New Jersey likes to bill itself as the pizza capital of America. Then, again, so does New York, Chicago and New Haven. In the latter case, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont made that official (at least as far as his state’s pizza lovers are concerned) in a proclamation earlier this month.
NJ.com has asserted Jersey’s nationwide pizza superiority before, but more recently, food writers Pete Genovese and Jeremy Schneider took it one step further. The self-described “pizza savants” now say New Jersey is also the “crazy pizza capital of the nation.”
It’s highly debatable, of course, but they’ve got some pretty good evidence to back up their claim.
Related: 5 weird, wonderful pizzas from Mike Hauke of Tony Boloney’s
After all, New Jersey is home toTony Boloney’s, owned by Mike Hauke, one of the industry’s most adventurous pizzaiolos. Other food writers have named that four-store brand’s Taco Taco Taco pizza the craziest pizza in America, so Genovese and Schneider looked elsewhere on Tony Boloney’s menu for an item that’s just as nutty. Their choice: the Swine Fighter, featuring a vodka-sauce base and topped with a seemingly impossible quantity of extra-crispy double-baked pepperoni slices, dry aged and smoked mozzarella and something called “roni-grease ranch.”
We think Genovese and Schneider might have missed Hauke’s Flaming Cowboy pizza, once featured in Nicole Russell’s First We Feast show, Pizza Wars. It was topped with braised short ribs, grilled onions, a blend of scamorta and dry, aged, low-moisture mozz, and rib bones. Yes, that’s right. Actual rib bones. Then Hauke set the whole blamed thing on fire! But the Flaming Cowboy does not appear on Tony Boloney’s website menu, so it probably doesn’t count.
At Zi Zia Pizzeria & Trattoriain Bloomfield, Genovese and Schneider zeroed in on a pie called Inferno, made with fried calamari, mozz and a marinara sauce. But weirder, perhaps, is the Fat Cat Pizza from Gara’s Pizza in Lopatcong; it’s topped with French fries, ketchup, mayonnaise, mozzarella, provolone and steak.
Customers can also get French fries plus chicken tenders on a pie offered by Ferazzoli’s Italian Kitchen in North Arlington and Rutherford.
Meanwhile, Brothers Restaurant in Red Bank takes you out to the ballgame with the Italian Hot Dog pizza, featuring hot dog meat, peppers, onions and potatoes.
But our favorite for the craziest pizza in New Jersey is the Triple Threat + Dog Father Pizza from Joe’s Rotisseria in Roselle Park. That’s simply because the crust itself is made of hot dog meat. Even Tony Boloney’s hasn’t gone that far—we don’t think.
Click here to check out NJ.com’s complete list of the craziest pizzas in New Jersey.
