I'll be honest - this place was literally our 10th choice for lunch. My chum and I moseyed into town on Tuesday afternoon at the midway point of a hike to and from Stockton. New Hope is quite a bustling tourist trap on the weekends. Tuesdays? Not so much, and the lack of open restaurants reflected that. We gazed mournfully at a closed wine bar or two but ultimately decided to hold our heads high and walk into what from the outside looked like a pretty generic brick oven pizza place.
To be clear, this IS a fairly by the book brick oven pizza establishment, but with a New Hope twist. The seating and atmosphere have an upscale vibe (the seats reminded me of edgy church pews), they serve wine here, and the only part that looked "normal" was the cooking/prep area with the brick oven behind the counter. We were intrigued.
The most pleasant surprise came after we decided to each order a glass of white wine and were asked, "What kind?" A promising start. We each got Pinot, but after tasting the wine, I was a little taken aback by how smooth and delicious it was. In an all-time snobby moment, I managed to blindly identify what was actually a gewurztraminer from a nearby winery (if you haven't had it, it's my absolute favorite wine of all time, usually a semi-sweeter wine with a hint of spice. Alba in Finesville, NJ had a fantastic one before they inexplicably decided to stop making it and just included the gewurz grapes in a hybrid blend - don't even get me started). I have literally only been to one other place that has served gewurz by the glass, and it's a gastropub in Jersey City (Hudson & Co - strong recommend). What an unexpected treat. Anyway.
The pizza itself was pretty good, though honestly I wouldn't classify it as great. The sauce for me was the weakest part. I'm not crazy about tomato chunks, and it was a little too sweet, not complementing the basil and cheese as well as it could. I'd probably go with a regular cheese next time, but it definitely wasn't bad.
We split a jumbo homemade cannoli to wrap this adventure up, and that was phenomenal, easily a top three all-timer for me. What really sets it apart in my view is the fried pastry dough, which has a tendency to be too crispy but this had the perfect consistency.
The service was excellent. There was never a point where we were looking around for the waitress for food, the check, etc. Everything was super prompt. Price pointwise, you could make an argument that the pizzas are a little expensive (my eyebrows went up when I saw that some of the large pizzas were over $30) but we comfortably split a small for about $15, and it was more than enough. I think small and large might be super subjective terms in this case, and the scrumptious gewurz was less than $9 a glass. Good luck finding a cheaper alternative in this town.
I don't know if you can classify any restaurant on the main drag in New Hope a hidden gem, but this one is kind of on the outskirts and worthy of attention. read more