Every Trip I’ve Taken to Pizza Taglio - A Pizza Memorial

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.

October 25, 2014 - Tony at Espresso a Mano

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.

April 16, 2015 - A Grand Opening

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.

May 13, 2015 - Tommy T Visits Taglio

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.

June 18, 2015 - One of Many Date Nights at Taglio

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?

July 8, 2015 - Brother Visits Taglio

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.

August 18, 2015 - Sister Visits Taglio

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.

October 9, 2015 - A Pizzaiolo Visits Taglio

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.

November 7 - 2015 - Spicy Red Pizza & A ER Visits

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.

January 2 - 2016 - A Friend and His Daughter Visit Taglio

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.

February 23 - 2016 - Making Bagels at Taglio

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.

March 10th 2016 - Happy Birthday at Pizza Taglio

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.

April 16, 2016 - The Boys Pile Into Taglio

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.

May 6, 2016 - Pre-Wedding Pizza at Taglio

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!

November 10, 2016 - Anthropological Visit to Taglio

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.

November 28, 2017 - Dinner with Tommy T

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.

November 29 - 2018 - A Return to Taglio

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.

December 24, 2018 - Brooklyn Pizza

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.

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.

October 30, 2019 - A Pre-Baby Date Night

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.