Review: Allday Pizza - Austin TX

How do you find the best pizza places? 

Slice mix at Allday Pizza

For the decades during which I lived within an hour or two of New York City, I was skeptical of the claims about how New York pizza is terrific. But my "research" generally involved being hungry somewhere in Manhattan and grabbing a slice from the nearest pizzeria. But, most pizza everywhere, including NYC, is mediocre stuff coming from bad chains like Sbarro or mom'n'pop joints using cheap Sysco ingredients.

Allday Pizza, Hyde Park

The internet changed all that, and I was able to discover the pizzerias in New York making the top-flight pies, such as Lombardi's and Totonno's and John's and Joe's and Denino's. While there are plenty of online sources for New York pizza, it gets more difficult in places like Little Rock, San Diego, and Austin.

Allday interior, Hyde Park

When I travel and want to try the local pizza, I rely most often on two sources: Eater and The Infatuation. They both have genuine professional food writers who can describe the pizza in sufficient detail to help you decide where to go. With those as my guide, I found that Allday Pizza kept appearing on the "best pizza in Austin" lists. When they expanded from a trailer operation to a brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Hyde Park section of town, I rounded up four friends for a visit. 

Allday Pizza was launched in March 2023 by east coast natives Dan Sorg (NJ) and Townsend Smith (CT).  Allday crafts their pies with dough that is cold-fermented for 48 hours from a blend of organic flours (including Austin's Barton Springs Mill flour). A helpful counter person shared with me that the sauce is made with Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes grown in California. Some pizzas contain decadently rich stracciatella house-made cheese; other cheese is from Wisconsin.

Allday is primarily a slice joint, offering huge slices (each pie makes six slices) that range from $4 for the no-cheese "Tomato Tomatoe" to $6 for slices featuring pepperoni, sausage, or the house-made stracciatella cheese. They offer a slight discount if you buy a whole pie of one type, but no discount if you order 6 mixed slices.

For our diverse tastes and dietary preferences (including two vegetarians), we chose to assemble two pies with these 12 slices:

• 2 Stracciatella (tomato sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil, Grana Padano, olive oil, stracciatella)

• 2 Classic Cheese (tomato sauce, mozzarella)

• 2 Vodka Baby (vodka sauce, mozzarella, Grana Padano, fresh basil, sesame seed crust)

• 2 Pep & Pepp (tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, pepperoncini peppers, Grana Padano)

• 1 Spicy Margh (Calabrian tomato sauce, stracciatella, basil, olive oil, Tajín crust)

• 1 Industry (mozzarella, Verde sauce, pistachio dust)

• 1 Sweet Sausage (Ricotta cream, mozzarella, crumbled sausage, soppressata, red onion, Calabrian honey)

• 1 Pepperoni (tomato sauce, shredded aged mozzarella, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni

Based on the pics and review from The Infatuation, we also split a Goo-Mah sandwich ($15) three ways (mortadella, soppressata, stracciatella, Calabrian mayo, Allday relish on a house-made sesame-seeded roll). The sandwich was terrific, bursting with flavors. The bread was very good -- could be improved only with a sturdier/crisper outer crust. It was a little messy due to the stracciatella, but worth the struggle.

On to the pizza! Let's talk first about the most important element of any pizza - the crust. This was a perfect and brilliant rendition of a New York style crust. It had a crisped yet airy big cornicione that appealed to both the eye and the palate. The main body of the crust was thin and crispy, but pliable in that classic New York way that makes people want to fold it. (For the record, folding your pizza turns it into a sandwich and destroys the taste and texture profile. Don't do it! A slight V-shaped bend at the cornicione is fine to create rigidity.)

Permissable fold at cornicione

OH HELL NO

My first slice sampled (we cut several into smaller slices to taste more varieties) was the Pep & Pepp. Riding on that idyllic crust was a fresh tasting sauce, a generous but proportionate amount of mozzarella, and some top-line cup-and-char style pepperoni. Scattered on top was a sprinking of minced pepperoncini, adding a salty/spicy/vinegary note. It was a burst of umami on top of the pepperoni umami. This was one of the more conventional slices we tried and it was terrific.

The Pep & Pepp

The Sweet Sausage had the most eye appeal - a white pie with crumbled sausage and a big round of thinly sliced soppressata, and a Jackson Pollock-ish smattering of thinly sliced red onion. This was wonderful stuff, but a bit overly sweet (from the honey) for some in our group. This pie could be improved by using pinched Italian sausage that cooks on the pie instead of pre-cooked crumbles, and by dialing back the honey. But still a great slice!

The Sweet Sausage

The "slice that most tasted different than it looked" was the Industry Plant with the verde sauce and pistachio dust. I was expecting a straight-up basil pesto flavor, but I was getting a distinctly different herbal note. My guess was mint, but the helpful counter person shared that the verde sauce is made with green herbs basil, parsley, chives, and dill in addition to capers, miso, lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I loved this slice but probably wouldn't want an entire pie that way.

The Industry Plant

The "slice I never would have chosen but blew me away" was, hands down, the Vodka Baby. We ordered two in the mix of slices our vegetarians could eat. I think it was my favorite; the flavor of that vodka sauce was jumpin'. The sauce was so good that I didn't notice the mozzarella (apparently under the sauce). Bonus - a sesame seed crust! I didn't get a picture of a Vodka Baby slice on its own, but you can see it above on in one of the pics with all the slices on the serving tray.

More evidence of a perfectly crafted crust

I relish a regular cornicione on well crafted pizzas, but I also welcome some twists (yeah, I confess to enjoying a pretzel crust). Insider tip - you can get the Vodka Chicken Parm sandwich on that same excellent bread as the Goo-mah, but with a chicken cutlet, stracciatella, and that awesome vodka sauce.

Stracciatella slice showing off that airy cornicione

The Stracciatella was essentially their regular cheese slice, topped with a dollop of stracciatella cheese and a leaf of fresh basil. Great pizza, but in general I'm not keen on heavy and wet cheese on a pie. I'd prefer this wonderful cheese on a salad or with some other bread/cracker vehicle. There's only been one exception to this - the astounding Roman-style pies at Stracci Pizza in Arlington VA.

It's not easy to find good New York pizza outside of New York and New Jersey. Until now, the best New York pizza in Austin has been Home Slice, the venerable slice joint on South Congress Avenue. But Allday is Great Pizza, not only in the conversation for "best New York pizza in Austin" but also "Best Pizza in Austin."

Happy pizza eaters

It's not easy (or fair, really) to draw comparisons between the top Austin pizzas of different styles, such as the Detroit pizza at Via 313, the New York at Allday, the Roman style at Baldinucci, the Sicilian at Pedroso's, or the Neapolitan pizza at Jester King. But Allday is crafting brilliant and tasty pies; all five of us loved this pizza. Service was terrific and the interior had a pleasant vibe only mildly compromised by the drone of industrial synth pop played too loudly.

Six years into my Austin journey and still amazed that it's easier to get great pizza than great Mexican food here in the heart of Texas.