Regina Pizzeria (North End) - Interrupt

Date of Dining: 10/2/2012
Price: $11-14 small pizza, $19-23 large pizza
Location: 11 1/2 Thatcher St, Boston, MA 02113
website

The Quick Bit

+ brick oven pizza -> great tasting crust

+ great selection of specialty pizzas

Δ wait can be long

While many people argue about the merits of New York pizza vs Chicago pizza, my friends from Boston have always insisted that Boston pizza was actually the best. Intrigued, I made sure to make a stop to try the Boston pizza from what was allegedly the best pizza in the city.

Regina Pizzeria has been open since 1926 and was mainly a family run operation until it was expanded in the last decade. While I did pass some of the mall locations, I noticed that those locations used conventional style ovens to cook the pizza. However, what makes Regina special is its brick oven that was built in 1888; the oven reaches temperatures in excess of 700 degrees, which makes the crust taste especially unique. Another specialty of Regina is that the sausage is made fresh daily.

St. Anthony - regina sausage, sausage links, roasted peppers, onions, mushrooms, garlic, mozzarella

As I dropped by Regina during the afternoon to avoid the rush, I only had space to sample a small pizza as part of a snack. I settled on the St Anthony because it contained the specialty sausage and was also a white pizza.

In the first bite, I knew that the crust was special. The style of the pizza isn't quite VPN - I'd say it's more of an Americanized version of VPN, which made the experience much more enjoyable. Moreover the flavor of the Regina sausage really stood out. It had a nice complex flavor of spice mixed into the pork sausage that made the flavors of the St Anthony special. 

Conclusion

While I haven't tried the best Chicago and New York pizzas to declare a winner of the best style of pizza in the US, if Boston Pizza is in the style of Regina, it will be hard to beat. The pizza had all the characteristics I enjoy of the VPN style pizzas, but were brought up a notch. Keeping in mind that Regina is a completely casual style restaurant, it was definitely one of the better pizzas I've had in my life.

Regina Pizzeria gets a bit award for the great tasting brick oven pizzas.