February 16th, 2018
Buffalo, NY
After our first pizza stop, we headed up to Niagara Falls. There really isn’t too much to do around Buffalo, aside from visiting the Falls. Especially in the middle of February. The good part of timing the trip like this, though, was that there were very few people at the park and we had great views of the snowy falls! We didn’t stay there too long, because it was cold and windy, and more importantly, we had more pizza to eat!
Our second pizza stop in Buffalo was at La Nova. La Nova has been around since 1957, which is pretty impressive. It claims to be the largest independent pizzeria in the US (although I don’t think they’ve updated their website because the last time we checked, it was only ranked at #20). It probably looked exactly the same back then as it did when we stopped in for dinner. The whole restaurant has a very 50’s-vibe, with red tables and walls and old pictures everywhere. Not surprisingly, it also claims to have some of the best wings in Buffalo. It was clear when we were there that La Nova has a huge local following, even with all of the other pizza places around Buffalo. For a Friday night, the place had a huge delivery wait line, and plenty of people who stopped in for slices.
We decided to sit down and eat, since we didn’t feel like just bringing a couple of slices back to our hotel, and we wanted to see some more of the local scene (which included a homeless woman on drugs coming into the pizza place every 15 minutes to harass the customers and staff). We ordered a small cheese and pepperoni, and Eric also ordered a side of the wings.
The verdict: not as good as our first pizza stop of the day, Deniro’s. The crust here was a little thinner but it was topped with the same amount of cheese, which oozed off of the pizza like crazy. This also could have been because we couldn’t wait for it to cool down to dig in. The pizza at La Nova was a little more greasy, maybe partly due to the good number of pepperoni they threw on. You can see that yellow grease in the picture above.
Eric said the wings were good, but they weren’t the “best he’s ever had”. But then again, we definitely aren’t wing connoisseurs, so we should leave that up to others to debate.
Overall, we thought this would be the perfect pizza place to order food from after a late night of drinking or while watching a football game. It wouldn’t be our first pick to eat on a regular Friday night, mainly just because the cheese made it SO HEAVY. We couldn’t even finish it (although we may have been able to if we also didn’t have to try the wings).
To visit:
La Nova Pizzeria
371 W Ferry St
Buffalo, NY 14213
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