Portnoy, the pizza guy, comes to town

For the first time since I started contributing to this newspaper, my wife expressed concern that

I may be crossing the line because I’m writing about the delicate subject of … pizza.

Pizza, like my own industry (real estate), is an area where everyone has a strong opinion and they’re not afraid to share it. Recently, One Bite pizza critic at-large, Dave Portnoy, reviewed three West Chester pizza shops, and in my strong opinion, he missed the mark.

My own first pizza experiences were at Sam’s Pizza Island in the northwest part of West Chester, but the pizza I associate most with the afternoons of my misspent youth is Amore’s. That was the first pizza place where I regularly spent my own money on two slices and a fountain drink (a $2 combo back then).

Their pizzas are what I think of as a typical Northeastern pie: the Goldilocks pizza. The crust is not thick, but definitely not thin; it’s foldable, but you don’t have to fold it; it’s neither saucy nor dry; it has an even mozzarella top that never needs extra cheese. Two slices fit badly on two paper plates, and there are shakers of red pepper flakes, parmesan, garlic powder, and oregano over by the napkins.

It is a pizza that would be easily recognized by pizza-lovers as far south as Washington, D.C. (Beyond that, experience tells me, is a pizza wasteland dotted with occasional oases known only to northern transplants.)

Portnoy prefers pizzas that are very crispy and charcoaled.

Charcoaled pizza is not my thing. The smell of burned things — like charcoal or pizza dough — sets off all kinds of alarms in the brain like “call 911,” “flee,” and “definitely do not put this in your mouth.” Some might argue that part of the skill in cooking is not burning the food.

I do like a pizza that is a bit crispy, but super crispy pizzas break apart sending flakes off in every direction when you fold them. It makes me feel like Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel folding miniature breads backstage.

The other major issue I have with Portnoy’s reviews is that he talks about how the DelCo scumbag feel of the area makes him feel at home. Listen, DelCo has a unique character — and it doesn’t need me to defend it — but I would not say that its defining characteristic is “scumbag.” Regardless, talking negatively about what you like about DelCo while reviewing a pizza shop in the heart of Chester County is like trying to compliment your wife by extoling her sister’s vices. It has nothing to do with pizza.

But there are greater sins than stretching to connect with an area you don’t know.

The greatest is the sin of omission.

Okay. I’ll admit that West Chester has enough pizza joints to waylay a critic for a week, easily. But each place has its own take on one of the many forms of pizza. We have innovative places like Rize and Couch Tomato. We have the focaccia-for-a-crust tomato and white pies at Carlinos. We have the ridiculously large pizzas of Lorenzo’s (best fries in town). We have Portnoy’s favorite for the area: Pizza West Chester. We have the light and crispy pies of West Chester Pizza Café (where my son spends his own money). We have an unreasonably large number of places cranking out Goldilocks pizzas: America’s Pie, Benny’s, Las Vegas, New Haven’s, Riggtown, and more. And that’s just in the borough. We have places as far east as the Pepper Mill and as far west as Lenape Pizza (the only place my whole family agrees on), and more places than I can name in between. On top of that, just about every non-pizzeria-restaurant has some sort of pizza or flatbread to offer.

Actually, reading that back, it looks less like we have a pizza scene, and more like we have a pizza problem.

Credit where it is due: Portnoy was only in town for one afternoon, yet he managed to review three places. They all did well, and in the weeks that followed, it was noticeably harder to get pizza at those places, which is great for them. But we are lucky to have a panoply of pizza places, and Portnoy could have picked almost any three — almost — and still found three gems.

Will Wood is a small business owner, veteran, and half-decent runner. He lives, works, and used to deliver pizza in West Chester.