If you’re contemplating the best pizza in the US, Regina Pizzeria’s pizza is the pie that I believe that all American thin-crusted others should be judged by. When living in Boston, I would always find that friends from New York would roll their eyes at this proclamation and say I didn’t know what I was talking about. However, I’m a strong advocate that Boston pizza is its own thing, and that NY pizza lovers don’t need to feel threatened, but embrace both pizzas as equally delicious in slightly different ways.
There are a lot of Regina Pizzeria locations nowadays, but I’ve only ever been to the original one. So this weekend when I was back in Boston for a wedding, I finally got the chance to visit an old friend, wait in line like the old days, and double check that after five years my tastes (and their recipe) was still the same.
Started up in 1926 and always a bit of a maze to get to, Regina’s isn’t far from the Old North Church or Paul Revere’s House in Boston’s North End. It’s a great place to take friends visiting Boston because you can tour guide them through the historic sites, and then ravenously attack a pizza like it’s the last one on earth inside a hectic, no frills, tiny restaurant with some pretty fun servers. There’s frequently a line here, but it doesn’t take as long as it looks like it will.
The simple pepperoni was almost as good as I remembered, but perhaps there might have been a little more cheese than in memory. The crust was still 100% perfectly amazing, as is the sauce. It’s was very clear how different those tasted from the Seattle pizzas so far. The fluffy crust dough tore apart differently and had such a distinct taste, and for a pretty greasy pizza, the sauce is incredibly fresh and bright. You could eat the pepperonis like popcorn. The pizza was perfectly cooked (except for one small bit that was naked of pepperoni), and even the burned marks didn’t taste burned. It’s far too easy to inhale this pizza when you haven’t annihilated one in a long time.
Three guest commentators joined in on this pizza meeting. Californian Sneha ordered a primavera white pizza and claimed it was “the only place I would ever want to eat my weight in pizza.” Nicole from New Jersey sampled both pepperoni and the white pizza, and thought it was worth the calories. “My only critique is the veggie to crust ratio is a bit too much making it too flimsy to eat without utensils,” she said. This was the first East Coast pizza ever for Adrian. He has been sitting through many a pizza meeting in Seattle and gave a predictable review: “I thought it was very greasy, very drippy. It was nice but it can’t be good for you.”
I autonomously rated this pizza a predictable 5 out of 5. See you later Pizzeria Regina and hope it’s not 5 years until our next tasting.
Seattle Pizza Coalition 