I love pizza. Particularly good pizza. Recently, we’ve been on an accidental pizza tour, hunting down both popular and lesser known places in search of, as The Newlywed Neighbor puts it, that TDF (to die for) slice. This past Saturday afternoon, our search took us to Grimaldi’s in Hoboken.
A place pretty well known in the Tri-State area, Grimaldi’s has two locations, one in Hoboken and one in Brooklyn, New York. I’m glad I checked their hours before we headed off on our adventure because they don’t open until 2 pm on Saturday – go figure.
We lucked out and found parking right across the street and headed inside. As soon as you pull open the door, you are hit instantly with the smell of fresh, coal-fired brick oven pizza. The perfect way to start your visit. It’s a small place, nothing fancy, with the requisite old school red and white checkered tablecloths at every spot. Nothing says Italian like those tablecloths. We made our way to a table on the upper level so Nicholas Nick (he goes by Nick now, thankyouverymuch) could watch the guy make our pizza (half cheese, half garlic and sausage).
The menu is very simple and they focus on what they’re known for … good pizza. While they do have three pasta dishes available, there is not a lot of extra going on here, and that’s ok. Really, that’s the way it should be. You know, it’s like when McDonald’s made their brief and disastrous foray into making pizza years ago … stick with what you know.
I can’t explain how good the pizza was … but trust me, it was. Totally worth the visit. The marinara sauce was achingly fresh, with the smell of fresh strips of basil just wafting up to your nose as you took a bite. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten pizza quite that fast, right down to the very last speck of coal-smoked crust. Nick ate three (THREE!) slices on his own. I’ve never seen him eat anywhere near that much pizza in one sitting, let alone that fast, and these were fairly large slices to boot….