Review: Jay's Artisan Pizza - Kenmore (Buffalo) NY

Buffalo’s Bifocal Pizza Vision: One Eye on Naples, One on Detroit

Jay’s Artisan Pizza in Kenmore, just outside Buffalo, is a pizzeria with a split soul - and that’s a compliment. One half of its identity is rooted in the blistered, leopard-spotted Neapolitan tradition; the other in the caramelized, cheese-crowned corners of Detroit-style squares. 

Jay Langfelder founded Jay’s in 2017 after years of slinging wood-fired pies from a food truck called O.G. Wood Fire. Both pizza styles are executed with serious intent, and under the stewardship of new owner and pizzaiolo Joe Powers, Jay’s landed as the fourth best pizza in America, according to the Italian website 50 Top Pizza. That site said: 

The casual and welcoming restaurant offers two distinct styles: the 12" Neapolitan, served whole on trays, and the Detroit-style, thick and crispy, ideal for take-away. The dough is well-hydrated, long-leavened, and highly digestible, with consistently precise cooking. Excellent options include the 'Nduja, intense yet balanced, and the Speck & Parmigiano, with a refined taste. There is a great attention to ingredients, with DOP cheeses and local vegetables. The Detroit-style also impresses with its structure and crispiness, with versions like the Hot Cherry Pepper or the more original Viva Mexico.

Our group of four visited on a lovely late summer day in September, and of course we had to try both styles of pizza. We ordered two of the 12" Neapolitan pies and one of the much more thick and dense Detroit style.

We started by sharing a generously-portioned Castelfranco Radicchio salad, which was exceedingly fresh, albeit with a too-mild dressing. A "needs more seasoning theme" was starting.

Let’s assess the four-slice Detroit-style pizza ($17), which was nothing short of spectacular. The crust was a masterclass in contrast: airy and light inside, yet crunchy and fried on the bottom, with that signature frico edge that crackles like a potato chip. 

Underside of a Detroit slice

The red sauce - ladled post-bake in thick, confident stripes -was bright, fresh, and tomato-forward, with a whisper of sweetness and a clean finish. The garlic and cup-and-char pepperoni added yet another layer of umami. 

This is the kind of pizza that makes you forget you’re in Buffalo and start Googling flights to Motor City. I didn't find any flaws, and it stands with the best Detroit pies I've had anywhere.

The Margherita

The Neapolitan pies are clearly made with care. The crust had that ideal puffy cornicione, charred just enough, with a soft, elastic chew. But the Margherita ($17) was a letdown. The sauce was underseasoned and timid, lacking the punch you expect from San Marzano tomatoes. The mozzarella, too, was bland and forgettable, more texture than taste. 

It’s a shame, because the dough deserved better. Still a very nice pie, but it left you wanting to add flavorings on top - pepper flakes, salt, grated cheese, chili oil, hot honey. A perfectly made pizza would deliver all the taste with no need for tinkering at the table.

The Pesto Pie

The Neapolitan pesto pie ($19) fared better. Roasted tomatoes added a welcome depth and sweetness, and the pesto had a nice herbal lift. Still, everything could’ve used a hit of salt - a recurring theme across both styles.

Impeccable Neapolitan crust

We enjoyed the space; Jay’s has a casual, open-kitchen vibe that invites you to linger. You can watch the pizzaiolos work the dough and feed the Pavesi oven while sipping a $10 glass of Sangiovese—a fair pour, though not particularly memorable. The space feels more Naples than Buffalo, and that’s clearly the point.

Jay’s is a tale of two pizzas. The Detroit-style is destination-worthy, a benchmark for the genre. The Neapolitan pies show promise, especially in crust and technique, but need bolder seasoning to match the dough’s potential. Still, in a city dominated by its own regional style, Jay’s is a refreshing - and at times thrilling - departure.

Final verdict? Come for the Detroit, stay for the crust, and bring your own salt shaker.

Review: DeSano Pizzeria Napoletana, Austin TX

A short fifteen years ago, it was hard to get a pizza worth the calories outside of a relative handful of surviving legacy pizza joints (e.g. Totonno's in Coney Island, DeLorenzo's in Trenton, Arturo's and John's in the Village (NYC), Tacconelli’s in Philly, Sally's in New Haven, Vito & Nick's in Chicago, Santarpio in Boston, Conte's in Princeton, & DiFara in Brooklyn). Today, I could rank not just the Top Five in an unlikely city like Austin, but I could name the Top Five Neapolitan pizzas in Austin and all would be worth the time, effort, and calories. 

With DeSano, we will examine another contender, to my surprise and delight. After six and a half years in my adopted hometown of Austin, the food continues to confound any preconceived notions. The BBQ has exceeded my high expectations (though most sides at BBQ joints remain dismal), while the Mexican food trails Arizona, New Mexico, and California by a wide gap.

Meanwhile, Austin has become a hotbed for top-end Japanese restaurants! The New York Times recently listed the 25 top restaurants in Austin, and several of them were Japanese. Regarding the chef's selection menu approach in these places, the NYT said "In 1995, Tyson Cole, a white, Florida-born sushi novice, was hired by a Japanese chef in Austin on the condition that he learn Japanese. That discipline is still evident in the food at Uchi, the restaurant Mr. Cole opened 8 years later. This is how Austin, where Japanese are only 0.2% of the population, became home to one of the country’s most dynamic Japanese restaurant scenes ... Omakase restaurants are to tech-boom Austin what mounted longhorns are to Texas steakhouses: distinguishing features suggestive of achievement."

But let's get on to the pizza! Pizza has been the most surprising revelation. Coming here from Philly/NJ/NY region, I had eaten some of the world's best pizza. Expecting to find little of that here, early on I discovered top shelf Neapolitan at Pieous and the incredible Detroit pizza at Via 313, which has kept its standards high even as it grows the number of locations. Since then, Baldinucci and Allday and Pedroso's are all making pies that rival the best of the northeast.

The Margherita

I had seen the downtown DeSano pizzeria (Lavaca Street) and learned that the Burnet Road location was opened first. I wrongly assumed that they were the (only) two outlets of an Austin-based pizzeria, but in fact the first DeSano was in Nashville. DeSano now has ten locations in Austin, Nashville, North and South Carolina, Florida, and California.

The Pepperoni Doppio

Their website notes their pizza philosophy: "At DeSano Pizzeria, we follow the strict guidelines of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN), preserving the centuries old craft of making authentic Neapolitan pizza." Their dough is made fresh daily using low-gluten flour, and ingredients for everything on the menu are imported from Italy (except for French butter).

We visited the Burnet location for dinner on a hot August night. The interior is a large, airy, welcoming space with large black and white photos of Italian life and a very cool red scooter on display. Although DeSano is proud of following the VPN guidelines, they make a traditional 12in "Napoli" ($22 for the margherita) and a 16 inch "Grande"  version ($28). However, the VPN specifies that a Neapolitan pizza may not exceed 35cm in diameter, which is 13.78 inches. 

Beyond that, my reasoning to be leery of the16" pizza is that a Neapolitan pie is going to have a lot of flop and potential wet center at that larger diameter, so we stuck to the traditional size. We ordered a 12 inch Margherita (San Marzano tomato sauce, mozzarella di bufala, olive oil, basil, & pecorini romano) and a 12 inch Pepperoni Doppio (San marzano tomato sauce, pepperoni, nickel pepperoni, garlic, scamorza, mozzarella di bufala, & pecorini romano).

The crust was textbook Neapolitan, expertly rendered. It was thin and soft with a cornicione that was both dense and puffy. It had the signature leopard spotting on the edges and underneath. Under VPN rules, the red sauce has to be pretty simple, and this seemed to be a thin base of unseasoned tomato sauce. 

Under the hood

For those accustomed to the bold umami flavors of New York, New Haven, Detroit, and other American styles, this sauce might seem bland. It serves mostly as a role player. I suspect the cheeseless Marinara pie has more pop to the tomato sauce because it is seasoned with garlic, oregano, and salt.

I preferred the pepperoni pizza to the traditional Margherita, precisely because that pepperoni delivered on the umami. Both of these pizzas were essentially flawless in execution, but they drove home an opinion that has been growing in my pizza perception: pizza may have been invented in Naples, but it was perfected in America. On most days, I'll take a well-executed Trenton, Old Forge, New York, Detroit, or New Haven pizza over a Neapolitan because the flavors are so much bigger.

Having said that, we had three slices left over, and they spent two months in my freezer. We reheated them in a toaster oven and they were fresh, soft, and tasty. A Neapolitan that survives a freezer journey and still tastes great? Sign of a particularly well made pie with superior ingredients. If Neapolitan is your jam, DeSano is about as good as it gets. 

Review: Urban Pie Pinzza Roman Style Pizza (Frozen)

 Let's begin with a mildly controversial statement: You can get good - maybe great - pizza at Costco and in your grocer's freezer.

If you're not yet tuned in to the regfrigerated take-and-bake "Pinsa" style pizza at Costco, get some soon. It's better than 90% of pizzerias. Our full review is HERE. Don't confuse this "take and bake" Pinsa pie with the tasty but ordinary floppy greasy pizza that Costco sells hot up front with the hot dogs and a few other snacks.

But let's get on to the main topic here - frozen pizza. For decades, it ranged from bad to mediocre. It was elevated with the advent of the DiGiorno rising crust pies, which are better than a lot of generic mom and pop shops and better than most of the big chains like Domino's and Papa John's. 

Inside the box

More recently, true gourmet pizzas have made it into the freezer section, led by top-shelf brick-and-mortar pizzerias making a frozen version of their pies. The one that first got my attention was the Neapolitan pizza from Roberta's (review HERE), which was in the freezer section at Whole Foods. I've been to Roberta's in Brooklyn (review HERE), and I found the frozen version to be, at a minimum, a solid reminder of how good that pie is fresh out of the oven.

Fresh out of the oven

A few weeks ago, we reviewed the Table 87 Coal Oven Slice (also found at Whole Foods). It's pricey, but we concluded that "Despite some room for improvement, this is as good as frozen pizza gets; it's at least as good as the frozen Roberta's pizza."

On the same trip when I bought the Table 87 slice, I also bought the Urban Pie "Pinzza" Roman Style Pizza. Because the Costco Pinsa style pizza is so good, I was eager to try this frozen pie with a similar crust. Costco calls their crust a "Roman Pinsa" style. What's that? It is made with a combination of Italian 00 wheat flour, rice flour, and soy flour to develop a light and airy crust that’s crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. 

This particular pizza ("Pepperoni Burrata") spent a few months in my freezer, and somewhere in its journey it seems to have partially thawed, because the generous pepperoni topping was skewed to one side. It's a pretty small pie, an oval roughly 11" long and 7" wide, weighing in at 15 ounces. Like the Costco pizza, the crust has wheat, rice, and soy flours. 

Nice crisp undercarriage

Although the label says Burrata, the ingredients show whole milk mozzarella and stracciatella cheeses as well as a tiny amount of Parmesan. Perhaps it's just cheese semantics; stracciatella is a fresh Italian cheese with a creamy texture and rich flavor, made by soaking shredded mozzarella in fresh cream, and often used as the filling for burrata.

Nice structure, light and airy crust

Out of the package, the pizza was not particularly pretty, and it looked ordinary out of the oven, too (baked at 450 on the center rack for 15-17 minutes). It was done after 16 minutes and the pepperoni was getting dark on the edges. I cut it into six small slices.

The key to a successful pizza - any style, fresh or frozen - is the crust. Always the crust. And the pinsa crust on this pizza is very very good - almost great. Crispy, chewy, yet light and airy, and very tasty. It shares many characteristics with the terrific Costco take-and-bake pinsa style pizza.

The sauce and cheese were good quality, but unremarkable. They served as role players here, melding nicely while letting the crust do the heavy lifting. The pepperoni added an important umami boost; would have liked the slices to be a little thicker. Spicy cup would really lift up the overall profile!

Overall, one of the best frozen pizzas you can get. It's very good, and can get to great with some tweaks to the sauce and cheeses. $14 is cheap for a pizzeria pizza, but expensive for a smallish frozen pizza; still, I'd buy again. It's a damn good pizza to have on hand in your freezer, right next to your Table 87 pizza.