Sauce and crust.
Those are just two factors I think can make, or break, a pizza.
How do other pizza lovers feel? I gathered three of my Delaware Online/The News Journal colleagues, Meredith Newman, Esteban Parra and Matthew Korfhage, for a blind taste test in our newsroom, where we taste-tested pies by the two finalists remaining in Delaware’s Favorite Pizza Challenge.
Before the challenge began, we asked readers to share their favorite place for pizza in Delaware and received more than 900 nominations. We then listed the restaurants and pizzerias in a March Madness-type of bracket. Readers voted in Sweet 16 and then the Elite 8 elimination rounds earlier this month.
Munch Madness:Delaware pizza bracket blown up by Grotto loss. Final Four heats up.
For the semifinals, Cafe Napoli took on Pizza By Elizabeths, and Tony & Dominick’s Pizza went head-to-head with Margherita’s Pizza.
The finalists are Cafe Napoli, a popular southern Italian restaurant in the Kirkwood Plaza shopping center at 4391 Kirkwood Highway in Milltown run by four brothers who were raised in Naples, and Margherita’s Pizza, a Newark pizza lovers institution since 1980 that left its longtime 134 E. Main St. location in 2018 and moved to its current home at Park N Shop Plaza at 265 S. Main St. in September 2019.
We ordered cheese pizzas from both restaurants, as well as pizzas made with half mushroom and half pepperoni. All pies sampled were takeout and eaten in our newsroom.
When we opened the boxes for the cheese pizzas, there weren’t many differences in the look or aroma, but Meredith Newman and I thought the pizzas could be just a tad darker and more well-done.
Slice of Delaware:9 places to score a pizza in Delaware
“The crust is very similar,” said Newman, and Parra and I agreed. I found the sauce a little sweeter in Margherita’s Pizza than in the Cafe Napoli pizza and Newman did, too.
Korfkage didn’t like the darker mushrooms on Margherita’s Pizza and preferred the mushroom Cafe Napoli pizza. But Parra said he liked the dark mushrooms.
Parra eyed the top of the Napoli pizza with pepperoni and noticed an oily slick. “It’s old-school. I like it,” he said and took a bite.
For a final tasting, we all went back and took bites of the cheese slices from both restaurants.
The winner was unanimous.
“This one kills it,” said Korfhage, as he finished the Cafe Napoli slice. “I would get the cheese from here. I like the dough and the crust.”
Delaware Dining:Two Stones turns to pizza; Fins hooks Fenwick eatery. Plus, a Riverfront cafe to duck into
Everyone nodded in agreement.
But don’t take our word for it.
Readers like you can vote for their favorite of the two pizzerias left standing before 5 a.m. Friday, March 31, the same date the winner will be announced.
