We thought this place was a huge deal when we first tried it. We happened to be on the north side…read moreof town on pizza day, so we stopped here and picked up a pepperoni and 20 wings on a 39.99 special.
The wings were good, plenty of sauce and good, crispy skin, soft meat texture. What blew us away was the pizza. It was just a pepperoni pizza, but somehow it had it all. Soft, plenty of sauce, the perfect amount of greasy and stretchy on the cheese, and then the whole thing had a subtle crunch to it. Never had that in a pizza before. I hate talking favorites for things as big as pizza, but this just might be my favorite Pepperoni Pizza in Syracuse.
We've been back twice since then, pretty much on a whim when we happened to be passing by. First time was on a Friday, so we got some fried fish and a steak sub. We went with both the regular fried and beer battered. We ordered the philly/steak sub because it was featured on their website. We kind of know what we're going to get when we order a philly from a pizzeria, but figured it was worth trying if they're going to make it the first high def photo on their website. Despite the hype, it turned out to be the same meat, bread and cheese you get from any other pizzeria, or any other place that doesn't really go for it. The fish was actually disappointing - one of the worse fish fries we've tried in Syracuse. The regular fried haddock had a hard bread crumb coating that pulled apart from the meat. You could snap it apart to break a piece off the filet. The beer battered shrimp was better, but the breading was soft and kind of peeled right off. Fried fish and philly steaks are never a bad meal, but this is about as low as it gets without crossing into malicious.
We saw multiple people raving about the eggplant parmigiana, and I wanted to try their riggies. I figured Utica, Riggies, can't go wrong. Once again, we were in town, and it was on a Thursday, where they have a few dollars off. The riggies hit the requirements with the creamy sauce, the cherry peppers, the wicked tender chicken, and the peppers and onions were a good addition. My only complaint is that they weren't better coming from a place named Utica Pizza Company. They were exactly average - sauce could have been creamier, hotter, more flavorful. The eggplant parmigiana turned out to be nothing special, I'm not sure why people raved about it. Just an inch or two of thin sliced eggplant, breaded, cheesed and red sauced. With that last sentence as your recipe, you could make the same thing at home.
We also threw in a medium buffalo chicken pizza, which was really good, but didn't have the same amazing texture the first pizza did.
I had high expectations for this place, so if it seems like I'm complaining, it's definitely better than your average pizzeria. I'm sticking with five stars because the pepperoni pizza we got was absolutely perfect. We've been working our way through pizza places in Syracuse for years and this one stands out hard. Take or leave the other stuff, but absolutely get a large pepperoni and some wings.
