Pizzeria Delfina

In our quest for the perfect pizza, tonight we went to Pizzeria Delfina at 18th and Guerrero.

First off, the restaurant is tiny, maybe seating a total of 18 people inside and 8 people outside. When we got there, there were four tables ahead of us, but it only took a half hour before getting seated.

While waiting, they offered us drinks – Janet had the house red (a Moltepulciano) and I went with a Sudwerk Helles. The kitchen was constantly busy as they have a very, very strong takeout business.

But what is a pizza review without mentioning the pizza? The presentation was fantastic, as was their choice to provide a small plate of dried oregano, hot pepper flakes and shredded Parmasan cheese. The sauce tasted of fresh tomatos – simultaneously sweet and acidic. The cheese was excellent, and the flavor of the crust – lightly salted to bring out the flavor – was the best I have had in years. The sausage, peppers and red onions on the Salsiccia pizza? Perfect.

However, there were issues. Surprisingly, service was not one of them – we had a stream of constant but non-intrusive queries from the waitstaff about the food, informing us that the kitchen was a little backed up if we wanted to have an appetizer first, offering desserts and beverages. The crust was, however the weakness. Seriously. Making a paper-thin crust is an art that requires an almost exacting knowledge of the dough and the oven, and in this case there was no such mastery. The result was that the sauce weakened the pizza at the center, giving it the dreaded “drooping point”. On the margarita pizza, this was just a mild annoyance, but with the weight of the sausage, I needed to support the crust with my knife to get it from the pizza pan to the plate. Get an inch in and it was fine, but the pizzaolios need to either crank up the heat (to give a harder crust at the center), adjust their stretching to give the center a little more dough, drop the amount of sauce in dead center or something. The crust flavor was amazing, so I would not change the recipe, but there is certainly room for some improvement.

As pizzas go, it is certainly in the top 10 spots…

1) Pepe’s Pizza – New Haven, CT (white clam and garlic)
2) BruRm @� BAR – New Haven, CT (sausage or just plain)
3) Dolce Pizza – Berlin, Germany (margherita with salami and the best hot pepper flakes ever)
4) Gino’s East – Chicago, IL (sausage and pepper stuffed)
5) Luna Pizza – West Hartford, CT (ricotta and chicken)
6) Casa Della Pizza – Munich, Germany (Pizza Diablo with arugula, provolone, hot salami and firey pepper oil)
7) Delfina Pizzeria – San Francisco, CA (fennel sausage)
8) Amici’s Pizzeria – San Francisco, CA (white clam or provolone/pancetta)
9) Caminetto – Cologne, Germany (tuna and cippolini onion)
10) Barb’s Pizza – West Hartford, CT (plain cheese pizza)