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by Kick Point

Edmonton Pizza Reviewed By Judgemental Digital Marketers

An slice of pepperoni pizza between two scorecards, one reading 16/20 and the other reading 12/20

Seven pizzas, each from a different Edmonton pizza business were evaluated on August 23rd, 2019 at the Kick Point Pizza Penthouse. There were eight participants. Each individual participant was a self-proclaimed pizza expert.

On July 31st, 2019, Laura invited us to an event that would change our lives.

Laura's message in slack reads CHECK UR INBOXES FOR A FUN PLAN

Earlier that day a few people were discussing what makes pizza good pizza. Is it sauce? Cheese? Ratios? And where does nostalgia factor in?

Jen went to a meeting and came back an hour later and was shocked to hear the conversation was still raging on. Everyone claimed that the conversation had in fact just picked up again, but either way, it led us to this:

A calendar event for First Annual KP Potluck Pizza Party, Friday, August 23 from 12 til 1:30pm

We’re located above the Boston Pizza on Jasper Ave in Edmonton, so every day can be a pizza party at Kick Point. We’ve eaten a lot of Boston Pizza. A lot. There have been many double pepperoni pizzas ordered and countless cactus cuts have been consumed. We don’t even have to go outside! We have a staircase that opens into the restaurant entrance.

But there is so much more pizza in Edmonton! So we had a pizza party and everyone on the team ordered a pizza from their favourite place to decide which pizza would win the title of “Best Pizza We Ate Today”.

The Pizza Event's agenda: 1. Everyone choose a pizza place and sign up here. First come first serve! 2. Pick up the pizza or have it delivered here for noon on August 23rd. 3. We eat the pizzas! 4. We finally decide which pizza reigns supreme

We ordered pizza from:

Everyone had a scorecard for each pizza and rated it based on cheese, sauce, base, and toppings for a total of 20 possible points.

Pizza scorecard, with score options for cheese, sauce, base, toppings, and thoughts, as well as a score out of 20

LOVEPIZZA

Pizza: Donair Pizza
Nickname: “The Downtown Lunch”
Overall Score: 14/20

LOVEPIZZA is a place we frequent for lunch because of its close proximity to our office. We went there for a team lunch on Pi Day when they offered margherita pizzas for $3.14. Such a perfect promo! The donair pizza was their feature pizza in August and came topped with sweet sauce, donair beef, mozzarella cheese, white onion, and fresh tomato.

Love pizza box opening to show a long, rectangle pizza

Our Thoughts:
I was desperate for more sauce.” –Jen
Love the sweet sauce and crusty-ish base.” –Firdous
Donair pizza is always good.” –Brittany

Tony’s Pizza

Pizza: Pizza Bianca
Nickname: “The Garlic Lover”
Overall Score: 17/20

Tony’s is known for their New York Style pizza — super thin and crispy crust cut into large slices. Most of us have had Tony’s Pizza before, so we knew they’d score high. The pizza bianca we ordered comes with mushrooms, garlic, mozzarella, Parmigiano, pecorino cheese, basil, and olive oil. This pizza got two 20/20 scores!

Tony's pizza box opening to show a large pizza

Our Thoughts:
Tony’s Pizza is the best.” –Dana
Love the smell of this pizza.” –Brittany
Flavour = awesome.” –Emma
Yes.” –Jen

Panini’s Italian Cucina

Pizza: Prosciutto Arugula
Nickname: “The Classic”
Overall Score: 15/20

Panini’s Italian Cucina offers a variety of Italian fare in addition to pizza, but we’re just here to judge their pizza. Our chosen pizza came with tomato sauce, mozzarella, fresh prosciutto, arugula, and balsamic reduction. If you love prosciutto you’ll love this pizza — it’s as simple as that.

Paninis pizza box opening to show a large pizza covered in arugula

Our Thoughts:
Nice sauce — a little sweet but not too much.” –Laura
Toppings were the winner of the day.” –Emma
Prosciutto + arugula = win.” –Brittany

Dallas Pizza

Pizza: Pepperoni & Pineapple w/ Fresh Tomatoes
Nickname: “The Small Town Pizza”
Overall Score: 17/20

Dallas Pizza is a favourite of Jen and Emma’s because it’s got that doughy crust, tons of cheese, thick pepperoni vibe going. Most of us agreed that this style reminded us of our own favourite small town pizza joints. Pepperoni and pineapple isn’t a combo most of us have had before and — with the exception of Dana — we loved it!

Dallas pizza box opening to show a large pizza

Our Thoughts:
Pineapple, gross.” –Dana (who doesn’t know any better and wouldn’t even try it despite purchasing pizza for everyone else to try that had both fish and blue cheese on it)
Made my heart feel like Friday. Which it is.” –Jen
“Golden joy.” –Emma
Yes, just yes!” –Liz
Pineapple. Yes. Pepperoni. Yes. All the cheese. Yes.” –Sarah

Ragazzi

Pizza: Pizza Ragazzi (capicollo, capers, mushrooms topped with mozzarella & bocconcini cheese)
Nickname: “This Is Not My Order”
Overall Score: 13/20

We are big fans of Ragazzi for their pizza and their pasta (Laura has regular dreams about the carbonara). They are consistent and awesome, but somehow we ended up with the wrong pizza. Jen opened the box at the office and exclaimed, “This is not my order!” We’re curious to see whether Ragazzi would have scored higher if we’d gotten what Jen had planned for us. She actually ordered The Deluxe (prosciutto, Italian sausage, lightly layered mushrooms, and fresh artichoke hearts).

Ragazzi pizza box opening to show a large pizza

Our Thoughts:
Too limpy of a pizza.” –Liz
Really, really delicious cheese.” –Laura
NOT WHAT I ORDERED.” –Jen

Artisti Pizzeria

Pizza: 4 Formaggi / Anchovy
Nickname: “The True Italian”
Overall Score: 13/20

Brittany is a big Artisti fan, but she is not a fan of anchovies or blue cheese. So when Dana brought in pizzas featuring both those ingredients, Brittany felt Artisti got sabotaged. Unfortunately most of us were inclined to agree and didn’t enjoy these as much as we might’ve. You can teach a person to fish but you can’t teach them to like it.

Artisti pizza box opening to show a large pizza

Our Thoughts:
Look. I like anchovies in stuff. Not on stuff. End of story.” –Jen
Not too salty, good distribution.” –Dana
That cheese though!” –Liz
The anchovies were a bit too salty for me.” –Laura

Update: Artisti Pizza is now closed.

LEVA Café

Pizza: Magherita
Nickname: “Darren’s Favourite”
Overall Score: 18/20

This was our winner and it almost didn’t even make it to the party. Darren from Whitespark gave us a hot tip to check out Leva after we talked about our pizza plans in our newsletter. We are so glad he did. This pizza knocked it out of the park! Everyone loved it. Flavourful and melty mozzarella, crispy but chewy crust… this was everything a pizza should be.

A slack conversation between Firdous (who says, quoting an email from Darren Shaw: There is no truly great pizza in Edmonton, but Leva is probably as close as it gets), Liz (who replies: Is anyone getting Leva?), and Brittany (who says: no), and Liz again (who adds: Let's invite Darren and tell him to bring it)

Thanks, Darren… and sorry we didn’t invite you.

Leva pizza box opening to display a margherita pizza

Our Thoughts:
Plain Jane and I like it.” –Sarah
Really good cheese and delicious sauce!!” –Laura
Wow.” –Liz
I can always eat this.” –Firdous

Awards

That was a lot of pizza! We were stuffed, to say the least. Despite being in a pizza coma, we managed to decide upon a few awards.

Best Pizza We Ate Today

We saved the best for last — LEVA Café was the winner with 18/20 points! (However, since we’re digital marketers we have to point out that they don’t have a great online presence and no website. They just have a Facebook page and they aren’t on Instagram, which we think is a great platform for any restaurant business!)

Second place was a tie between Dallas Pizza and Tony’s Pizza, but both win for different reasons. Dallas is great for that nostalgic small town pizza with a thick layer of cheese and generous toppings, while Tony’s is just a great overall slice.

Best Pizza Box

The award for best box goes to LOVEPIZZA. We love their sleek white boxes with their bold logo. Almost every other pizza place relies on a plain white box — they need to step up their branding game!

Love Pizza boxes with five bottles of pop
LOVEPIZZA's awesome rectangular boxes. (Photo taken from the LOVEPIZZA website.)

Best Online Presence

Best online presence was a tie between Artisti and LOVEPIZZA.

LOVEPIZZA kills it on social media, with an active Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram presence. They take advantage of their super instagrammable product by consistently posting delicious looking shots. They also responded to our tweet with a tasteful pun. 10/10, would @ mention again.

A tweet from Kick Point that says

Artisti’s website is clean and easy to navigate. It’s also got some personality and warmth. It looks like how a good pizzeria should look.

Our Pizza Dreams Came True

Our first annual pizza party was a huge success! We had a ton of fun and many of us walked away with new places to hit up when pizza cravings hit.

You tell us: where should we try pizza from next time? Did we miss the best slice in Edmonton?

Comments

Andy Kuipers profile picture Andy Kuiper says:

Next testing party, my suggestion is:

Favoloso Italian Cafe and Pizzeria

13240 118 Ave NW, Edmonton
(780) 454-6329

I like their pizza 🙂

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