Yes, always, more pizza! There are so many pizzerias in Buenos Aires that it would be near impossible for one person to visit them all. Okay, maybe not quite, but the city records somewhere north of 1200 dedicated pizzerias licensed, serving up more than 14 million pizzas a year to its 3 million inhabitants. I’m clearly consuming at least my fair share. And that doesn’t include all the other restaurants that also offer pizza on their menus. Nor all the pizzas in the surrounding metropolitan area – numbering at least as many as in the city proper.

Fuego, Pizzas del Mundo, Gurruchaga 1632, Palermo – Taking over the space vacated during the pandemic by the vegetarian spot, La Esquina de las Flores, comes this new pizzeria offering up, according to their website and social media, “the only place in the world where you can try every style of pizza”. Quite the claim, as, they’re only offering up pizzas two Argentine styles, two Italian styles, and three American styles. That’s a rather small subset, albeit some important ones, of the world of pizzas, limited to just three countries’ versions, and only some of the versions from each. Even if you just took local pizzas, they only offer two of the three classics, al molde and a la piedra, but not a la parrilla. And US pizzas range far and wide beyond New York, Chicago, and Detroit, as do Italian ones beyond Roman and Neapolitan.

But let’s set aside the hyperbolic claim and take a look at the place. Spacious, airy, and comfortable. Attentive service, and all props to our waitress, who picked up on our origins around Detroit and Chicago and passed the word to the owner, who popped over later to hear our thoughts.

Only a single pizza is offered up under the Detroit section. Now, I grew up around Detroit pizza, and know it well. This is on the right track. It’s cooked in a deep cast iron rectangle. It’s got lots of melted cheese on it, including a crispy crust of cheese around the edge, though overall it could be better browned. It’s got that slightly sweet tomato sauce, and decent quality pepperoni, but they’re all in the wrong order – a Detroit pie has the toppings directly on the dough, then the cheese, then stripes of the sauce atop. And being on the right track isn’t the same as arriving at the finish line. The crust was not much over 1/4″ thick, instead of being a deep-dish one. One of the things you have to do with Detroit style pizza is leave the dough to rise in the pans, well before someone orders one – usually at least a couple of hours. This was a thin, dense crust instead of thick and light. And the cheese was just wrong. It was still a really tasty pizza, but Detroit pizza isn’t made with mozzarella sprinkled with parmesan. It’s brick cheese, somewhat like a white cheddar in flavor. Some places mix it with mozzarella, and that’s acceptable, but that tangy flavor of brick is key to the style. Here, as the owner noted, the cheese doesn’t exist. And, he even knew, as we talked, that white cheddar mixed with the mozzarella would be closer but had decided not to use it. I’m not clear why he thought salty parmesan would do the trick. (1700 pesos, or roughly $14 at official exchange rate.)

He wanted us to try something else, and so we left the choice of one of his New York slices in his hands. I’m not sure I’d have picked the sausage, olive, and… corn pizza as representative of New York style, but so be it. Interestingly, I had issues with the same two things here – the crust and the cheese. The biggest problem was that it was undercooked. The dough wasn’t even a little browned underneath – just a bit along the outside edge – so it was floppy and tasted slightly raw. Too much mozzarella for NY style and not browned like a proper slice. A tiramisu, also sent by him, was okay – lacking in the cookie part of the dish and tasting mostly of whipped cream and chocolate.

A friend had gone the night before and tried place. He’s from Chicago, and opined, “I went last night. I had the Roman margherita and I didn’t like the cheese and the sauce was too sweet. I also had the Chicago and the crust was way off. The cheese was better, but it had the same sauce. I wasn’t impressed enough to go back.”

I think the place has potential, but it hasn’t arrived where it needs to be. I’m only one voice, but hoping the owner ups his game and gives us some real Detroit, Chicago, New York, Rome, etc. pizzas.

El Correntino, Marcelo T. de Alvear 997, Retiro – Back on the list of “best neighborhood pizzerias“. This is a small, mostly takeout spot. They do have half a dozen counter seats. Service is a bit perfunctory. They don’t provide a menu with prices, just a list above the counter of everything they offer. And they don’t exactly take your order. They shove a piece of paper at you and tell you to write down what you want. I had to ask which pizzas were available by the slice, which was met with a roll of the eyes and a quick recitation of the few that were. Reviews of this place regularly tout two things – their beef empanadas and their fugazzeta rellena. So I knew those were on the order, plus I added in my favorite test case, the calabresa.

The empanada is quite good. While the filling is tasty – nice chunks of beef with onion and tomato in a well-seasoned gravy, what stood out was the masa. The crust was so light and flaky it was almost like a thin layer of croissant dough that crackled as I bit into it (150 pesos, $1.25).

The fugazzeta rellena is also very good (330 pesos, $2.75). Nice crust, a thin layer of ham and cheese sandwiched inside, and a generous mound of very thinly sliced sweet onions, well browned, atop. The calabresa was decent (150 pesos, $1.25). It still has a very good crust, but I found the tomato sauce to be way too sweet. The sausage used was nice and garlicky, which I did like. It could have used something more than a couple of small pieces of bell pepper atop. Mostly, I just wasn’t fond of the sauce.

Overall, not bad, particularly the touted empanada and fugazzetta rellena.

Mi Tío, Estados Unidos 389, San Telmo – This one wasn’t planned, nor on my list. I was just visiting with a friend in San Telmo for lunch, and this place is basically across the street from his house, and he didn’t feel like walking any further than that. The pizzeria is a “workers’ cooperative”, an interesting sort of business set-up here where if an owner of a business is basically going bankrupt, hasn’t paid his taxes and fees, and is going to shut down the business, the employees can step in, take over and resolve the debts, and become the cooperative owners of the business. In cases where the owner is likely to lose more money by shutting down and selling off assets than simply walking away from it all, this can be a “win-win” for everyone.

Reviews out there didn’t suggest any particular favorites of locals, other than a few folk who liked the fugazzeta rellena. So, I went with a piece of that and a slice of calabresa (200 and 180 pesos, respectively, $1.65 and $1.50). Both kind of disappointing. The crust is the best part, it’s actually pretty decent. But the filling on the former was missing the promised ham, having just cheese, and a scanty scattering of onions atop just left it without a lot of flavor. The latter slice, the sauce is way too sweet, and the sausage used was fairly bland. Nothing bad, just all around lacking in much flavor.

La Simona Salteñita, Francisco Acuña de Figueroa 1317, Palermo – Another unplanned visit, just half a block from my doctor’s office on a day when I needed to grab something quickly before an appointment. Primarily an empanada kitchen, and their empanadas not only look good, but people were kind of streaming in and out buying them to go. I thought about just getting a few empanadas, but decided to get in one more pizza spot for this post. They offer individual sized pizzas (roughly 10″ diameter), and I ordered up my usual favorite, a calabresa (490 pesos, $$4.05).

I love when little hole-in-the-wall joints have really good food, and this pizza is no exception. Great crust, good quality cheese, a nice spicy longaniza style sausage, and the whole thing liberally seasoned with oregano and… chili flakes! Lots of chili flakes, in fact. Really quite good and I’d happily go back for another, but I think next time, I have to try their empanadas!