizza ever.
November 7th is a wild day for a lot of reasons. It’s the day before my dad’s birthday. It’s reportedly the day Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were gunned down. A day of infamy. And soon I’d have another reason to remember this day.
This was the a noon Pitt game versus their “rival” Notre Dame. They would fight the Irish at Heinz Field at noon and there was a frenzy in the air. Pitt was winning games and maybe they’d win big on the national stage. Heinz Field was packed with fans tailgating across across any available piece of cement. If a space could be occupied by a human drinking a can of beer, it was filled enthusiastically. Christa and I both have family members who went to Pitt (my sister and father and her uncle) so we were running deep with a crew on the North Shore early in the morning drinking beers and hoping to scalp affordable tickets.
I’m not sure my dad has ever purchased a ticket from someone sitting behind a glass window with a map of the stadium. Every Pitt game I’ve ever gone with him has included 30-45 minutes of going between scalpers and waiting until kickoff to get the best possible deal. Today would be no different.
Tommy T, Christa and I found some cheap tickets that would get us entry. Inside we would pal around the stadium, eat hamburgers, sing Hey Caroline and have an OK time watching Pitt get pummeled (I have never seen Pitt win a football game in person).
Our tickets were separate from our crew, so we decided we would split up and meet at Pizza Taglio after the game to keep the momentum going. All the stops were pulled out this day. If there would be repercussions our brains weren’t capable or assessing what they might be, nor did it care to spend the processing power thinking that far. We needed Pizza Taglio and a stellar evening, that was that.
Later that night everyone arrived at Pizza Taglio. Green Pointers crashed onto the table, corks were liberally ripped from the bottles we brought. We had work to do and that work was eating half a dozen pizzas from one of the finest pizza shops to grace Pittsburgh.
Decadent doesn’t begin to describe this evening. We ended with some dessert and espresso. I had been drinking for approximately eight hours straight. I was tired, my body run down and out of sorts. But what a victorious day that was.
Most people would go home and pass out for 12 hours. My body had other plans. Instead, I laid awake in bed feeling a sense of dread and anxiety creep out through my limbs. My heart beat loudly in my chest and sent vibrations up my neck to my temple. Nothing felt right. I took my pulse, held my breath and tried to tether myself to anything that felt normal, but there was nothing to hold onto and everything was spiraling. I was quite sure this trip to Taglio would be my last meal.
After four hours of thinking about how I could perish any minute, I decided that if I am to die I should do it in the comfort of a hospital. I thought about how to wake Christa up and tell her that I might not make it to morning and we should go to the hospital without startling her too much. It was 5am and I said I wasn’t feeling too well and maybe out of an abundance of caution, we should go to the hospital.
At the hospital was swept into a room, they hooked me up to an ECG machine and measured my heart. A doctor came back in about 15 minutes, asked me if I’ve done cocaine (I have not) and then asked me again if I was absolutely sure I didn’t do cocaine or any drugs that tonight. I told him no, the only drug I had was the Green Pointer pizza at Pizza Taglio which I am addicted to. The doctor sat down and said, “I don’t want to alarm you but it looks like you’re having a heart attack.”
This is incredible for a myriad of reasons. Mostly because I run marathons, I was 29 at the time and in great shape. But those machines wouldn’t lie, would they? They are trained to interpret the subtle and mysterious sounds and rhythms of our bodies and supply a proper diagnose in a way a human never could. But when a human is interpreting the machine’s data there’s the possibly of human error.
Anyways, they rushed me to the back, told Christa, “Now is a good time to call his parents” and checked out my arteries. The found out that my arteries are absolutely clear and there’s not a single hint of blockage. How strange!
I would eventually be told that GERD caused my chest pain and my heart was in perfect condition. My discomfort in my chest was a mix of anxiety and heart burn from all the spicy pizza and wine I devoured that day.
Our friend Mark met us at Pizza Taglio with his daughter Evie. She must’ve been two at this time. An early dinner perfect for the friends with kids visit.
We of course ordered a Green Pointer and also a pizza very similar to a tomato pie. Mostly red sauce with specks of sprinkled cheese. Topping the sea of red were red onions and porchetta shrapnel.
I don’t know if this was Evie’s first encounter with pizza, but she would go on to become a fan of pizza and maybe it was Pizza Taglio that ignited that passion. If Pizza Taglio is your introduction to pizza, I pity you. Every other pizza you encounter has a nearly impossible bar to compete against.
It should be no surprise to anyone reading this that the bagel situation in Pittsburgh went from dire to adequate in a span of four years. Despite a restaurant boom exploding in Pittsburgh in the early-to-mid 2000’s, the city attracted multiple eateries that would be at home in the bustling NYC, but failed to inspire a baker to take on the mantle of Pittsburgh’s Bagel Savior. Since no one else was willing to do it the burden unfortunately fell to me. I started Bagel Friday, an amateur bagel cottage operation from my kitchen.
I won’t take absolute credit for the many small bagel operations that sprouted after Bagel Friday found a rapidly growing audience in this city. At one point I was considered one of the top five bagel makers in the city. It was unbelievably easy to manufacture hype for this kind of product and a seemingly unlimited amount of humans in this city that would fight their way through a hundred bad bagels to get a chance to buy one decent bagel.
Initially, when I started my bagel business I was running into bottlenecks at every turn. Production was a sloppy mess and my tiny Lawrenceville kitchen wasn’t equipped to handle the burgeoning frontier of bagels. My wife would find me sweating in the kitchen at 5am, dough overly proofed in the 100 degree kitchen and dripping off counters, paint peeling from the walls and me dripping wet, my head hung in defeat and misery. I’ve never been more broken than trying to prepare hundreds of bagels by myself for the Lawrenceville Saturday farmer’s market
I needed a real kitchen if I were to bring bagels to the people and Tony, for some reason, let me use his equipment. We mixed the dough in his mixer and then he let me roll out a hundred bagels on his counter tops. For some reason, he stayed with me as I boiled each bagel in the two small pots and baked them in his oven. The very ovens that birthed some of the greatest pizza Pittsburgh has ever seen. Now, they were bringing to life my bagels. Bagels that I would sell out of Pizza Taglio and sell out of almost immediately. That night a few lucky people walked away with six Bagel Friday bagels and a Greenpointer, and those people are living their life right.
My birthday is March 7th, I’m a pisceies and I guess I’m proud of that. I’m not not proud of that. Those fish are pretty neat symbols. March is typically when the Pizza Expo takes place. The Pizza Expo is the event for the pizza industry. The best pizza makers compete in pizza making competitions, vendors show off their newest products and a conference hall is filled with panels to help pizza makers in every facet. My father, Tommy T, got my press badge and was covering the expo on Pizza Walk With Me’s behalf. He broke some huge stories that year at the expo, including Caliente winning their first Pizza Championship. Now that’s some great pizza reporting. Get this man a pizza Pulitzer!
I was feeling left out. My dad was sending me photos of pizza buffets as long as football fields, photos of himself with pizza celebrities and expo halls full of pizza enthusiasts. To get my pizza fix, my wife and I went to Pizza Taglio.
We had a couple of Greenpointers and some wine. It was a delightful birthday dinner.
For my birthday that year my wife threw me a Bruce Springsteen themed birthday party where everyone came dressed as Bruce from the cover of Born in the USA.
Adam glares at me as we enjoy pizza together.
Christa, my greatest pizza partner, and I were to be wed in May of 2016. For my bachelor party friends came in from all over to celebrate with me. We had a wonderful time of screaming myself hoarse at the Pirate’s Game, going to Primanti’s at 2am, crawling to a brunch the next morning and then doing an escape room.
It was trial by fire and we didn’t escape. But, for our failures we treated ourselves to a fine dinner at Pizza Taglio. The table was filled with pizza and whatever cans of beers we had available. Green Pointers were the crowd favorites, but of course we had a more exotic pizza carbonara. The pizza brought us renewed life. It was invigorating and a pleasant reminder of the power of pizza. Pizza can rejuvenate. It can rebuild.
And rebuild us it did. Each slightly hungover person was given a fifth wind and the power to make it Karaoke later that night where we stayed up way too late singing all the hits at Nico’s Recovery Room.
I would return to Pizza Taglio after my bachelor party with my fiancé, Christa. This was a week before our wedding where after 7 years of dating we would finally decide that yes, we would like to spend the rest of our lives together. The trial run was over and now the real fun was to begin.
Listen, eating all this good pizza is exhausting.
I’ve been writing about pizza for a very long time, and Christa has more than indulged my pizza journalism. She has gone on tremendous detours to find rare and revered pizza shops. She has filmed me eating whole slices of pizza, and has been an astonishing pizza partner to share slices with. It was only fitting that one of our last meals out prior to getting married was Pizza Taglio. A pizza so perfect and pristine it embodies the wedding spirit - each topping and ingredient is locked into a lifetime of deliciousness. They are bonded, never to stray.
I guess that sums up my marriage to Christa. We’re locked in this, I’m the cheese and she’s the sauce. We are basically the personification of the Greenpointer. Please don’t eat us!
On this fateful day, Christa and I went to Pizza Taglio where I had her record me eating a whole slice of the Green Pointer. I was starting my series where I eat a whole slice of pizza on camera to document the slice process.
Pizza anthropologist and historians will thank me for the work one day in the future I’m sure.
Unique to this visit was a very sloppy / greasy pepperoni pizza from Taglio. I don’t know if this was a specialty menu item or Tony whipped this up for me as his Guinean pig, but this was a hybrid of the Neapolitan style pizza with the New York style. An intriguing combination that birthed a pizza with the signature leopard print and the not so signature pools of grease.
Every now and then Tommy T will want to meet for either a cocktail at the Brillobox or pizza. I am supremely bummed out that both Brillo and Taglio are no longer with us.
On this November meeting we decided to visit Pizza Taglio. Nothing too outrageous occurred here. We ordered the Green Pointer and a white pizza with mozzarella, sausage and onions.
A year hiatus? From Pizza Taglio? What happened in my life to cause such a lag in visits.
At this point in my relationship with Pizza Taglio I had fallen into a very familiar routine.
Show up at 7pm with two bottles of wine.
Order a Green Pointer, whatever specialty pizza might be on a menu and a white pizza.
Devour the fluffy discs of pizza
Banter with Tony
This evening was like no other. Familiar and satisfying.
Is that pizza bae??
The holidays are naturally chaotic as you string together days of intense family activities, packing in all the eating and drinking you can in the spirit of festivities. Typically, my brother and sister come in and we split our time between hanging with Tommy T, visiting my mom in some capacity and seeing Christa’s family for a a big Christmas Eve bash full of fish and all you can drink Prosecco that simply evaporates in the dry winter air.
This year was no different. My brother was in town and we packed the days with exhausting antics and adventures. So adventurous that there was a trip to the ER. After waiting in the hospital for a few hours, I was relieved of my duty by Tommy T and I was free to celebrate Christmas Eve and man the deep fryer in the basement churning out smelts.
The rare Brooklyn pizza from Taglio
On my way out of the hospital I took a quick detour to Pizza Taglio. Tony was spending his Christmas Eve going rogue and making the opposite of Neapolitan pizza - Brooklyn Style pies. I don’t know what inspired this, or why he chose this night of all nights to create a spinoff pie, but I’m glad he did. The holidays are stressful enough as it is. Family affairs, picking out the perfect gift, fretting about the smallest details. A pizza can dissolve that stress. It melts it away like the precious, slightly salty, mozzarella that dons the pizza.
Tony’s Brooklyn Style pizza was heavily charred, but did not taste of char. It was oddly decorative. The pizza was big, greasy and the perfect amount of sloppy. A departure from the typical manicured Neapolitan pizza he’s used to churning out day after day. Maybe for him this was a way of breaking some rules, trying something new and festively rebelling.
If I recall, I got that pizza, went home by myself, ate a few slices and wavered back and forth about bringing the pizza to the party. I decided against it. While the spirit of the season is giving, I didn’t want to complicate a set menu with a foreign pizza entry. To upstage the smelts is a cardinal sin of the seven fishes.
Adjacent to Pizza Taglio has been a revolving door of restaurants / bars. On my final documented trip to Pizza Taglio, Lorelei had taken up residence. Lorelei is a stunning bar, serving up pilsners and an assortment of high quality beers, stunning cocktails and some of the best pretzels I’ve ever had the privilege of dipping into beer cheese.
On this fateful day, I was killing time while waiting for Christa to finish her haircut. We were going to get dinner afterward and her hair appointments have a habit of running slightly over, but on this day it didn’t matter. On this day I prayed her haircut never ended. Because this night at Lorelei was Kolsch night which means the chill, refreshing Kolsch was a special price and the bartenders would refill your glass without exchanging a single word. It’s the perfect system, a system perfected in Europe and, I hope, picking up steam here. There wasn’t a single second that I yearned for Kolsch and it wasn’t available.
This was during my Kickstarter campaign to get my pizza book printed. You can still grab a digital copy here if you’re interested, but pizza was on my mind. After loitering at Lorelei, Christa finished up her haircut and I paid my Kolsch bill and we went off to Pizza Taglio.
Christa was pregnant with our daughter, Charlie, at this time so I guess this was technically her first time eating Pizza Taglio.
Little did I know this would be the final time I would visit the interior of Pizza Taglio.
We settled into our seats at Pizza Taglio. We ordered the Green Pointer like we have done so many times before. It was habitual, a mild addiction. The cheese was globbier than usual, the soppresata provided the perfect amount of heat couple with the hot ones.
The Greenpointer is a perfect because because it always found a way into my life at the right time. It would mold itself to whatever I needed from it, always giving me the ideal pizza experience that I needed. Maybe that’s more of the Pizza Taglio magic. It was impossible to get a bad pizza there because every pizza felt like it was specially made for you. And I guess it was. Tony stood vigil at his oven, watching over his customers as they imbibed, laughed and ordered pizza.
Tony could see the orders coming in, who ordered it, and assess their mood. Knowing the great emotional weight food carries, Tony perfectly curated each and every pizza that came out of that oven, tailor fit for consumption by their new owner. At least that’s the tall tale version of Taglio I want to believe. A Pecos Bill legend of magnitude that will never be matched.
Did the quality change from the first to last pie at Pizza Taglio? I can’t imagine, maybe things were slightly different, but it was always spectacular. If I were to chart the pizza over time it would be an almost flat line graph. That might sound like an insult, but from start to finish Taglio was a premium pizza product. It was consistently perfect, astonishing, and inspiring. I don’t know how you improve on that formula.
In Summary
I didn’t know the right way to pay homage to Pizza Taglio, but this exercise seemed like something only I could provide. Plotting out all my visits to Pizza Taglio charts how my life was intertwined with Pizza Taglio. It was the head quarters for so many family trips, special occasions and celebratory moments.
Pizza Taglio was a keystone in my life. 17 visits over four years means I was at Pizza Taglio every fiscal quarter, gobbling up a couple of Green Pointers every two and a half months on average. Obviously, that year gap really killed my average, but impressive none the less.
Pizza is more than a Friday night food. It’s at the center of so many of life’s moments. Pizza Taglio was certainly that for me and I’ll miss it dearly. It was the perfect balance of quality and casual, worth the wait and a place you could bring your best friend or your arch enemy.
Hi there! In this episode of Pizza Talk With Me, we talk about Badamo’s Pizza, ponder the difference between their round and square pie and go deep on their salad.
Pizza News Items:
Rich Allison, Chief Executive at Domino’s, thinks pizza is the perfect food for the pandemic and for all time. He’s not wrong when you think about it.
Fellow pizza journalist Hal Klein goes deep on Pittsburgh unique style of pizza.
Slice On Broadway is expanding north into the Wexford territory. They may or may not be taking over a spot that used to house a pizza place.
Spirit has unveiled a Butt Patrol pizza. Sounds…delicious?? Check it out on their menu.
Rockaway Pizza is closed on Sunday’s now that the big game is over. They also have upgraded their refrigerator situation so they will sell out of pies much less often!
Let us know how you liked the podcast. Hit me up on Instagram or fill out a contact form. If you have a pizza question we may even pull it out of the grease bag!
Pizza ya later!
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Creating another civilization is fun. I mean, it has to be. In a time where we are so trapped and contained in our cells, nowhere to go, we are compelled to create rich and wild ecosystems. Ecosystems that grow entire civilizations, rich microscopic cultures, for our own benefit. They start from nothing - a pool of slightly warm water, maybe at 67 degrees Fahrenheit, yeast , oil crushed from a hundred olives and shipped over from Italy, flour ground from lonely fields of wheat simply waiting for the reaper to strike them down.
And for us, they grow. Together they make it work. Under any condition they thrive. Whether they’re wrapped in plastic or left to rot on a counter. Without our supervision or intervention this beast grows and thrives, it evolves into what we need, something that might bring us a sprig of happiness. Something that will nourish the whole family. It gives its life for us, a whole galaxy of activity ready to sacrifice itself so that we can live on. Maybe post some fun photos to the internet. Why not? There’s no judgement, doubt or concern. There’s nothing yearning for something better. It’s just there, for us, to put in our mouths and swallow and laugh. The fellowship of the oil, water, yeast and flour is as courageous as it is delicious. And it serves a valiant inspiring goal.
Pizza is really great. It’s a timeless and satisfying. If you are going to devour a galaxy you want to devour a galaxy of sauce, slowly simmered for hours with just a hint of minced anchovies, cheese that’s gloopy and slightly browned, and toppings that augment the whole package. Toppings that “yes and” their way to success, always contributing never contracting from the total package.
I don’t know what space tastes like, I’m not sure anyone knows. But maybe space is simply the gluten network that holds together the pizza. Obviously, we are talking perspective and relativity. Maybe one day someone might eat us. One big chomp and we topple down their throats wondering what awaits us in this exotic and slightly scary locale. But , as we topple through the dark esophagus full of stars and asteroids, we hope that we served our purpose. We found meaning in our existence, we built something worth devouring. Having something devour you might be the best compliment you can receive in this life.
And so it goes, we are trapped inside this world and we continue to bake and create new worlds. These worlds are delicious, and they’re full of sauce and cheese and easy to share. It passes the time as we wait for our world to get fixed and to heal. Takes our minds off of the temporary chaos and bedlam we have to face every time we look out a windo or leave the house covered in multiple masks hopingg you do’t breathe in the wrong molecule. That your galaxy doesn’t mix incorreclty with someone else’s.
In an oven, there’s nothing but heat. And that makes sense. You can measure heat. And it’s logical. And when you apply that heat to your creation you get a nice plump pizza. it’s mature, it’s prepared, it’s ready to be devoured.
And that’s comforting. Devouring pizza is comforting.
This iron skillet pizza was delicious and easy to make. I actually used this recipe from Serious Eats for Sfinonce pizza. I didn’t use the bread crumbs, but the sauce they suggest making with this pizza is outstanding. The anchovy flavor is potent, but simmers away over time.
What I like most about this recipe is you can mix everything in one bowl by hand, put it in the fridge, and 24 hours you have a robust pizza bustling with a civilization of gas and flavors. Key to getting a good rise was letting it warm to room temperature. Once I moved it into the skillet to sit in a pool of oil I placed it in my oven on the proofing setting. The pizza burst to life and when I saw it again an hour later it had tripled in size and was thinking about eating me.
