February 16th, 2018
Depew, NY
Apparently, Buffalo, NY has a big pizza scene. We were not aware of this until we read the 2017 list. We also didn’t know that there was such a thing as “Buffalo-style” pizza. Since there were 3 pizza places on the new list that were located around Buffalo, we decided that a road trip there this year was necessary. Talking with Arthur Bovino (who pretty much created the list, in case you didn’t know) over lunch the other day also convinced us. We really had to see what the fuss was about.
We decided to take our mini-road trip over this past long weekend. We started out from NJ early on Friday and made it out to Buffalo around 1 pm. Our first stop: Deniro’s.
We were very excited to get out of the car after our 5 hour drive, but a little bummed that the pizza place didn’t have any seating. They had a little “seat” along the window, so we sat/stood to eat our half-pepperoni-half-plain pizza. We went with a medium size, since we were getting more pizza in a few hours for dinner. It ended up being plenty of pizza for us, and we actually couldn’t finish it. If you know us at all, this is HIGHLY unusual. We almost always finish our pizza.
So what, exactly, IS Buffalo-style pizza? It has been compared to Detroit-style, but we didn’t think it reminded us of that at all. It’s also been compared to Sicilian, which we don’t think is quite true either. Yes, the pizza has a thicker crust and a hefty amount of cheese, but that’s about where the similarities end. The pepperonis are thick and the sauce is somewhat sweet, and the pizzas are round.
Eric said that the pizza at Deniro’s reminded him a little bit of Pizza Hut. This isn’t necessarily a negative comment (as someone pointed out on instagram), because he associates Pizza Hut with his childhood. (Although, we should also add a disclaimer here that he hasn’t had Pizza Hut in about 10 years). Deniro’s is definitely comfort food – heavy, cheesy, and doughy. I disagreed with his comparison, though. The crust is similar and they are both cheesy, but this cheese was more flavorful and the sauce was better.
We felt pretty full after this, so we went for a walk around Niagara Falls. We had to make room for our second Buffalo-style pizza on the list that we had planned for dinner. It was a decent start to our road trip.
To visit:
Deniro’s
2251 George Urban Blvd
Depew, NY 14043
Published by