Villa Reale Pizzeria: if Yinzers Founded Italy

The classic sausage and green peppers pizza. This pizza was perfectly cooked, sturdy, and toppings evenly spread out. 

I imagine that there's fan fiction out in the world that describes in detail what would happen if a rag-tag crew of Pittsburghers traveled across the Atlantic and settled onto the fine country of Italy. They'd call their vibrant land "Yintaly" and their flag would flutter in Southern Italian Wind boasting colors of black, gold, green, red and white. And their pizzas and pizzerias would be modeled after the fine bar/pizzeria of Villa Reale in downtown Pittsburgh.

Villa Reale is a hidden ball of mozzarella in downtown Pittsburgh, nestled next to Weiner World on Smithfield Street, it's an unassuming pizza parlor. When you first enter you notice how unbelievably long this building it. There's a bar in front of the ovens that extend as far as Italy until it opens up into a dining room. I would not be surprised if the blueprints show that this building is modeled off of Italy's boot-shape.

Me and my pizza crew sat in the dining room, but I'm interested in going back for the bar experience. I have a hunch that that's the "right" way to enjoy Villa Reale because you can sip beer and get a front-row seat for the pizza making. That's a tough combo to find in Pittsburgh, but a huge plus for making the trip to Villa Reale.

This half plain, half capicolla was a bit of a mess. Cheese flooded the center and it was unruly. I think it was because this was an XL, a troublesome size. 

My pizza crew had two pizzas: a sausage and green pepper and a half-plain half-capicolla. These pizzas may have been made on opposite sides of the world by random strangers. The plain/capicolla had enough cheese for four pizzas while the sausage/green peppers was slice after slice of perfection. How do they do it? How do they churn out such different pizzas?

It sounds like a bad thing, but to me it's comfort. With the boom of artisan pizzerias, it's somewhat refreshing to be served a gloopy moat of cheese and a crisp, crunchy medley of sausage and peppers. It adds an extra layer of mystique and yes, of course we ate all but one slice.

Villa Reale's pizza is the kind of pizza that has a crust that is so volatile that some parts may shatter in your mouth and others are soft and chewy. It's the phenomenon that happens when air pockets form in the crust leaving behind bites that explode like landmines. The slight imperfections of this pizza is what makes it so classic and Pittsburgh-esque.  

I'd put Villa Reale up there with one of my lifetime favorites, Mama Lucia's. I love the mix of Italian heritage and Pittsburgh and they created an odd mish-mash of an environment that you can only find in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Here is an unfortunate slice of plain pizza that looks like Laura Palmer wrapped up in plastic on the side of a river.

Next time I go to work on my Pittsburgh x Italy crossover fan fiction, I'll do it at the Villa Rae bar. The perfect environment to chat with surly waiters and eat the finest food Italy has to offer. This is pizza that pairs well with a cold Miller High Life or whatever light beer of your choosing.

As a bonus, try to find the photo of a (younger?) Mona Lisa in front of a painting of the Mona Lisa. This really is the icing on the tiramisu. 

Slicing it Up with Dan! Episode 3: Mama Lucia's Pizza

In this episode of Slicing it Up With Dan! I eat a slice from Mama Lucia's in Downtown Pittsburgh. Now, Mama Lucia's is an older pizzeria. If you walk a block in most directions of Mama Lucia's you'll stumble over the neapolitan and craft pizzas that litter downtown Pittsburgh.

Mama Lucia's is a bunker of nostalgia and authenticity. The pizza you begged to order every Friday night as a child is waiting for you in this pizzeria. They offer classic slices and Sicilian slices. I've been on the hunt for sicilian style slices of pizzas lately and couldn't resist chomping into one of mama Lucia's. 

The thicker crust was too bready and could have used more sauce. The chef may not have known that the thicker slice needed special attention. You can't treat it with the common-core of pizza education and expect it to come out as high quality of the thin crust. 

If you venture down the Sicilian path, pack a pepsi to wash down the dough. 

Mama Lucia's was a staple in my life growing up. My fondest memories are from visiting Mama Lucia's in the North Way Mall after seeing a $1 movie. I'd grab a greasy slice and dare myself to sprinkle as much parmesan cheese and red-pepper flakes as my body could digest. 

Here's a couple of slices from Mama Lucia's. 

Pittsburgh's Proper Brick Oven and Tap Room - Pizza Review

As downtown Pittsburgh begins to revitalize, one of the driving forces behind its resurgence is pizza. In the past few years there have been a suspicious amount of restaurants serving "authentic" pizza in the area. Places like Winghart’s, Il Pizzaiolo, and Stone. It’s nice that in a half-mile radius you can grab a dozen different types of pizza. If you collect them all I can guarantee no two will be the same, but you’ll probably be barfing into one of the rivers. Maybe that’s why we have so many rivers? In case of our sudden gluttony. 

The newest addition to Pittsburgh’s Pizza Club is Proper. Proper Brick Over and Tap Room, to be long-winded.

Proper promises a proper dining experience that any human should be proud of—a draft list that encompasses an entire alphabet of beer; a finely-tuned menu focused on pizza, pasta and sandwiches; and the option for incidental bacon. The latter surprised me. For sure I thought we were over the “bacon makes everything” better culinary phase?

Let’s talk pizza. When I visited I had the Margherita. It’s the most basic of pizzas and if you can’t make a margherita right you’re in trouble. And take a look! It looks like a pizza, but what are those charred bits on top?

Bacon. I made an executive decision to put bacon on this pizza. A type of pizza that, for so long, has survived in the wild without the use of bacon. It’d be like putting a spoiler onto your Dodge Neon. Completely unnecessary.

The bacon isn’t just any bacon it’s house-cured black pepper bacon. And when you put it on the pizza-stage it only takes away from the experience. It’s a blemish on an otherwise ideal pizza. I resorted to picking off some of the bacon halfway through the pie, but the damage was done. Pools of grease dotted the pizza like boils on a victim of a plague. The melted mozzarella lakes were just a tad darker. The bacon had left its mark and it was a sad state of affairs. 

Despite the bacon carnage, a mistake I hope you don’t make, the pizza was high-quality. The crust had a crispy edge, but pillowy-soft inside. It’s easy to shovel slice after slice into your mouth because it’s just so soft. It’s like eating rectangular bliss. 

While the outside of the pizza was perfect, the middle was a bit undercooked. Resulting in a thin, floppy pizza. Great for folding, but I was hoping for a bit more of a crunch when my teeth penetrated the basil, sauce, and cheese. Pizza just taste better when it at least sounds like it’s putting up a fight.

The Margherita I devoured was prepared right on the premises in this wood-fired oven. The oven rests right in the middle of the restaurant. Pizza smell radiates from within, filling your nostrils with succulent scents. There are other things on the menu, but I’m not sure how you can not order a pizza in a place like this. 

When the pizza had vanished I was in a pretty great mood. The Margherita was great, it has some character, but stays safely within the definition of what a Margherita pizza is. If you’re in downtown Pittsburgh looking for pizza from Italy, it’s a nice place to stop into. Chances are they’ll have a perfect beer to pair with it.