During a July of absolute travel chaos, we finally had a chance to declare a pizza meeting on a Thursday night. The location of choice had to tick a lot of boxes off our wishlist: casual enough for Kerri to stop by straight after the gym, dine-in, preferably located in Ballard or nearby, more Old-World style, cheap enough to not make my cry when I saw the bill, and good enough to impress a New Yorker. Google Maps finally helped us settle on Palermo Pizza & Pasta for a long overdue Pizza Meeting.
Post gym Kerri met up with me and my visiting college friend Mayha after we had enjoyed a few happy hours in Ballard and the three of us paraded on over to Palermo. Surprise! When we got there, Seattle’s friendliest server let us know was already late night happy hour came back with giant fishbowls of red that were only going to set us back $3.50. 
We weren’t sure if this was a Greek Pizzeria (the “…and pasta” in the name is sometimes a code) and feared it might meet the other fate the past few Greek Pizzerias had, but all three of us were all pleasantly surprised at what was delivered to the table. The carnivores split a very affordable 15 inch pepperoni with pineapple on half. Mayha opted for a personal size margherita.
Would you believe this was almost our best scoring pizza to date? We couldn’t believe it either.
Kerri was pleasantly surprised by this pizza. She found the pepperoni big, flavorful, and well cooked. The crust was tasty (not as crispy as NY or Neapolitan style, but not as fluffy as a pan pizza), but wasn’t quite strong enough to hold up to the grease – she wished she had a sharper knife. Kerri thought the cheese tasted great and fresh, and there wasn’t a ton of sauce to overpower anything. This pizza was deceptively filling, and overall delicious.
Over on my slices, the pepperoni was by far the best I’ve had on a Seattle pizza and was complete with perfect little burn blisters from perfectly placed cheese. I did find my slices a bit too light on the sauce for my typical tastes, but didn’t notice that I had moved out of my comfort zone until the end where I wasn’t tasting as much tomato as usual. I appreciated that the cheese wasn’t overwhelming, and had a good texture. It’s a filling pizza for being relatively thin.
“It was surprisingly filling. I liked the basil and I thought the tomatoes were fresh and tatsy and juicy. Pepe’s is better. But this is top 5.” – special guest commentator Mayha
We gave this pizza a 4 out of 5, tying it with our current Seattle best.
But one mystery remains: Is this pizza Greek? Is it some sort of American style we have only just discovered? Is it West Coast? Let us know what part of the map Palermo lives in for you. We’re sticking with all of the above for now.
NB– Kerri let us know she got delivery from here the other day and it wasn’t as good as dining in.
Seattle Pizza Coalition 