It’s getting late in the year, but we’ve got miles to go before we sleep.
Miles of pizza, that is! Boom, Robert Frost.
Welcome back to the 2014 Pittsburgh Pizza-lympics. We’ve seen strong showings from Pizza Sola in the South Side, and also from Spak Brothers in Garfield.
Today, we’re venturing over to Shadyside for a look at Pizza Perfectta, hidden in plain sight right on South Highland Avenue and Alder.
It’s got tight quarters inside, but the presence of the pinball machine goes a long way to making you feel like it’s okay to hang a little while. What of the pizza, though?
To conduct our judging, we ordered one slice of the plain, plus a “fancy” slice — this time with mushrooms and red onion. As always, we judged on an eight-scale based on architectural soundness, foldability, greasiness, thinness of crust, and cheese-and-sauce generosity. (Notice that Perfectta is already off to a good start; our two slices make up a quarter-pie, which means they serve 8-cut slices — a.k.a. the New York Standard.)
We’ll start with the plain. It was good, though a little light on the sauce. The crust thinness was spot-on, even if the crust could have used a little more salt. Also in its favor is that the slice wasn’t too greasy, and it was truly a great size for the price (between the two of us, we spent a little over $6).
On the toppings side of things, we were impressed at how ably this slice supported the weight of the mushrooms and onion. The main issue here was that the red onions overpowered everything else; Perfectta would have been better served to add them at the very end, instead of before heating. The onions, heated, just permeated such that no other flavors really survived. The crispy contrast of a fresh red onion would have been quite welcome as well.
So, all in all, this was a pretty decent spot to grab a quick slice. Does it contend for the gold? Well…it’s a very decent place, especially if you’re short on cash. (Didn’t write ‘dough’ — wanted to, but didn’t.) Final score: 6.7 out of 8.
We’ll be conducting Round 4 in the coming week or two. Stay tuned!