[Photographs: David Kover]

Hot Italian

5959 Shellmound Street, Emeryville, CA 94608 (map); 510-922-1369; hotitalian.net
Pizza style: No one style
Oven type: Electric
Price: $10 to $15 per pie

According to the mission statement for Hot Italian, the owners have constructed the restaurant to, "celebrate Italy's new generation of art, music, design, sport, food, and wine." It appears that they also want to celebrate really, really good-looking people, with each dish on the menu getting named for a famous attractive Italian. (Hence the restaurant's name.)

Hot Italian's menu also offers up a neat little coding system, with symbols to let you know the different ways a topping combination can be prepared. For instance, you can get a Bellucci—tomato sauce, mozzarella, sausage, ricotta cheese—as a pizza, or as a calzone. The Aquilani—arugula, kabocha squash, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pomegranate—can be a pizza, or a salad.

This playful menu, along with a sleek design job, can make one wonder whether Hot Italian prizes style over substance, but thankfully the food itself offers some pleasure as well.

The Hot Italian we visited in Emeryville, California, land of shopping malls, IKEA, and other big box stores, represents a second location for owners Andrea Lepore and Fabrizio Cercatore. It's Cercatore's upbringing in the Italian Riviera that provides some of the restaurant's pizza bona fides, at least in the publicity materials. However, despite having an authentic Italian on the management team, Hot Italian's pizza doesn't seem to hew to the ideals of any one pizza doctrine.

The original Hot Italian, in Sacramento, uses a wood-fired oven, but zoning rules wouldn't allow that at this second location, so the restaurant instead uses a Cuppone electric oven. At least based on pictures, the pies served at the two restaurants nonetheless appear remarkably similar. The crust we tried arrived light and airy, with an attractive crispness to it. The slices, dusted lightly with cornmeal and speckled with char underneath, stand straight out when held from the rim.

The pizzas we chose during our visit might lead you to believe that I have a thing for strapping Italian athletes, but really we just found ourselves inclined towards the more traditional pies on the wide-ranging menu. Among the pies we did not order, Hot Italian offers one with pureed pumpkin and another with smoked salmon.

The Cannavaro, besides paying homage to an Italian soccer player, is Hot Italian's version of a Margherita. Other than some ribbons of basil on top and a bit of garlic hiding in the sauce, this pie does not offer many bells and whistles. In fact, they employ shredded mozzarella rather than the puddles of cheese we have come to expect on upscale pies. Either way, Hot Italian gets the ratios right on their toppings, creating a layer of intermingled cheese and sauce that strikes that this-is-pizza chord. If you feel the need to spice up this basic offering, Hot Italian provides jars of red pepper oil and rosemary oil to each table.

On the Bortolami—this time, an Italian rugby player—Hot Italian combines tomato sauce, housemade sausage, cheese, mushrooms, and radicchio. The smokey scamorza cheese wafts to the table well before the rest of the pie. When it actually comes to eating, this pie offers a more riotous amalgamation of flavors than one might expect, with the fennel and heat of the sausage, a slight bitterness from the radicchio, and the smokiness of the cheese.

I admit, I wanted to discount Hot Italian when I was confronted with its carefully packaged facade, but the restaurant doesn't try to get by on just its looks alone. Besides, who am I to get all high and mighty? As I sat there, perusing the menu, I ended up turning the ordering process into a giant game of Hot or Not, staging a referendum on the owners' choices of hot Italians. When the waiter originally came to our table, I realized I had been so busy searching Google for pictures of the different names on the menu, I had no idea what kind of pizza those pretty faces represented.

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He likes pizza. A lot. He occasionally gets his tweet on at @pizzakover.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: David Kover]

We had to choose the extra bedroom over proximity to good pizza, but that doesn't mean I won't miss the hell out of living across the street from Pizzeria Delfina.

We ate our goodbye-pie the day before the move. I sauntered across the street, past the line of people waiting for a table in the tiny restaurant, and then scurried home with our to-go order so the crust wouldn't have time to steam in the box. We had already packed our utensils, but that didn't matter, because Delfina's crisp-yet-chewy crust can easily be a fork-free experience.

Somehow, I don't think the pizzeria nearest our new apartment will use clean-tasting fior di latte like the stuff on the Margherita we'd ordered from Delfina. Fat chance that they'll use anything like Delfina's richly flavored tomato sauce either.

It's pizza worth a trip, and since we're not moving far, I'm sure we'll be back. Though I worry that any return visits will just make me wonder whether that extra bedroom is worth it.

If you were leaving your city, town, or neighborhood, where would you make sure to get one last pie?

Pizzeria Delfina

3611 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 (map)
415-437-6800; pizzeriadelfina.com

VIEW SLIDESHOW: A Tourist's Guide to Pizza in San Francisco

We'd like to argue that, along with sourdough bread, cioppino, Dungeness crab, and Rice-a-Roni*, pizza is one of the things you should be eating if you choose to visit San Francisco. A round of dough serves as a pretty amazing canvas for the creative cooking that's taking place all over this city. More than that, as of three or four years ago, high-quality pizza started popping up all over the city by the Bay. That means that, wherever you're headed, there's a pretty good chance you can snag yourself a pie that will beat the pants off the food tourists usually end up eating**.

Click through the slideshow for a list of likely San Francisco tourist activities and the pizza you should seek out nearby.

*That's a joke. If any restaurant tries to serve you Rice-a-Roni, please leave. Thank you.

**That said, Fisherman's Wharf remains a gaping hole in this particular round-up. There are rumors of a good pizza spot in that part of town, but until we can confirm, we recommend making a bee-line for In-n-Out.

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He occasionally gets his tweet on as @pizzakover.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: First Look: Capo's Chicago Pizza and Fine Italian Dinners, San Francisco

[Photographs: Wes Rowe]

Note: First Looks give previews of new dishes, drinks, and menus we're curious about. Since they are arranged photo shoots and interviews with restaurants, we do not make critical evaluations or recommendations.

The buzz around Capo's started about a year ago.

"Have you heard? Tony... Tony Tony, of Tony's Pizza Napoletana, is opening a new place. A deep dish place. Somewhere in North Beach."

Indeed, Tony Gemignani, he of pizza award-winning fame and the always-packed Tony's Pizza Napoletana is opening a deep dish place in North Beach, this Friday night. Nestled tidily on Vallejo off Columbus, a glowing neon sign reads "Capo's," subtly staking its claim in a neighborhood where authenticity, and quality, are prized about as highly as a good whiskey cocktail and a solid slice.

"I want this place to feel like it's the last man standing, like it's been here for 50 years," Gemignani told us, arms draped around the polished wood curvature of a red leather booth.

Named for Al Capone, the close, cozy space evokes an immediate throwback. Replete with seven tons of 100-year-old Chicago brick and a hand-painted pressed tin ceiling from Queens, Capo's certainly doesn't feel like a newcomer. The restaurant's cash-only policies further speak to its old school tendencies; reservations are only taken by phone, and you can find a phone booth tucked in the back corner where you can call anyone in the U.S. for free. The air is warm with garlic and oregano, and Tony jovially calls out to his staff as he takes us through the inspiration behind the menu, and Capo's itself.

"I've been in the industry for more than 20 years, and I've been to Chicago a lot," he says. "There are so many different styles of pizza, so many classic dishes, so much history. It needed its own restaurant."

This single-focus concept is a decided shift from Tony's North Beach flagship, which currently features ten varieties of pizza, from California to Detroit to Italian. If Tony's Pizza Napoletana acts as a tasty crash course in pizza education, Capo's in an immersion into a traditional Chicago food culture that's largely unknown out West.

"We're making very traditional comfort food, nothing too out of the box," Gemignani tells us. "But these are items that are largely forgotten, or never really made it out West. Even in Chicago the concept has gotten a little lost, but when it's done right it can be special."

Meaning, you'll find dishes like a Chicken Vesuvio ($19), a bone-in leg and thigh cooked in white wine, garlic, lemon and peas alongside baked pasta dishes like a wood fired Mostaccioli ($15 with meat, $17 with pesto and chicken).

And of course, there's pizza. There are seven toppings combinations (plus build-your-own options), each available in four crust varieties: Chicago cracker thin, deep dish, cast iron pan, and stuffed. The latter three are not vegetarian ("There's something in there!" Gemignani says, laughing, declining to reveal his secrets).

"When you look at my pizza, you see a little bit of Lou Malnati's, what Giordano's used to be, some of Connie's in the cast-iron, a little bit of everything," he says. "I want to pay tribute."

Of course, while Capo's may be Chicago in its roots, it's certainly got a little bit of San Francisco at its core. The pizza boxes, for example, were designed by local artist Jeremy Fish. Gemignani is also placing particular emphasis on Capo's cocktail program, designed by Tony's bar manager Elmer Majicanos.

"When you think of Prohibition in Chicago, you think of bourbon whiskey." In that spirit, Capo's features over 100 whiskies, ranging from straight bourbon to Japanese and European varieties.

In addition to ample amounts of the brown stuff, Capo's art deco bar hosts a number of beers (Goose Island, of course) and wines on tap. Wine director Marni McKirahan noted that the list is more compact than Tony's, and was "designed to go hand-in-glove with the food. There aren't any light reds on the list!" she tells us, gesturing at the expansive plates of rib-sticking red sauce on our table.

The conviviality of the staff, and the crackle of excitement surrounding the impending opening further emphasizes how excited Gemignani and his team are to open their doors to the neighborhood.

"I always wanted to do what was different when I was young," he says. "Now what excites me is perfecting the classics, doing something that's been done for 100 years and making it true to style."

Capo's

641Vallejo Street, San Francisco CA 94133 (map)
415-986-8998; sfcapos.com

About the author: Lauren Sloss is a bicoastal food-lover who is based in San Francisco. Some of her favorite things include The Black Keys, goat gouda, and guacamole. You can follow her on Twitter @laurensloss.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photo: Carey Jones]

I wrote on toppings-centric bar pizza quite recently in my review of 21st Amendment's offerings. Many of those sentiments apply when talking about the pizzas at the Southern Pacific Brewing Company, a spot that's probably more of a destination for their beer and ample lovely outdoor patio than for their food.

But Southern Pacific does have som some nice beer-friendly menu choices—sage fries, jars of pickles—and of course, a brussels sprouts and red onion pizza ($13). Per the topping-centric rule, the crust is serviceable, but nothing to write home about. And this is a topping choice we can certainly get on board with—the sprouts and onions are joined by a salty, satisfying feta fonduta, and a melty pile of mozzarella. My major complaint—both the onions and brussels sprouts still tasted a little raw. Caramelizing the onions, and getting a little nutty char on the sprouts via roasting or skillet, would have done wonders for the flavors which, while fine, weren't mind-blowing.

Still, it's a pizza I'd get again, particularly when hanging on SP's patio and drinking a $4 beer. I'd probably go for the Calabrian chili add-on option, or perhaps an egg ($2 each). Or really, go for both—when it's all about the toppings, you may as well take the opportunity to go big.

Southern Pacific Brewing

620 Treat Avenue, San Francisco CA 94110 (map)
415-341-0152; southernpacificbrewing.com

About the author: Lauren Sloss is a bicoastal food-lover who is based in San Francisco. Some of her favorite things include The Black Keys, goat gouda, and guacamole. You can follow her on Twitter @laurensloss.

[Photographs: Lauren Sloss]

21st Amendment Brewery

563 Second Street, San Francisco CA 94107 (map); 415-369-0900
21st-amendment.com
Pizza Style: Toppings-driven bar pizza... kind of.
The Skinny: A bland, if chewy crust is definitely not a classic crispy-crusted bar pizza, but some of the toppings-heavy options are flavorful, bold, and hugely satisfying with 21st Amendments killer brews.
Price:$10.95 for the Margherita and the jerk chicken special; $11.95 for prosciutto

Let's get one thing straight: you come to 21st Amendment for the beer. The brewery-restaurant hugging South Park and a 5 minute walk from the ballpark has a perfectly fine food menu, but this is a spot known for their beer for a reason.

Slice correspondent David Kover wrote about some of their brews extensively—I love popping in for an after work pint to see what they have on draft. But, sometimes 21st gets crowded enough that staking a claim at a table and staying a while becomes necessary, like when our San Francisco Giants are in the playoffs.*

The menu is full of your bar-standard classics—burgers, sandwiches, tacos—and of course features a sizable pizza menu. Billed as individual-sized and made with a 'special beer mash crust,' topping combinations were clearly veering on the heavy side, with a Mexicali option featuring ground beef and avocado, and a Buffalo chicken version. We avoided both of those (sorry, Max), opting for a Margherita ($10.95, for control purposes), a prosciutto-topped option ($11.95), and the special: a jerk chicken pizza ($10.95).

Whatever your feelings may be about chicken on pizza, the jerk chicken ended up being the very, very clear winner of the three. Topped with goat cheese, Roma tomatoes, grilled onions, and pieces of moist, spicy, well-seasoned chicken, the flavors were bold and nicely complementary to the pile of melty-hot mozzarella.

I mean, the chicken on this pizza was actually good! How often does that happen? What's more, the spiciness of the chicken was particularly excellent with the tang of goat cheese crumbles and the sweetness of the grilled onions. It was such a favorite for our large party that a second ended up being ordered.

The boldness of flavors and ample amount of toppings on this pizza were necessary, we found, as we tried the others. The Margherita was perfectly fine—the tomatoes fresh, the basil flavor nicely present, and the cheese serviceable. But that beer mash crust, despite having nice chew and a hint of maltiness, was sorely lacking in salt.

Due to a high cheese-to-crust- ratio, the bland crust wasn't too big of a problem—it ended up acting as a vehicle for the toppings. Granted, the crust was ill-equipped to stand up to the cheese. Fork and knifing my pizza doesn't bother me much, but it's worth noting that this is not your standard crispy bar pizza (even if it is pizza meant to be eaten with plenty of delicious beer).

The prosciutto pizza was an all-out fail. The lots-of-cheese-bland-crust-base veered from fine to WTF? due to the fact that the prosciutto was cooked on the pizza. No! We do not cook our prosciutto on our pizzas, 21st! The other toppings didn't fare much better—arugula was similarly cooked, rendering it limp, sad, and soggy with cheese grease; roasted red peppers and goat cheese were distracting at best, inconsequential at worst.

Prosciutto-problems aside, these were perfectly serviceable pies to accompany some good beer drinking. Due to the under-salted crust, the topping-heavy options are definitely the way to go—I'd absolutely order that jerk chicken pizza again. And you know what? Next time, I'd be willing to give the Mexicali and even the Buffalo chicken a try.

*And then, you know, go on to clinch the pennant and head to the World Series. Not that I'm rabidly excited about that, or anything!,

About the author: Lauren Sloss is a bicoastal food-lover who is based in San Francisco. Some of her favorite things include The Black Keys, goat gouda, and guacamole. You can follow her on Twitter @laurensloss.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photograph: Carey Jones]

Having talked about Starbelly quite a lot already, it shouldn't surprise you that I took Carey there for brunch when she was in town. And, seeing that their brunch menu featured a riff on a Green Goddess salad and their excellent bacon and jalapeno studded spaghetti in pizza form, it was a given that we would have to give it a try.

The pizza ($14), topped with thick nubs of chewy, smokey Starbelly bacon, seed-in jalapeno rings, a healthy sprinkling of arugula, and a drizzle of Green Goddess dressing was a nice combination of flavors—meaty saltiness and spice, bitter freshness and creamy richness—but the ample amount of that excellent bacon really stole the show. As Starbelly's excellent sourdough crust is a good vehicle for any topping, this was a combination that made for a nice brunch dish, and equally nice leftovers.

Starbelly

3583 16th Street, San Francisco CA 94114 (map)
415-252-7500; starbellysf.com

About the author: Lauren Sloss is a bicoastal food-lover who is based in San Francisco. Some of her favorite things include The Black Keys, goat gouda, and guacamole. You can follow her on Twitter @laurensloss.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

It began as a hobby, with a musical nickname bestowed upon him by satisfied diners. Informed by years on the road that involved making pizza for musicians from Naples, music manager Greg DiGiovine was slowly consumed by his alter ego, Tony Tutto.

Four years ago, the flip happened. Now "Tony" spins dough for the residents of Mill Valley, an idyllic Marin County town just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Musical allusions litter the menu, such as Bitches Brew (organic San Marzano tomato, green/red/yellow onions, crushed red peppers flakes, oregano, sea salt) and Garden of Love Light (organic arugula, Italian sweet red onions, pinenuts, rosemary, thyme, Meyers lemon).

For my visit, I stuck with the basic A Love Supreme ($11), a Margherita style pie with organic San Marzano tomato sauce, the "Tony Tutto three cheese blend," Parmigiano Reggiano basil, sea salt, and organic extra virgin olive oil. The promise of a "three cheese blend" often means one good cheese and two fillers, so it took me a while to recognize the cheese as the pivotal component of this pizza. It's a finely orchestrated blend of domestic mozzarella, an Italian fontina-ish cheese, and an imported secret weapon. This pizza is as complex—filled with tangy highs and grassy lows—as the jazz album it's named for.

The organic unbleached flour, leavened with dry active yeast, gets 36 to 60 hours of fermentation. During the bake, the dough rises with little browning, but plenty of crispness. Imported organic San Marzanos are Tony's tomato of choice these days, doctored up to his saucy standards.

For the past 12 years Tony had been working the Mugnaini Wood Burning Piccolo Oven installed in his home, and the previous 10 years he used his home oven and a stone. Today, A Marsal deck oven sits in his open kitchen, but this was not his first choice. While opening Tony Tuttos Pizza:

1. The smoke flavors of the wood being burned
2. The high heat generated from top down and bottom up that seals in softness from the moisture but allows for a bit of a crispy crust
3. Assuming one has good oven management skills, allowing for a mild amount of char that if done well is flavorful or otherwise it's just burnt!

So the bottom line is; I learned that without having those three distinct advantages mentioned above, you are faced with making pizza naked. And that means from a flavor perspective, you'll get no exceptional extra help from the gas oven, so you better make sure that all your basic ingredients and every single one of your toppings and combinations are perfect.

Tony has done just this with pitch perfect combinations and attention to detail. He ends his story with words Slice'r have all come to feel:

Tony Tutto Pizza

246 E Blithedale Ave, Mill Valley CA 94941 (map)
415-383-8646; tonytuttopizza.com

About the author: After nearly a decade in Brooklyn, Kelly Bone landed back in Los Angeles where she writes The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

The kind of pies we hope to see at The Forge. [Photograph: The Pizza Hacker]

Newly re-developed Jack London Square will be home to a wood-fired pizzeria come 2013. The Forge will occupy a 4,736 square foot space that according to Eater will be a: masculine-seeming, wood-centric dining room with an 800-degreeItalian Valoriani oven "reminiscent of a large blacksmith's forge" as the focal point. Mosaic tiles, railroad tiles and reclaimed wood are the other materials mentioned.

And the director of pizza R&D will be (as if you didn't know from the title) —The PizzaHacker!, aka Jeff Krupman.

PizzaHacker first came on the San Francisco scene with his amazing Franken-Weber, a hacked Weber grill modification of his own engineering (read more on that here and here), not so different from the now commercially available Weber KettlePizza Insert. His modified grill is officially known as the PizzaForge—there's some pizza serendipity for you. His pies start from a naturally-leavened dough and have a nice chew and rise, which you can read all about here. Good move by The Forge to get this pizza-specific consultant.

The Forge is slated to open at 66 Franklin Street in Oakland sometime in the upcoming winter months. We'll keep you posted!

[Via: Eater SF and SF Gate]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photograph: Maggie Hoffman]

Airport eating tends to fall into two categories: on-the-fly meals that you stuff into your carryon as you race through the terminal—Yes, Chex Mix and Chips Ahoy totally count as a balanced lunch if you're flying—and those airport meals meant to kill a little more time, because you got there too early, or, god forbid, your flight is delayed. The pizzas at Live Fire in the Napa Farms Market at San Francisco International Airport take a few minutes, so they won't work in the first case, but as far as airport pizza goes, you could do much, much worse.

The veggie pie ($10.50) has 8 small slices and could easily be shared between two people. It's topped with sweet and mellow onions, nicely browned button mushrooms, charred red peppers, and slivers of pepperoncini. The "fire roasted tomato sauce" complements the vegetables well, adding an acidic brightness that counteracts the richness of the heavy-handed addition of shredded mozzarella. The heat from the pepperoncini adds another bit of zip, bringing it all into balance. The cheese is creamy and stretchy with a little tang, and it crawls up onto the endcrust a bit and gets nicely golden.

The undercrust needs a few minutes to cool off, and suffers from some tip sag right out of the oven. It's well seasoned, though it lacks puff at the end crust, and has a little gritty powdery texture from an excess of flour when handling. Are there airport pizzas that could win crust awards? I'm not sure. But I was willing to excuse this one since the the toppings worked well together.

Live Fire Pizza

Napa Farms Market, Terminal 2
San Francisco International Airport (map)
flysfo.com

About the Author: Maggie Hoffman is the editor of Serious Eats: Drinks. You can follow her on Twitter @maggiejane.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This: Bianca Pizza (a la Ragazza)

[Photographs: Wes Rowe]

A bonafide tomato/tomato sauce enthusiast, I'm certainly guilty of dismissing white pies as 'boring.' That's until I tried the Bianca at San Francisco's Ragazza—a masterpiece of salty-tangy-fresh flavors. Chef Sharon Ardiana, the mastermind behind the Lower Haight hotspot (not to mention Gialina, one of the original Bay Area pizza destinations), blends sharp, aged provolone, preserved Meyer lemon, and a straight-up dangerous onion crema to form the Bianca's base. This is topped with a sprinkling of snappy fresh arugula, and a pour of extra virgin olive oil. Ardiana serves the pizza whenever the restaurant can get their hands on a batch of Meyer lemons, but the balance of fresh and rich flavors will make this pie a winner year-round in your home kitchen.

What You'll Need (for one pizza)

• 1 dough portion (Ragazza's crust definitely flirts with the Neapolitan style, but has a bit more heft and chew to support the farm-fresh toppings. The Pizza Lab's primer on Neopolitan dough should do the trick for your at-home Bianca.)
• Onion crema (get the recipe here)
• Diced preserved Meyer lemon (non-Meyer lemon works too)
• Garlic
• Aged Provolone*
• Italian parsley
• Wild arugula
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper

*Ardiana uses Argiform aged Provolone piccante from Italy (in the Piedmonte region), but any medium-hard Provolone should work.

Ragazza

311 Divisadero Street, San Francisco CA 94117 (map)
415-255-1133; ragazzasf.com

About the author: Lauren Sloss is a bicoastal food-lover who is based in San Francisco. Some of her favorite things include The Black Keys, goat gouda, and guacamole. You can follow her on Twitter @laurensloss.

[Photographs: David Kover]

Pizza My Heart

Multiple San Francisco Bay Area locations (Burlingame location visited for this review); pizzamyheart.com
Pizza style: New York-style with California-style toppings
Oven type: Gas
The skinny: This chain won top honors at the International Pizza Competition for its "traditional" pizza, but specializes in over-the-top toppings at its 20 Bay Area locations
Price: Slice, $3.25; Slice of the Day, $4; Large pies, $19.75 and up

I'm doing my best to envision myself writing this review in a gravelly, Janis Joplin voice. At least, I imagine it's a Joplin song* that provides the inspiration for the name, Pizza My Heart, a chain of pizzerias that dots Northern California. No matter the inspiration, this place caught our attention recently because it took home top honors at the International Pizza Competition for "Best Traditional Pizza." Does that mean we have the best pizza in the world, right here in the Bay Area?

Despite the name, the Pizza My Heart location we visited felt more surf-rock than blues-rock. The chain, which now has 20 locations, started out near the beach in Capitola, and they pay homage to these roots with surf boards and beach shots lining the walls. At the newish Burlingame location, there's a little bit of strip mall thrown in as well, with a newfangled Coke machine and a slightly glossy, box-store feel to the whole get-up.

It's odd to think that Pizza My Heart claimed its recent crown for turning out "traditional" pizza. The slices certainly meet New York-style specifications—they're large, thin-crust triangles that you fold to eat. And, yeah, you can order a pie with your standard slice shop fixings, but judging by the menu, the point of the place seems to be the long list of slightly loopy, let's-pile-it-on topping selections that fall well outside these bounds. Pepperoni, sausage, bacon, green onion, gorgonzola, garlic, and green apple slices all make it onto the same pizza at Pizza My Heart.

*And not the original Erma Franklin version, nor the much later Faith Hill version.

Holy garlic, Batman!

Their Big Sur has a lot of toppings too, but what stands out is the garlic. They boast that each pie gets 40 cloves of roasted garlic, but I think they may be selling themselves short, because we counted 9 cloves on our single slice. The salt in the pepperoni and sausage that also came on this pie boosted the sweet-pungent garlicky kick into the stratosphere. The pie also comes with portobello mushrooms, green onions, and red sauce, but who could tell?

As if the Big Sur hadn't prepared us for a post-pizza vampire-slaying mission, we also ordered its sister pie, the Little Sur. (It was their 'Slice of the Day' when we visited.) Though this single slice actually came with even more garlic—11 cloves!—the lack of salty meatstuffs meant it didn't pack quite the same punch. Instead, it had portobello mushrooms and green onions, red pepper, and tomato. The water that leaked off the halved cherry tomatoes likely explains why our reheated slice arrived somewhat mushy—just one of the reasons I usually despise chunks of raw tomato on pizza. But the veggies actually had some flavor, and made for fairly refreshing mouthfuls in comparison to the meatier confections we tried.

Rules for the International Pizza Competition limited Pizza My Heart to two toppings, and so their victorious pie featured only pepperoni and mushrooms. When we asked them to whip up this award-winning pie, it had mini discs of spicy pepperoni with crisp edges curling upward. The bites that lacked these tasty devils could be a little bland, so we applied liberal squirts of Shark Repellent—basically Pizza My Heart-branded hot sauce.

The Pizza My Heart website talks about giving its dough 36 hours of proofing time before they serve it, and their crust does have the flavor that comes from letting the yeast work a little bit. The very thin crust on our reheated slices also had some crispness and a bit of chew, but otherwise seemed to lack heft. Our fresh-made pie came out with a darker, almost crunchy end-crust.

When Janis Joplin finishes roaring her way through Piece of My Heart, she tells us, You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good. The stuff at Pizza My Heart doesn't have enough soul to set me to singing the way Joplin does, but choose the right topping combination and it will likely still make you feel good.

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He likes pizza, which he sometimes talks about on Twitter as @Pizzakover.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Behind the Scenes in the Epic Del Popolo Pizza Truck

[Photographs: David Kover]

Oh man, does the Del Popolo pizza truck stand out in the crowd of food trucks flooding San Francisco streets these days! One wall of this giant shipping-container-on-wheels is built completely of windows, so you can look inside as Jon Darsky cooks pizzas in a massive wood-fired oven. With the way the black frames of the windows contrast the white corrugated interior of the truck, the rig feels as much a design statement as a food delivery system.

When we caught up with Darsky and his truck, parked in an empty lot as he balled dough for the next day's service, it became clear that this striking vehicle seems to embody the mind behind it. Like his truck, Darsky could be just a little brash and forward, but also thoughtful and willing to intellectualize about pizza-craft. It made for some very good conversation.

The Complications of Building a Pizza Truck

Prior to the launch of Del Popolo, we last saw Darsky slinging pies at Flour + Water. He left in early 2010, initially with the intention of starting a bricks and mortar restaurant. "I just couldn't find the place," he told us. "Maybe I gave up too soon and I could have found something after all, but this idea (for the truck) came to mind."

Darsky had always had the intention of cooking Neapolitan-style pizzas in a wood-fired oven that could hit extremely high temperatures, and he didn't compromise this vision when he decided on a mobile operation. He ultimately chose a 5000-pound Stefano Ferrara oven for the Del Popolo truck. "I have to say, I'm not sure it's the best idea. It's a great oven, but it's a pain in the ass," Darsky told us.

Unlike most of the food trucks out there, which have been repurposed, Darsky needed a fully-customized rig to accommodate the weight of that beast of an oven. As we talked about it, Darsky began to list the obstacles that he and engineer Michael Hyde faced in designing the vehicle:

"How do you put a big oven in a truck? How do you keep that from breaking? These windows are really, really big. How do you keep them from breaking when you're driving on the road? How do you have the service level be eye-level with the customers? How do you take pizza out of the oven and get it down there to the server?"

Ultimately—from a massive reinforcement underneath the oven, to a set of stairs between the oven level and the service level, to a pizza "tree" where Darsky could slide piping hot pies so the woman at the register could grab them—all of these problems were solved. The 28000-pound Del Popolo truck is street legal, even if it can take a long time to get from zero to 60. Actually, once it gets up to speed, Darsky says it does quite well on the highway. It can feel a bit rougher driving on city streets because of the need to stop and start all that bulk, and because the truck seems to feel every divot on the less-than-perfect San Francisco roadways.

In case you're not impressed with this tale of perseverance, let us add that the Stefano Ferrara oven that Darsky ultimately installed in his truck wasn't actually his first purchase. He initially bought an Acunto oven, only to discover that the oven didn't have all of the certifications required to ride on board his truck. In a neat little twist, that first oven got purchased by prominent Slice'r TXCraig1, while Darsky moved on to his current set-up.

So, yeah, Darsky faced some bumps in the road on the way to building his epic pizza truck. "This is so complicated that going into the restaurant business would be pretty freaking easy," Darsky noted as he told us his story.

Pizza for the People

On his current menu, Darsky charges ten dollars for a Margherita. He could probably charge more, but Darsky explains that this price fits with what he sees as his mission as a pizzaiolo. "I want it to be pizza for everybody," he says. This is why he has named the truck Del Popolo, Italian for of the people.

"The name, Del Popolo, that's not just glib," Darsky told us. "I want to go out and make relatively affordable pizza and serve it to a lot of people, people who wouldn't otherwise have it. That's sort of my philosophy on the whole thing."

His beliefs about this means he can have strong opinions about the other pizza operations out there. "In my humble opinion, Mangieri does it wrong," Darsky told us, talking about Anthony Mangieri, local uber-pizzaiolo at the esteemed Una Pizza Napoletana. "Not in the quality of the product, because the product is great. They're wonderful. But in the way that he limits it and makes it something that only certain people can afford. I'd be embarrassed. I mean, $25 for a pizza on a Saturday night, that's exactly the opposite of what I want to do.... That's the thing about Mangieri, he's so good, but so many people are missing out on it."

He expressed equal frustration with chain pizza at the other end of the spectrum. "What I would love to do is put all those people out of business," Darsky said. "It's not good stuff. It's not quality." And, just in case you think that Slice didn't have to take its lumps as well, Darsky explained, "I get bummed out with Slice when it covers the bullsh-t [chain] pizza."

Darsky went on to explain that he would love to play a small part in moving American tastes away from mass-produced chain pizza, and he hopes that the ten-dollar price-point for a Margherita might be able to help achieve that.

However, when asked if he sees himself as taking on the role of "elevating" pizza, Darsky makes a distinction. "I think the chains downgraded it. In fact, I would say that I'm not elevating it, I'm just continuing the appropriate direction. If the Neapolitans started it, and it was already at a high level, our American pizza places, we all downgraded it."

What Comes out of the Oven

Darsky sets a high standard for his Neapolitan-style pizza, though he doesn't put on airs about his skills with a pizza peel. "I've been making pizza for four years, so I'm not trying to sit here and say I'm a master, because I sure as hell am not." Still, though he feels he can improve his consistency, he says he has eaten pizzas out of the Del Popolo oven that come pretty close to his ideal.

Darsky particularly prizes a tender crust. When asked to describe his archetypal pizza, he told us: "Light in the crust, with a little layer of crispiness to it. It shouldn't be too chewy. You should be able to eat a whole pie and your jaw shouldn't be sore."

In Darsky's case, he also makes his pizzas with an eye towards the fact that he serves them in a to-go setting. "I'm trying to get a pie that's not too wet at the middle," he explains. "I can't do that because people are going back to their office with them."

On Ingredient Orthodoxy

Though Darksy's end-product is absolutely Neapolitan in inspiration (Neapolitan primer here), he's not doctrinaire about how he achieves these results. In fact, he dismisses the idea that his pizzas must strictly adhere to a set list of specific ingredients. "I think there are some people in the pizza business who use Italian stuff for some level of authenticity. I think there's no reason to do that," says Darsky.

He hasn't always been this way. Thinking back on his early days as a pizza guy, he described, "As you go along in the process you become less and less orthodox about it. At some point, I told my brother, 'You can't have any more than three pieces of basil on a pizza!' I don't know where I got that. To this day he'll tease me about it. It was so silly."

So, though Italian "00" flour may be the unquestioned leader amongst Neapolitan pizza cognoscenti, Darsky doesn't use it. He admits that the stuff produces a good, consistent result, but explains that he doesn't like the idea that much of the product for Italian flour is actually grown right here at home. "All that wheat is grown in the US or Canada and it's shipped to Italy, they mill it, and they send it back here," he says. Instead of using flour that has made this long plane trip, Darsky mixes a combination of three flours that he buys from Central Milling in Utah.

Nor does Darsky use the prototypical Neapolitan pizza tomato, the San Marzano. In fact, he says he doesn't understand the adulation that gets heaped upon San Marzano tomatoes, as he feels there are many other tomatoes that are just as good. However, unlike his choice to use all-American flour, Darsky does use some Italian tomatoes, calling them distinctly different from what you can get on these shores. "I combine some Italian ones that are more acidic and less sweet with some American ones that are sweeter and I think it comes out perfectly," he says.

In the meantime, there is also the issue of cost. Darsky buys his Italian tomatoes from Danicoop, who also sell a line of San Marzanos that he estimates cost four times as much as the fruit he uses. "It's just not viable. Anyone who's charging ten to thirteen for a Margherita can't use that tomato and make money," Darsky says.

When it comes to oven temperature, also a major tenet of Neapolitan-style pies, Darsky clearly endorses cooking at high temperatures, but finds himself less caught up in specifics. Asked how hot his oven burns, he told us he had no idea. "It's really hot!" he said.

A reading off the oven floor during our interview returned a temperature of 820-degrees—several hours after service had ended, with only a slowly dying fire left inside. Darsky said his pies had cooked in around 50-seconds that day during lunch.

No matter the ingredients, the pies we saw come out of the oven had the striking, leopard-spotted appearance that fans of Neapolitan-style pizza prize. They look good enough that we figure you'll be able to tear your eyes away from that epic truck to give the pizzas a try.

Click through the slideshow for a close-up look at the truck and a chance to watch Darsky in action making his pies »

Del Popolo

A mobile operation, you can find Del Popolo by following their Twitter feed: @pizzadelpopolo. Or, check their website: delpopolosf.com.

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About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He occasionally gets his tweet on as @pizzakover.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: First Look: Gioia Pizzeria Comes to San Francisco

[Photographs: David Kover]

Gioia Pizzeria

2240 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 (map); 415-359-0971; gioiapizzeria.com/sf
Pizza style: New York-style meets California-style
Oven type: Gas
Price: 12-inch, $16; 18-inch, $27

A little over eight years after their original pizzeria opened in Berkeley, the Gioias have raised the curtain on a larger, spiffier place in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood. Where Gioia Pizzeria #1 had no aspirations to be anything more than a neighborhood slice shop (a shoe box-sized one, at that), Gioia #2 offers a full restaurant experience.

When Will Gioia showed us around the 50-seat space, he told us, "We still wanted to keep the sense of a neighborhood joint where you could come get a slice, but being chefs and wanting to sow our oats in the kitchen a little, more than just making pizza, we sought out a spot that could accommodate a full-size kitchen." So, the pies remain, but there's also a full range of dishes, from a soft shell crab appetizer, to several pasta dishes and main courses, like an entree of skirt steak with broccoli di cicco.

As for the pizza, the new spot only offers by-the-slice service during the daytime. The pies come in 18-inch and 12-inch sizes. Otherwise, they're the same Brooklyn-meets-California pies that Gioia serves over in Berkeley.

You'll still find The Julian, a pie named for the Gioias' four-year-old son, with toppings that change to match his temperament. "He's a spicy little kid," Gioia explained to us, and so the combinations on this pie usually have some heat. These days, it's sweet and spicy prosciutto cotto, along with some chili, red onion, garlic, and provolone. Though, take note, just because it bears his name, it doesn't mean Julian wants to eat this pizza. "He definitely likes the attention that he gets when he comes here, but he typically does not want The Julian because it's too spicy. His favorites are sausage and pepperoni," says Gioia.

The other pizzas run the gamut from simple pepperoni, to an asparagus and ricotta pie. Gioia says their topping ideas spring from a bit of whimsy, but also from traditional combinations within Italian cooking. It's also clear they're taking advantage of the talents of the newest members of their staff. Gioia's sous chef, Ryan Cantwell, is a pickling fiend, and so Gioia has been putting Cantwell's pickled peppers on the sausage pie at the new restaurant.

Click through the slideshow to see the new space and get an inside look at how Will Gioia makes his pies »

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He occasionally gets his tweet on as @pizzakover.

[Photographs: David Kover]

Sometimes an ingredient steals the headlines on the menu, but not in the actual dish.

Of course, the purpose of this Daily Slice is to report on the fact that Dobbs Ferry, a restaurant in San Francisco (not Westchester, NY), serves beef carpaccio on top of a pizza. But it's the chive pesto that stands out on this pie, providing a garlicky, salty, pungent bite that dominates. The powerful sauce might prove too much if not for the thin slices of raw sirloin they put on this pizza after it comes out of the oven. The mild, meaty flavor gives the pie some depth and mellows out the pesto just a bit.

You need to look for spots to grab the slices because the sheets of steak curl over the crust in places. It's a crunchy, rather than bready crust, as if there's a good deal of oil in the dough. It had me thinking of this pie as a bar appetizer I might want to share amongst a group of friends, rather than a pizza I'd want to tuck into all on my own.

Dobbs Ferry

409 Gough Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 (map)
415-551-7700; dobbsferrysf.com