It’s only fair, after so many recent looks at the new wave of pizzerias, either Neapolitan style, or “artisanal” versions of either Argentine or Italian or New York or… style, that I offer some attention back on the local approach to pizza. Now, I’ve written both pros and cons over the years – early on, I was less than enamored with pizzas heavy on cheese and light on sauce, and often with various rules about what one could top them with and how they were to be cut. I’ve even had people explain pizza to me (see Banchero). But over the years, I’ve come to accept Argentine pizza in its own right, and found many that I enjoy thoroughly.
I mentioned in a recent musing post about someone asking the question on Twitter about people’s personal favorite Argentine pizza places in and around the city, places where they keep going back to, for a combination of the quality, price, service, and ambiance. I marked off the list of people’s responses, regardless of who they were, unless they were obviously joking around (a couple, here and there, proposed some of the well-known worst chain spots in town), and it added to my map of places to try. After all, the 92 Bus Pizza Trek long ago terminated, and one does need goals in life.
La Nueva Güimpi, Jerónimo Salguero 1712, Palermo – A short, half hour walk from home, nice to stretch my legs both directions. The place has a bit of a history. It was part of a 15-store chain, simply called Güimpi, for around forty years, starting off in the late 70s. In 2015, the owner decided to retire, and he sold some of the locations, many of them to employees who’d been with him for years. And he simply closed others. For some reason, he kept this location open (I think it was the original), but just let it run-down, and in September of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the employees had had enough, and revolted. They took over the space – there’s a whole thing here in Argentina, a process that somehow or other allows employees to take over poorly run businesses in certain circumstances, that I don’t understand at all. In December, they reopened with the new name, owned and run by the ex-employees.
A fairly extensive menu, offering up eighteen different kinds of empanadas and nearly three dozen pizza combinations. The pizzas are available in large, small, or by the portion. It’s unusual that a place that offers portions here offers everything on their menu as a portion, but these guys do. They aren’t playing around. They do have mixed reviews online, so I approached the place with a bit of trepidation. I ordered up a slice of Calabresa and one of the Fugazzeta Rellena, and left the choice of a third slice in the hands of the pizzeros – they picked a classic Naplitana.
I really like the crust. It’s got a lovely flavor, almost buttery, and a crunch and notes that make me think they might mix cornmeal into the dough, like a Chicago style crust. Unfortunately, I wasn’t enamored of the toppings. While the mozzarella on each slice was fine, they use a decent quality one, it was kind of rubbery (and they use a lot – the owner asserts 750gm, about a pound and a half, per pizza) – almost like it had been heated, and reheated, more than a couple of times. The ham and bell pepper were fine, the mildly spicy sausage had good flavor, but it was thick cut and had been cooked to the texture of leather before being place atop the pie. I like the idea of a mix of just lightly cooked and crispy onions for the fugazzeta, and while those were delicous, the rellena, the cheesy, bechamel (maybe?) filling was stodgy.
I kind of have the feeling that if you order a whole pie, made and baked, right out of the oven, this place might be really good, but it seems like for the portions, they use slices of plain pizza that have been sitting around way, way too long, reheat them, and just throw some parcooked toppings on them. Perhaps it would be worth a return and trying a whole pie made to order. I really did like that crust.
Croxi, Conde 2020, Belgrano – This one had only gotten one mention in the responses, but I happened to be a couple of blocks away from dropping something off at one of the only two operating Fedex offices here (a tedious experience, as they’re only allowing one customer inside at a time, and they won’t let you have an envelope, pack, box, or even form to fill out, while waiting, so each person has to go through everything while at the counter in front of the clerk). This place has got a lot of reviews, both pro and con, though my favorite falls right in the middle, and translates roughly as “you get used to it, with time”. It’s clearly popular with the local St. Brendan’s College (high school) students, as there had to be about 3-4 dozen of them inside getting takeout orders, and more scattered around the plaza in front of the place already eating. It is just around the block from the school. Thankfully, I got there after they’d flooded in, and most of them were on their way within a few minutes, or the wait might have been interminable.
The place has been around for 38 years now, and seems to be referred to in various media as the “mythical” Croxi, though no one seems to have specified what the myth is, other than a sort of stab at, what one of my closest friends would call “cheap and cheerful”. It has been noted as one of the city’s “patrimonial” pizzerias, which seems a bit surprising for a place that’s less than four decades old, as many of the places that get patrimonial status have been around since the early 1900s.
No particular recommendations stood out, they only offered plain pizza by the slice, so I decided to just get a small Calabresa. Here, we had the virtual reverse of the place above. I hated the crust. It was bland and had a weird, chewy texture to it that would make a New York bagel seem delicate. On the other hand, the sauce was excellent, the spicy sausage was absolutely delicious, the roasted peppers were great, the olives were pitted, and, instead of a dusting of dried out oregano from a packet, it’s liberally coated with a mix of fresh, finely chopped herbs. Give me the crust from above and the toppings from this place, and we might come up with one of the best Argentine pizza spots in town.
El Chiste, Moreno 467, Monserrat – The name means “the joke”, and apparently there’s some sort of hidden joke that people talk about online and search for when they’re in this hole in the wall pizzeria. I couldn’t actually find any of the stories about this joke, just lots of people announcing in various places that they’d finally found it. It’s a lunch hangout for employees of the main office of AFIP, Argentina’s version of the IRS, as well as students from the UADE, a local university, both located within a block or so. About the most interesting story I could find on the spot is that one of the reasons the students like it is that they get some sort of meal card as part of their room and board, which they can use at any restaurant within three and a half blocks of the university for lunch and they have to use it between 12-3pm – anything outside those parameters and the card won’t function. El Chiste charges exactly whatever the current amount per day is for the students for a lunch promo, and changes it as the university changes the amount over the years.
The place has the look of somewhere that’s been around awhile. I couldn’t find a date of opening but I’m guessing it’s in line with the previous two spots, probably around 40 years. It appears like somewhere that’s going to be either a real find, or a real, well, joke. The tables are so packed together, and it was so jammed with people eating, that I decided I wasn’t comfortable staying there to eat, given where things are pandemic-wise, so I picked three slices from what was fresh out of the oven (as opposed to Güimpi, the turn over volume here is so fast, that they’re dishing out slices of various pizzas as fast as they come out of the ovens in the back). So I grabbed one plain, one “marinara” (sauce, cheese, tomato slices), and one white slice with spinach.
As at Croxi, I really liked all the toppings. They’re fresh, flavorful, well seasoned, and beautifully cooked. But… I didn’t care for this crust either, in the opposite direction. It’s bland and soft and puffy and squishy, kind of like a double thick slice of Wonder Bread. You could call it a blank canvas, but who wants to eat a blank canvas? So I’m left with putting this spot somewhere in the middle – great toppings, but a crust that just doesn’t do it for me.
So, how to sum up this round? None of them wowed me, but I think I can understand why people who grew up in the neighborhoods would think of them as their favorite spot. All three had great service, really nice people, and treat their customers like a part of the place, even for someone who’d never been to one of them, like myself. All three were very reasonably priced, El Chiste particularly. All have a comfortable, we’ve been here awhile and we know what we’re doing, kind of vibe. And none of them are serving up pizzas that are inedible, they’re just kind of okay to good, and no more than that. Would I send someone to any one of the places as a “you’ve got to check this one out”? No. But if someone lived nearby and asked me if I knew of a decent place to grab a pizza, I’d probably say, yeah, actually, there’s this spot where… what was the phrase above?… “you get used to it, with time”.
