💎HIDDEN GEM ALERT💎 No pun intended, but this is truly a diamond in the rough. Also known as D&D, this family owned & operated “deli”/pizzeria has been around since 1999 serving Greek & Italian cuisine, more on par with a diner than a deli. They also feature wood-fired brick oven pizza but not Neapolitan style. More like a cross between a football pizza & New York style, this pie is beautifully thin, delightfully light, terrifically tasty & moderately crispy with great crunch in the crust. The dough is well done but also softish with wonderful char, along with a blacked undercarriage covered in semolina seeds creating a rather rough, roughed & rigid sandpaper-like texture that guards against moisture buildup, preventing the dough from getting soggy & mushy. Not my favorite pizza dough texture but it’s tolerable & just tasty enough and could be even better if crispier. The cheese looks like it’s harboring a slew of oil but it’s just an orange tinge; there’s actually zero greasy or oily drippage. A thinly layered shredded mozzarella blend, the cheese isn’t creamy but it’s tight & tasty, a few notches above generic, distributed perfectly atop the surface of the pie. Somewhat surprisingly, the sauce is the super star of this pizza. Thickish & hearty, it hits hard with outstanding sweetness, tang, zip & zest, to go along with sensational spices creating a shockingly distinct & delicious flavor. Overall, this is sneaky good pizza with real potential to slide into the 8s. For a wood-fired pie, it has very solid texture; but a crispier pizza could put them on a whole other level. As it stands, the sensational sauce makes this fairly unique pie worth a try despite barely missing the cut as a destination pizza. If you’re within a half hour, maybe even 45 minutes, this is a sleeper spot worth giving a whirl.
