Roberta's

We've wanted to go to Roberta's for a while now. A lot of people say they have some of the best pizzas in the city, but they've also been known for some long waits. We didn't really want to trek out to Bushwick just to wait in a long line to get some pizza. They've also had some spots at the outdoor markets but whenever we went by, the lines were always kind of long with not much seating. Lucky for us, a branch of Roberta's opened up in the Urbanspace Vanderbilt food hall, and on the weekends, it's much less crowded, so it was pretty easy to get over there to try some pizza with no wait.

We decided to get 2 large pizzas, even though it was a little bit late and we had dinner plans. I was really hungry and didn't think the large (12 inches) would be that much bigger than the small pizza (8 inches). We finished it all, but we ended up super full after dinner.

The first pizza we got was called the bee sting ($17 for the large), which came with tomato, mozzarella, soppressata, chili flakes, chili oil, and honey. Between the 2 pies, A preferred this one, because he liked the spiciness of the soppressata, combined with the subtle sweetness of the drizzled honey and the basil. I liked this one but I found some of the pieces of soppressata a little harder to bite through (A had no problems). Also, since the soppressata didn't cover the entire pie, you got quite a few bites without it, which weren't as good as the ones with it.

We also got the lil' stinker pizza ($15 for the large), which had tomato, mozzarella, parmigiano, double garlic, onion, and pepperoncini peppers. I liked this one better since I liked the garlic, onion, and pepper flavors a bit more, as well as the combination of the 2 cheeses, and also found these toppings more evenly spaced out on the pie. Each bite had a better chance of getting all the different flavors in one. That said, we both expected this one to have a much stronger garlic flavor since it was supposed to have double garlic. There were parts of the pizza where the garlic flavor really came through, but more where it did not.

One thing we really liked about both pizzas was the texture. Since they were wood-fired, there were charred spots throughout, and it just got that special flavor you can only get from a real pizza oven (which we can't replicate at home). The crust was nice and soft, and the red sauce on both was also really good. We really liked the pizzas and would definitely return, as there are a number of other varieties we want to try out. We're glad that there's a much closer location to us now so we don't have to head out to Bushwick and wait in line just to get some great pizza!