Hello! We are back! It has been a while (almost a year, if you can believe it) since we’ve posted. We had plenty of pizza-related plans for the spring months, which unfortunately had to be cancelled with all of the dangers of travel. We stopped commuting to the city, so our pizza lunches stopped as well. When I had Keste on March 12th, I didn’t know that it was going to be my last NYC pizza for several months.
After a full 3 months or so of completely quarantining and making and eating our own pizza, we finally have started to venture out for take out pizza around New Jersey. This summer we were able to visit some more local pizzerias that we’ve heard of, which has been fun. I figured I’d highlight some below, in case anyone else lives in NJ and is looking for a fun road trip.
Florham Park, NJ
This restaurant is right down the street from us, but we had never been there! We ordered a Grandma Sicilian pie, which was better than expected, but on the sweet side. It wasn’t overly cheesy, either.
Maplewood, NJ
For Father’s Day, we got take out from Arturo’s and ate it in a local park (wearing masks, of course!). We got a spicy sausage with chili oil, and a margherita. This is probably our favorite Neapolitan-style pizza that we’ve had locally.
Sayresville, NJ
We hit some shore traffic driving down here, but the pies were ready for our pickup when we got here. We had a small plain and two medium (one white, one pesto). The small size was perfect for James, although he ate plenty of the ricotta off of our white pie.
Ramsey, NJ
This is super thin crust bar pie, but it’s probably one of our favorite bar pies that we’ve had. Almost as good as Star Tavern. We just got an original and sliced meatball. James has been asking for meatball on his pizza ever since he had the meatball here, it was that good. We loved the thin slices.
Kennilworth, NJ
We had plans to try this pizza one weekend in August, but that didn’t work out quite as planned, since I ended up having a baby that weekend instead. 🙂 We made it about 10 days later, and ordered a margherita, one with fresh tomatoes, garlic, and basil, and a white mushroom. We were hungry, although we didn’t realize that they were going to be quite so big. The crust on these was really good – perfectly puffed and crispy.
Nutley, NJ
Another thin crust pie, which we ordered plain. We all split one pizza here, and it was perfect size for the three of us. It was definitely heavier on the cheese than other thin crusts that we’ve had.
Princeton, NJ
This pizza ended up on the new 101 Best Pizza Places list (post coming soon). I won’t spoil it here, and will write a full review, but we tried an arugula with ricotta and a “brooklyn style”.
Bradley Beach, NJ
We went to Vic’s because we wanted to take the boys to the beach after the season was over. Vic’s has been around for years and is also famous for its thin crust pizza, so that’s what we got. Another cheese and one with meatball (James’s request). It was maybe a little cheesier than the thin crust at Kinchley’s, and not quite as good, but still was a solid pie. James picked off all of the meatballs to eat himself.
Netcong, NJ
We rarely go out this way in NJ, but we were going apple picking and so we stopped for lunch on the way. Carmine’s is best known for their stuffed pizza. Those slices are like a giant calzone, cut into square slices, and they are full of cheese and either veggies or meat (we tried one of each). I could only have a few bites of my veggie slice, but James happily picked out most of the spinach and broccoli and Eric ate the rest. The dipping sauce is really good, don’t forget it!
Westmont, NJ
We took these coal fired pizzas to a park to enjoy. We tried the Ava Bella, with oven dried tomatoes, bread crumbs, and burrata, and the Sailor, which was a white pie with spinach. The crust on these was more charred, and the pizzeria had a number of pizzas that sounded good, and plenty of toppings for you to make your own.
We’re hoping to start up some more pizza trips soon – hopefully to some more on the list that are within driving distance. So we’ll be back to posting and reviewing. And of course, we hope to be back in NYC soon eating at our favorite pizzerias.
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