We found Submarinos through a post in the Arizona Pizza Lovers group on Facebook. I had read up on the place in advance, and knew that it had a lot of great things to offer. We started with the garlic cheese bread which, I will tell you, has to be the best garlic bread, and garlic cheese bread, that we have ever had. They get their baked goods delivered fresh every morning from Capistrano's Bakery in South Phoenix, and you can tell it's fresh. Then they make the garlic butter in-house, lavishly apply it to the bread, let it soak in, then chill the combo to allow the butter to re-congeal and form a layer within the bread. They then bake it to order (with or without cheese), and the result is phenomenal. The bread is soft on the inside, has just the right crisp on the outside, the Roma mozzarella is fresh, flavorful and gooey (and is a healthy but just-right amount), and then that layer of buttery goodness delivers a punch for a finish. They serve the bread with a large side of fresh, thick, house-made marinara sauce, also outstanding, more savory than sweet. Heaven in a basket, and I mean that. (It went so fast that I didn't even have time to remember to capture a photo. The closest I could come was the remnants of the sauce cup!)
I then moved on to their meatball sub (my wife saved room for the pies). Same bread, same sauce, freshly-made meatballs, covered with a liberal amount of the same cheese and baked. Meatballs were moist and flavorful, and everything played well together. Delizioso! 'Nuff said. (I managed to snapshot the back end of this one.)
Then the stars of the show arrived at the table, hot and fresh. They were arranged in a double stack, with a half-and-half cheese and pepperoni/sausage pie below, and a Super White pie above. The half-and-half was the 12 Days complimentary: the cheese golden brown, the sausage well-seasoned and all the meat cooked just right. The crust was baked to a nice color and crispness, with the requisite, foldable flop. The Super White was comprised of an olive oil and garlic base, with ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and the same savory sausage. It normally also comes with a liberal covering of sliced tomatoes and red onion slivers, neither of which appeal to us and which we thus swapped out for roasted reds and spinach. I then had asked for an extra crisp (well done) cook on this pizza to both cook the heavier ingredients longer and establish a firmer base to hold them, and the crew happily obliged. Everything was done to order, and it couldn't have been executed better.
The manager, Lacey, bent over backwards to deliver for us. As we had a substantial amount of leftovers, she brought us take-home boxes and even refilled our marinara dipping sauce cup and provided us with an equivalently-sized side of ranch (you can see from the photo that these cups are not small). As we went in the middle of the afternoon, the clientele level was very low, so she also had the luxury of patiently chatting with us and answering any questions we had. She was extremely personable and we could tell she had a passion for serving great food and making customers happy.
Short story long, Submarinos was an excellent find for us. Thus far, in a long line of great west side pizzerias, we rank it our favorite. read more