Tackling Tacconelli’s
There are some Philadelphia traditions that, after not taking part in for many years, start to seem like you will never experience. (Jenn, for instance, has never seen the Mummers Parade live.) For me, that was Tacconelli’s Pizza.
(pizza and pitchers of soda, aka everything you need for pizza happiness)
For the uninitiated, Tacconelli’s is a Port Richmond pizzeria that frequently shows up on local Best Pizza lists and bested Osteria in a national list from GQ (Tacconelli’s, #9; Osteria, #22.) But, there’s a catch. They only make a certain number of pies every day, so you have to call at the beginning of the day to reserve the dough balls you want to eat.
And that, it seems, was enough to put off most people I know. No one ever wanted to go! Or the people who said they wanted to go never wanted to say ahead of time when they wanted to go, and that just won’t work at Tacconelli’s.
But, I was showing Niki my places to try map, and she got very excited when she saw Tacconelli’s, because she had also been looking for someone to go with her for ages. (This basically made my day.) So, a date was selected, folks were rounded up, and a pizza outing was born.
We ordered a regular pie with pepperoni and mushrooms, a white pie with spinach, and a margherita, then tucked into a delicious salad that Niki brought while we waited. Three pies later, the verdict was in….
It is all about the white pizza at Tacconelli’s.
I don’t generally go for white pizza. They are loaded down with too much cheese (especially ricotta), and I just find them heavy and bland. Not this pie. It was lightly cheesy, very garlicky, and the spinach on top was just excellent. I even ate the leftover slices, which I almost never do, and they were still good 3 days later!
The crust is Tacconelli’s claim to fame, and it was definitely my preferred style — thin, crisp, brick oven baked. But it didn’t quite reach that level of transcendence that would have made the pepperoni pie worth writing home about.
Skip the margherita pie. Its sauce was just too smooth and sweet to have so little cheese.
For 5 people, we had 3 pies, and took home almost a whole pie. (We did have an excellent salad, though, so your mileage may vary.) If you go, skip the margherita, and find delight in the white — you won’t regret it.
Tacconelli’s Pizza
2604 E Somerset St
Philadelphia, PA 19134
(215) 425-4983 (call the morning you want to go to reserve your dough balls)
