Review: Domino's Brooklyn Style Pizza

While the purpose of the Pizza Quixote blog is finding destination pizza - pie that is worth the trip - we can't ignore the popularity of the huge chain pizza makers. Previously, we ate and reviewed Pizza Hut and Papa John's. I haven't had Domino's pizza in more than a decade, so it's past time to give it a fresh evaluation.

Brooklyn style. Click any image for full size resolution.

We chose a delivery deal of two "large" one-topping pizzas, with a 2-liter Coke, for $20.99. A Domino's "large" is a smallish 14" pie. Domino's offers five crust styles: Hand Tossed, Handmade Pan, Crunchy Thin Crust, Brooklyn Style, and Gluten Free. This review covers the Brooklyn Style.

I've had some wonderful pizza in Brooklyn. Classic old-school thin rigid pie at Totonno's, cutting edge Neapolitans at Roberta's and Forcella, tomato pie Sicilian squares at L&B Spumoni Gardens, grandma pie at Lenny's, and world-class squares and rounds at DiFara.  Which one of those is "Brooklyn style?" Hard to pinpoint a definitive answer. I think the Brooklyn moniker is a marketing tag for Domino's, nothing more.

On this pizza, it meant a soft, medium-thick, floppy crust with lots of grease but without a lot of flavor. The crust was almost as good as a DiGiorno frozen pie, with the look, taste, and texture of supermarket Italian bread. In that, it had a bit in common with the fat floppy slices sold at Costco. Inoffensive, better than the white-bread Domino's pizzas I recall from decades ago, but remarkably unremarkable.

Things got better on top of this ho-hum crust. The conventional mozzarella blend cheese was plentiful - creamy and salty - a fine role player. On the first few bites, the sauce had surprising character, tangy and vibrant. However, the more I ate, the more I detected over-herbage and a metallic aftertaste. The pepperoni was sliced thinly, but applied generously across the entire surface, and it lent the right amount of salty/savory cured meat flavor and orange grease.

Underside of the grease-soaked crust

Overall, this pie was tasty and a lot better than the Domino's of old. Still, by modern standards, this was a subpar pie. Papa John's and Pizza Hut pies are better. These Big Three chains, however, have caught up to the typical mom and pop pizza, because mom and pop are using inferior mass-sourced ingredients to compete with the big chains on price (details HERE).

The crust earns a 3, the cheese gets a 5, the sauce is a 5, and the pepperoni a 6.  Overall, because the crust is always the key, the Domino's Brooklyn style pizza earns a 4.  Better than no pizza, but really no reason to eat this stuff.