Slices of Southern New Jersey

FOOD & DRINK

Some of the choice pizza places around the region

By Frank Gabriel

Add Comment | Comments: 5 | Posted Dec. 23, 2009

Pizza; it’s a subject bound to generate debate and controversy, particularly here in southern New Jersey, where an enormous number of individuals claim Italian descent.

Since the holiday season is also the zenith of the pizza sale biz, we now officially weigh in with a few of our thoughts and recs.

First, a little slice of history. Did you know that late Vineland native Dan Bruni — whose last name remains to this day on a famous Hammonton pizza shop — was among the nation’s initial mass purveyors of pies?

Early in the 1960s, Bruni’s empire numbered nearly a dozen shops and stretched from Camden and Gloucester counties to the Jersey shore. His tomato sauce usage was so prodigious that it could not be made in-house and had to be factory-produced.

These days, a good place to start talking pizza is Egg Harbor Township, where longtime restaurateur Joe Massaglia has recently opened his second Mama Mia’s location at 6105 West Jersey Ave. Massaglia, native to Italy’s mountainous Piedmont section, is a 40-year culinary pro who made his bones working front-of-the-house in fine dining. His first venture, the original Mama Mia’s, has been an occupant of Seaville’s Cedar Square Shopping Center on Route 9 since that development’s earliest days.

Their pizza menu is authentic, representing the widely differing regional styles of Italy, as well as being imaginative. We’d recommend the award-winning Cape May Creole, a spicy combo of grilled chicken, gorgonzola, red peppers and pine nuts or California Deluxe, a white pie with mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, chicken and topped by Caesar salad. Yes, you read correctly, topped by Caesar salad. And yes, you do want to try it.

Having already addressed Atlantic City’s beloved Baltimore Grill in our 35th Anniversary edition, we’ll move Downbeach and include Margate’s Ventura’s Greenhouse (beachblock at 106 S. Benson Ave.) on our list. It’s also one of the easiest places for regional visitors to locate, directly adjacent to the rear end of the world’s largest elephant, Lucy. “The Greenie” offers consistent, crispy pizza and one very special item unique even among today’s plethora of gourmet options. That pie, with thin sliced apples, sugar, cinnamon and mozzarella, is surprisingly tart and a great alternative for dessert.

A few miles down the eastern seaboard, Ocean City’s Mack and Manco’s is one of a handful of Boardwalk businesses generating enough traffic to remain open year round. Their staffers, many with the company for decades, are known for possessing the remarkable ability to take every order verbally, without any sort of written ticket.

Pizza here is a salty seashore treat that queues up devoted followers by the hundreds on balmy summer nights and offers delivery to locals throughout the depth of winter. There is also Mack and Manco’s Too in Somers Point.

Another Ocean City favorite, Piccini (13th and West avenues), is one of our region’s few wood-fired operations. The intense, smoky heat creates an extraordinarily crisp crust — the real secret to great pizza, not sauce, cheese or ingredients — and their menu of specialty pies, totaling more than three dozen, is thorough, diverse and unexpected.

A bit further south is our personal favorite pizza shop, Basilico’s of Sea Isle City (27 43rd St.). Much more than pizza, they offer a superb, upscale Italian/seafood bill of fare. Their pizza oven itself is a multi-level visual spectacle, imported at great cost from Italy. Their stuffed pizzas are both outstanding, one layered with BBQ sauce, chopped steak, grilled chicken and gorgonzola and the other a hearty pairing of pepperoni and sausage.

At the urging of my editor I visited Maurizio’s at 4215 Black Horse Pike in Mays Landing. What a find this tiny little storefront shop, near the movie theater in the Hamilton Commons Shopping Center, turned out to be.

We sampled a pair of pies, one utterly simple and another quite complex.

The former, a classic Margarita, utilized its three basic elements; ivory chunks of mozz, a mildly sweet red sauce and strips of aromatic, fresh-cut basil elegantly. For those unaware, this is the original prototype pizza, designed to reflect the colors of Italy’s flag — white, red and green — and named in honor of that nation’s Queen Margaret.

The latter, pizza alla Strega, brought together artichokes, ham, mushrooms and roasted peppers while still maintaining the structural integrity of its crust despite such a mass of hearty toppings. We especially enjoyed the textural interplay between the crunchy pieces of artichoke, earthy ‘shrooms and bright, sweet red peppers.

E-mail Frank Gabriel at fgabriel@acweekly.com