Mini Pizza Tour Part 2: Restaurant Navona

The All over Albany crew left Stuyvesant Plaza and headed over to Restaurant Navona on New Scotland. Navona isn’t strictly a pizza place like Blaze. It’s a restaurant that also has wood fired pizza. The restaurant is really nice and this could definitely be a nice neighborhood restaurant. So far, I’ve only had the pizza so I can’t speak to the rest of the menu, but many of the menu items have at least one element influenced by the wood fired oven.

My pictures came out pretty bad.  For much nicer views of the pizza, check out the All over Albany write up here.

On to the pizza: the Navona pizza looks to be heavily influenced by the Neapolitan style although I don’t believe they adhere strictly to the Neapolitan rules and regulations. Certainly not a problem because many of the rules seem to be rules for the sake of having rules and the VPN organization often seems to be more about money than pizza. The wood fired oven is from Mugnaini, a well known specialist in commercial/residential ovens and still had a front landing to be installed. Due to some delays, the oven had only been installed for about a month at the time of our visit.

We sat at the corner of the bar as the restaurant was gearing up for a busy Saturday night. The first pie I tasted was the Cheese Puddle with mozzarella, provolone, ricotta, roasted garlic and olive oil.  I liked the flavor of the dough but there was a little too much char around the outside of the bottom. I thought the cheese had combined and had a beautiful, almost brie flavor. I enjoyed the pie. Not sure this would be a topping combination I’d seek out again, but I certainly wouldn’t turn down a slice if you were offering.

The second pie I sampled was the Valentina – Pecorino Bianco, ham, egg and black pepper. This pie has less char and very pretty leoparding. When egg yolk was broken, the yolk ran and added richness to the pie. I really liked the flavor combination.  Excellent pizza. I’d steal this topping but one improvement I’d suggest is to cook the egg directly on the pizza instead of in a pan. A nice presentation might be to slice the pie table side so the diners can dig in quickly after the yolk starts to run.

Pizza number 3 was the Navona which is essentially a Margherita. In speaking with Jay of OG Woodfired in Buffalo, he told me that what he loves the most about a Margherita is the simplicity. There is nowhere to hide. If anything is off, you know. This pie had a little bit of a gum line. The bottom of my slice was a little too charred – it’s a difficult line to walk, some char is delicious, too much is burnt. Even thought my pictures stink, you can see a big difference in char compared to the Valentina. I liked the sauce. It tasted like good tomatoes and salt, as it should be. The cheese and basil were good too. I would try this one again and I bet it is better in a month with more dough and oven experience.

The final pizza was Fire Roasted Eggplant with tomato jam, roasted fennel R&G goat cheese and house harissa. There was a gum line again. I think there is a little bit of an oven/dough learning curve that will improve the pizza as time passes and experience is gained. I liked the flavors on this pie but I doubt I’d go pick it again with the other options available.This is the worst picture I took that day, either the camera didn't focus or I had a minor seizure.

After the tasting we had a conversation with the chef. He clearly is passionate about the food he serves his guests. During this conversation, I felt like I put my foot in my mouth (for the 2^nd time of the day) talking about the oven. The first time was at Blaze when I made a comment about the artichoke pizza before Deanna tried it. Kind of a judging faux pas. We were talking about the oven construction and the chef was describing the 9 inch concrete slab below the oven floor. I’m not sure if I made a confused face or what, it’s kind of a blur, but I said something like, “and insulation, right?” Nope. No insulation under that floor. From everything I’ve read on ovens, that’s a huge error. But I am unfamiliar with this particular oven, maybe an insulating layer is built into the floor. Or maybe it isn’t as big a deal for an oven that is fired daily. I don’t know. I can say with the oven I am planning, the oven floor with have a minimum of 2 inches of ceramic fiber insulation. I'm leaning towards 4 inches of insulation depending on how tall the oven stand ends up being. But that heat balance and the conductivity of the floor is very important for an even bake.

I think the pizza dough could actually use a little more salt. I’m taking a wild guess here, but I’d say the baker’s percentage of salt is under 2% and raising it a little to 2.5%, maybe even up to 3% would add flavor to the dough.

Overall, I really like what’s going on here. It’s good pizza with the potential to get better. In fact, if the restaurant was open on Sundays, I would have brought the whole family for dinner on Super Bowl Sunday to give some more of the menu a try. And the Mister Bill pizza too - meatball with fennel salami, tomato and mozzarella.

Tournament of Pizza Finals

A good sized crowd gathered at Shmaltz Brewing for the finals. Both Marino's and DeFazio's brought two pizzas for the crowd and judges to eat. Both shops also took the Finals seriously and sent some great pizzas to Clifton Park. Their challenge: 1 vegetable pizza and 1 meat pizza.

The judges went for the vegetable pizzas first. Marino's sent in a pizza topped with sauteed green pepper and mushrooms. Defazio's sent in a smoked mozzarella pizza with red peppers and red onions.

Marino's Vegetable Pizza
This was the warmest slice we ate. The crust was nicely browned and had good color. It had gotten a little tough in transport from Schenectady to Clifton Park but nothing serious. The sauce was good, not as amazing as the sauce on their Margherita, and I thought the pizza could have used a little bit more of the sauce. Maybe they held back to avoid potential sogginess during shipping. The toppings were sauteed before going on the pizza. I thought the white button mushrooms were delicious. While I'm not a fan of green peppers, this is usually the only way I like them - sauteed down so they lose their bitterness. The cheese on the slice had a nice flavor too. A very enjoyable slice.

Marino's Vegetable Pizza
Crust:4, Sauce:4, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:7, Total:19.

DeFazio's Vegetable Pizza
The crust on this pizza was delicious. I don't know what they did differently, but I thought this was the best DeFazio's crust I've had that spent time in a take-out box. It was nicely browned and tender. Just the right bit of char. Wow. The sauce is the shops regular pizza sauce, which was added for the Finals - this pizza is usually white. The flavors of the toppings worked well together - smoked mozzarella, small bits of red onion and some roasted red pepper. Up to this point, I believe that this is the best slice of pizza I have had in the Tournament.

DeFazio's Vegetable Pizza
Crust:5, Sauce:4, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:8, Total:21.

Moving onto the meat pizza round,

Marino's Meat Pizza
Marino's went with a lot of meat. Pepperoni, meatball, sausage. The crust was a little lighter than the vegetable slice I had and still had good flavor but was a little chewy. They still have a good sauce and again there could have been a little more. But on the flip side, some more could have definitely soaked into the crust during transit. Their pepperoni was the same zippy pepperoni that was on their spicy pizza in the semi finals. Sausage was still excellent. I thought the meatballs were good, but not great. All in all, a very good meat lovers pie.

Marino's Meat Pizza
Crust:4, Sauce:4, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:7, Total:19.

DeFazio's Meat Pizza
DeFazio's brought a Bolognese pizza. The crust was topped with their Bolognese sauce (slow cooked pork and veal with little bits of pancetta) topped with cheese and then a little bit of crumbled sausage on top. The crust was pretty much the same as their vegetable pizza just slightly darker - delicious. I thought the sauce was well flavored but I thought the wine taste on the finish was a little off. All of the meat was excellent.

DeFazio's Meat Pizza
Crust:5, Sauce:3, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:7, Total:19.

Pre-Results Wrap Up
In a damn close decision, I gave the edge to DeFazio's 40 to 38. The crust was the difference for me. I brought the family to the finals. Allison thought the DeFazio's vegetable pizza and the Marino's meat were the best two pizza. If she were picking a slice from the two of those, she went with DeFazio's Vegetable. Casey would pick the same two pizzas also with a preference to DeFazio's. Amy concurred picking those two pizza's as her favorites. When asked which one she would go to for another slice she said, "There, I would have gone for the DeFazio's red pepper one because I couldn't believe how much I liked it. Right now, I think I'd go with the Marino's meat lovers."

Really, really close call. I'm not sure how the other judges scored it but I think DeFazio's narrowly won the veggie round and Marino's narrowly won the meat round. It will all come down to the margin of victory in each round. I'm writing this before the results are posted so we'll see if I'm right. The All Over Albany write up of the event is here.

The Results Have Been Posted Wrap Up
Well, the results are now up at All Over Albany. The People's Choice title went to Marino's meat pizza that barely beat DeFazio's veggie pie, 73 to 72.5.  The judges narrowly gave the Tournament Title to DeFazio's 167 to 164. That's really close. If you combine the pizza scores from the People's Choice, the people also gave the title to Defazio's  144.1 to 138.6. So it looks like I was mostly right, DeFazio's won the veggie round, Marino's won the meat round and it all came down to margin of victory. Anyhow, I've talked about pizza at work enough so our holiday party will be pizza trips to DeFazio's and Marino's.

The End of the Pizza Tournament
I was absolutely thrilled to be part of the Tournament. As a long time fan (I came up with an over/under and a points spread for last year's finals) it was a lot of fun to participate. It was even fun getting interviewed by some Saint Rose students covering the finals for a class. I learned a lot about pizza along the way. I knew eating it fresh out of the oven was important, but I didn't realize how important. I also learned that when you are hyper-analyzing pizza there isn't just the variation between shop to shop, there is also variation from slice to slice out of the same pizza. And lastly, if you had asked me if I thought some of the best pizza in the tournament would be meatless, I would have thought you were crazy. But they were. And the DeFazio's smoked mozzarella/red pepper pizza was, in my opinion, Best In Show. I'm going to have to try and copy that one.

TOP Semi Finals Part 2

Spicy (AOA link)

The judging moved on to the “spicy” pizzas. We had already sampled 4 large slices of pizza which was what we had been doing during Round 1. It was time to take a deep breath and double up because there were 4 more slices to be eaten. And they were needed, at least for me because my scorecard after the “Classic” round was essentially a dead heat.

5^th and 50 Spicy: Chicken Parmesan Pizza

There’s no nice way to put this. This pie was everything I didn’t like about 5^th and 50 from the first round. The rim of the crust was bready and tough. The rest of the crust acted as a stiff support to a layer of topping mush. What sauce you could taste had a really nice level of heat to it but the sauce had been absorbed into the rest of the topping of dry, flavorless ricotta and what seemed like breading that had come off the chicken. In looking around the room (not just the judges table), there were several plates with a slice of this pizza missing one or two bites. That said, one of the guests really liked it.  I don’t think 5^th and 50 makes it into the Finals.

5^th and 50 Spicy

Crust:2, Sauce:3, Toppings:1, Overall Taste:3, Total:9.

Marino’s  Spicy: Hot Sausage and Pepperoni Pizza

Marino’s went meat. And plenty of it. The crust was nicely browned but a little dense. The sauce was just ok and didn’t hold up to the zing of the meats. It was there, but you’re not going to be eating this pizza and think “mmm, delicious sauce” like on their Margherita. The heat of the zippy pepperoni and spiced sausage just overpowered the sauce. The cheese had good texture to it, but the flavor was also overpowered by the meats. The pepperoni had good bite to it and I wonder if this is a spicier pepperoni than their usual. This wasn’t pepperoni my kids would enjoy. The sausage was tasty too. And there was plenty of meat. The slice had a real heft to it. If you are into a spicy meat lovers kind of pizza, you will definitely enjoy this pie.

Marino’s  Spicy

Crust:3, Sauce:3, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:6, Total:16.

Marissa’s Spicy: Chicken Caccitore Pizza

I have no idea how Marissa’s did it, but on the night of the semi-finals, their crust traveled really well and was the closest to still being in the shop. I liked the sauce. It had a really nice depth of flavor and a slow burning spice/heat that came out after you were done with a bite. I thought there was a strong under current of kalamata olives to the sauce. I happen to like those olives, if you don’t I could see that as a turn off. The fresh mozzarella got a little tough in transport but the braised, shredded chicken was moist, tender and flavored by the sauce. I personally believe that the idea/concept of this pizza is inspired. I’ve never heard of it being done.

Marissa’s Spicy

Crust:3, Sauce:4, Toppings:3, Overall Taste:7, Total:17.

DeFazio’s Spicy: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

After this scored so well in past Tournaments, I had to go to the store and try it. And I enjoyed it. But tonight, something was off. The crust had nice color to it but it was a little bready and dense. The sauce is Franks Red Hot and there was a lot of it on this pie. I suppose that isn’t really a bad thing, but everything on the slice tasted like Red Hot.  The bites of chicken were moist, tender and tasted good if you picked them off the slice. Left on the slice, the chicken tasted like hot sauce. There was a little gorgonzola flavor in the back and I could see that melted mozzarella cheese I love, however the hot sauce was pretty much the only flavor. And it’s a shame because I know this pizza can be better. After all, this is one of the highest scoring pizzas in Tournament history, but not tonight. Any given pizza…on my scorecard, Down Goes the Champ.

DeFazio’s Spicy

Crust:3, Sauce:2, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:5, Total:14.

Here’s how I scored the eight pizzas in the Final Four with Marissa’s and Marino’s getting ready to fight it out for the title.

	Classic	Spicy	Total
Marissa’s	18	17	35
Marino’s	17	16	33
DeFazio’s	17	14	31
5th and 50	15	9	24

This is how I scored it, but this is a panel of judges so my points are just a quarter of the points available to any individual pizza. Looking at the All Over Albany write up of the semi finals, it looks like the other judges didn't like the flavor of Marissa's tomatoes on their Margherita as much as I did and depending on the person, I could see the kalamata olives in the Caccitore pizza taking a hit. Also, keep in mind that when you are totally nitpicking everything on a pizza, there is even variation between slices from the same pie. The crust is a little different, toppings not quite the same, a little more/less sauce here and there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I certainly see how Marissa's got bumped out. Hell, on my score sheet, it's only a 4 point spread between the top three shops.

And if you want to nerd out on some numbers, Greg has kindly posted all of the tournament scores in the annual Crunching the Numbers post at All Over Albany. If you take a look at those stats, DeFazio's has put up some serious numbers in the tournament. DeFazio's, Marino's and Marissa's have the highest all time averages. Seems fitting that it came down to those three shops. It will be interesting to see what happens at the Finals this Saturday.

Tournament of Pizza Final Four: Part 1

I spent the day pacing myself so I could be ready for the Tournament Semi-Finals. Four shops each submitting two pizzas meant 8 slices per judge. Basically an entire large pizza. I started the day with a yogurt and banana. Had a peanut butter and jelly from Stewarts for lunch and then nothing else until the judging started around 6:30. Many thanks to the people at Keeler Mini for hosting and sponsoring these semi finals.

This tasting was kind of a sensory overload for me. Out of the 8 pizzas sampled, only two were similar so there were 7 very different kinds of pizza to eat. I think my note taking suffered during this tasting as I was trying to wrap my head around how much different the to-go pizzas were from the in-store pizzas. And there was just so much pizza. I didn’t step on a scale the morning after this tasting. Ignorance is bliss.

The four semi finalists were asked to submit a pizza they considered to be a “classic” and another they considered “spicy.” We started with four slices of classic.

5^th and 50 Classic: Greek Pizza

The pie was cooked on a screen (the only shop in the finals using one) and my slice didn’t have a rim that easily pulled off. Maybe they roll the rim of the pie over itself. The crust was nicely browned on the top and bottom but a little oily toward the center of the pie. I though the crust was bready and tough by itself but worked with the pizza. A significant improvement, in my opinion, over their Round 1 pizzas. It was a white pizza so there wasn’t really a sauce. As with the white broccoli pie, judges used the flavors and extra cheese for the sauce score. The feta was fairly mild. Nothing wrong with that, I’m not sure a strong feta would have worked well on this pie. The feta was combined with diced bits of ham, or maybe mild bacon or maybe Canadian bacon. I’m not sure which it was and while that is a little unsettling the flavor combined with the tomato pieces was good. Not a great slice, but certainly not a bad one.

 5^th and 50 Classic

Crust:3, Sauce:3, Toppings:3, Overall Taste:6, Total:15.

Marino’s Classic: Margherita Pizza

This was the slice where the difference between eating in the store and getting takeout hit me. The crust that I had really enjoyed in Round 1 still had good flavor but was tougher to chew. The color on the crust was nicely browned but the toasty notes seemed to have gotten lost in transit. The sauce though…I think this sauce was the best thing we tasted all night. Really good tomato flavor with delicious chucks of tomato spread out over the slice. What brand of tomatoes are they using? The cheese had a nice flavor but it was a little tough/stringy. I’m not sure there is any way around that with a fresher style of mozzarella being transported. While still a good slice here, this would be great ordered and eaten at the restaurant.

Marino’s Classic

Crust:3, Sauce:5, Toppings:3, Overall Taste:6, Total:17.

Marissa’s Classic: Margherita Pizza

I don’t know how they did it, but the crust on the Marissa’s Margherita travel better than the others. Definitely had more chew that when we were in the store but it never got that cardboard-y texture some pizza crusts get as the cool off. There was a very thin coating of sauce on the pizza but the tomatoes on the slice, while not looking like they would taste good, did taste good and really perked up the flavor on the slice. The freshly shredded basil was nice too. The fresher mozzarella had browned in spots and became like the Marino’s pie became tough/stringy but the flavor was nice. This slice tasted a lot better than it looked.

Marissa’s Classic

Crust:4, Sauce:3, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:7, Total:18.

Defazio’s Classic: Sausage with Peppers and Onions Pizza

The crust had good color and a little bit of char on the bottom. Once again, the impact of travel on the crust was clear. This crust would have clearly been better in the shop. The sauce had a good tomato flavor. The cheese was tender, flavorful/salty, and I still want to know the brand. The sausage was also good and well seasoned. It had much less of that paprika flavor that we had on their sausage pie in Round 1. Green peppers aren’t my favorite (they aren’t ripe) and this pie had a strong green pepper flavor to it, but it worked.

Defazio’s Classic

Crust:4, Sauce:3, Toppings:4, Overall Taste:6, Total:17.

After the classic round of the Final Four, I had this scored as pretty much a dead heat. In my mind at this point in the tasting, any of the shops could make it to the Finals. There was a little bit more spread when all of the judges scores were counted, but it is still anyone's round to win. The All Over Albany summary of the classic round is here. While the judges and I may differ on opinion here and there, one thing that stands out from looking at the summary is the score for the Marino's Margherita. Their sauce scored a perfect 20, 5 out 5 from each judge. It was really good.

Tournament of Pizza Round One Wrap Up

I put together a summary of my Round 1 scores. The only outstanding misfire that I see is that Marino’s sausage pie should be higher than Marissa’s and I’ve already mentioned that Marissa’s sausage pie should have been a little lower. A rookie judge mistake. While I may have had doubts when looking back at individual pizzas, I think the “Total” column is a good ranking in how I felt about the shops and the pizza we were served.

Shop	Sausage	Broccoli	Total
DeFazio’s	21	19	40
Marino’s	18	20	38
Marissa’s	19	14	32
DC’s	13	16	29
Mario’s	13	11	24
I Love	12	12	24
Mama Mia’s	14	9	23
5th and 50	9	8	17

I think the “we were served” part of that last statement is important and something that needs to be taken into consideration. These rankings were based on two pizzas from 8 shops on random Thursday evenings. I’d argue that each of these shops is capable of putting out better (or worse) pizza than the pies we were served. One judge joked, “Any given Thursday” and there is a lot of truth to that. I would, however, also argue that the likelihood of getting a better pizza than what we were served improves the higher you go up this list. And the pizza at Mama Mia’s is better than their score. I bet they lost 6 or 7 points due to an unfortunate decision.

My top 4 shops can’t be the Final Four because two of them fought it out in a match up but my three highest scores all advanced to the semifinals. In my overall scores, the two shops in Saratoga bracket finished 7^th and 8^th. The order of my rankings of Mama Mia's and 5th and 50 were overruled by the other judges and 5^th and 50 squeaked into the Final Four.

Some final thoughts on Round 1: Three of the top 4 ranked shops on my list make their own sausage. I think that shows a certain level of commitment to quality ingredients and that commitment comes through in the product they sell. Only one of the shops in my top 4 uses screens. That’s a different level of commitment to skill. In my mind, screens have more to do with convenience and ease than quality. And the final weird thing I noticed looking back at the Round 1 results is that half of the shops in the tournament start with the letter M. I’m not sure what to make of that.