Best Pizza Search in SF: Tony’s Pizza
Tony’s Pizza Napoletana
Before I left for SF, I casually surveyed some people what I should seek. We had a few things booked for dinner; Chez Panisse and Quince but I was looking for lunch options. Pizza came up and in particular Tony’s Pizza Napoletana. Now, it’s highly debated who has the best pizza in SF and even more fiercely debated who has the best Neapolitan-style pizza. Heeding the advice of some, we heading to Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in North Beach.
The Cirigliano Wood Burning Oven
Tony Gemignani owns the joint and is the first American and non-Neapolitan to win Best Pizza Margherita at the World Pizza Cup back in 2007. He won the wood-burning oven in Naples and now he makes only 73 of these award-winning Margherita pizzas a day.
pancetta salad
We thought our trip was quite serendipitous so far and to be seated with a grand view of the 900-degree wood-burning oven as well as being able to order one of the limited Margherita pizzas a day felt especially lucky.
Margherita Pizza
We ordered the pancetta salad to start on the advice of our server. While he loved the flavor of the watermelon radish salad I was eying, he thought we would like the pancetta more. It was extremely fresh and the pancetta enhanced the flavor. I did think there was a tad too much balsamic and it was amazing when Tony noticed and immediately took it off our bill. Now that is some caring.
It’s so thin
The Margherita is a little bit chewier than New York style pizza. Tony’s actually carries a few different styles of pizza including a 1000-degree coal-fired oven pizza, Sicilian style, Classic Italian, Classic American and Pizza Romana.
The simple tomato, mozzarella and basil Margherita was just what I wanted after a bar hop the night before.
I enjoyed chatting with Tony about pizza in LA. He had just done a crawl and shot some shows for the Food Network. We had a quiet moment remembering Ed LaDou (innovator of the BBQ Chicken and other Cali pizzas). I was reminded how I haven’t been to Caioti in a while. It almost seemed poetic we were going to Chez Panisse later that day where California-style pizza was born but it was really Ed who made it famous.
If I lived in SF, I would love to try the other styles of pizza. Next trip!
1570 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 835-9888
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You’ve ignited a sudden craving for pizza. Tony’s looks AMAZING! Tomato sauce, blobs of burrata, and strips of basil on a perfectly blistered crisp crust. Life really doesn’t get much better.
I’m curious to hear which pizza is your favorite in LA.
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I thought Tony’s was very good. I was glad to try it. Maybe next time I’ll try all the other spots mentioned to me, particularly Una Pizza. In LA, I like Tomato Pie, Two Boots, Lucifer’s but none are really Neopolitan style. I used to eat at Pizza Antica in Marina del Rey all the time but never tried their pizza which is supposed to be Neopolitan style and they’ve won awards as well.
I do like Mozza but I don’t know if I really consider it pizza.
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