Living in a Pie-less country

October 15, 2018 SouthAmerica

Peru is not known for its pizzas. Far from it. For the last 20 years Pizza Hut has consistently been the best pizza one can find in the entire country. South America in general is pizza poor. And in Peru, in tourist popular Huaraz at the base of the Cordillera Blanca, a pizza restaurant there actually puts a fried egg in the middle of their pies. Yes, lots of places make them like that. In Bolivia they are crazy for pizza, but they are all whimpy. Plus the locals like to drown this tortilla-thin pies in mayonnaise. Yuk! While living in Santiago de Chile for two years, the best pie there was from Domino’s pizza, which in the USA I would rank pretty dang low. I mean come on, here is an entire country with the nationals thinking one must eat pizza with a fork and knife! Now having spent a great amount of time in Lima it was time to determine if we were to be condemned to Pizza Hut for the duration (it could be worse), or was there some pizza pie out there?

When searching for a good pizza in Lima, first thing you do is thrown out all the TripAdvisor posts and rankings, those all come from tourists who have no bloody clue what is quality, and many of the scores come from people living in other countries that have mediocre pizza to begin with. Lonely Planet, Rough Guide? Forget them; these have pie-hack writers inclined to order veggie pies. Nope, they can keep their bark chips. They would have you believe salad spread across a piece of dried quinoa toast is a pizza!

The rule of thumb is: a pizza in order to be considered a pizza must have pepperoni. And therein lies the difficulty of finding real pizzas in Peru, the most important ingredient is not sold in many stores within the country. We know after having tried several times making pizzas at home, and before up in Huancayo, it was a huge task trying to source pepperoni and fresh mozzarella cheese. Peru is slowly coming along, and in Cusco, at the Inkantu restaurant, they used to make a wood oven-baked pizza with alpaca pepperoni. Not too shabby, but the crust was not up to par, the cheese really was “mas o menos” very so so. And it just did not come together. This is probably why it is no longer on their menu.

To make matters worse for decades in the Miraflores neighborhood, specifically across from Parque Kennedy is the old Calle de las Pizzas. A pedestrian alley lined up with bricks of two-to three-storied shack like constructed buildings, with pushy waiters selling crappy pizzas, with watery beer. We tried it several times, but stopped trying years ago. Furthermore, Calle de las Pizzas is the well-recognized area for prostitutes to hang out. You can go to a variety of Italian restaurants in Lima and order pizza there, and these are flat bread foundation, sprinkled lightly with toppings, and lacking flavor. This is the curse of the Peruvian pizza vendors, they are cheap on ingredients. If there is a meat topping, it will be dappled across the pie in the most sparing way. Once I saw a pie here that had four small discs of salami on it. Pitiful. Most places try to pass off thin-sliced ham as the meat topping, which is also weak and flavorless as far as pizzas go.

Another cultural distinction found in Peru is that they believe that pizza condiments consists of paprika and oregano. I have rarely seen crushed red pepper or parmesan cheese being served in Peru, and the country is that much poorer for it.

Now going into this exercise of facing down to what will likely be many disappointments, and having to be brutally honest with how desperate it is here in Peru I started my quest. I began with some inside knowledge from expats that have lived long whiles in the confounding massively overpopulated hyper-arid city of Lima. I mean this is a town where you are not sure which will win out first; being covered by dust that never is washed away by rain or being coated in mildew from the perpetual humidity. The word from the mostly reliable source, had two recommendations: Spizza in San Isidro. And La Piccolina at the corner of Simon Salguero with La Merced in south Surco. But to up the stakes of the search, we were hoping to find five different alternatives to Pizza Hut.

Let us begin by ranking the pizza quality according to the number of awarded pepperonis, going from 0 to 5 (Pizza Hut arbitrarily scores at 3 pepperonis). In comparison to the most excellent tasty pizza places in the USA. All of which in this ranking system would score 10 pepperonis! (Yes, off the charts from the 0-5 for South America.) We have; Pizza Port in Ocean Beach, California, Woodstock’s in Davis, California, JJ’s Pie Company in Reno, Nevada, Woody’s Woodfired Pizza in Golden, Colorado, and Hops and Pie in Denver, Colorado. Of course there are many more that could be listed.

In South America, no place approaches this level of mastery over the pie. The closest would be the pizzas served at the Bogota Beer Company at Parque 93 in Colombia (note: not all of these franchises under the same name serve pizza). The one at Parque 93 comes in with a score of 5 pepperonis, which means I would rather have their pie over that of Pizza Hut. It also helps that they have great variety of their own beers and play some solid rock and alternative music. There is one place in Peru that makes beer and serves pizza, this is the Barranco Beer Company in Lima, but their pies score a mere 1 and the beer needs a lot of improvement. Now let’s review the five new contenders in Lima (and this is a city of 10 million people, there are lots of other places around the city serving low quality things that do not deserve to be called pizza, the cheese and ham on tortillas certainly do not qualify).

2.75 Pepperonis

Spizza, SE Miraflores/Aurora: on Luis Arias Schereiber 147, a couple blocks north of Avenida Alfredo Benavides. They have another location in San Isidro. So the ambiance was fine, including a back patio area that would be excellent on a nicer day and with some friends or family. They are getting ranked because they managed better quality “pizza” but they did not have anything with true pepperoni, so this will downgrade their score. I had the Caronte pizza with salami picante. The crust was way thin, wood fired oven made it crispy. I prefer thicker pies. But as tortillas go this one was alright. The sauce was okay, could have been better. The cheese, the same, was just okay. Most of the set combos were of the tutti fruity variety; no, I do not want crushed cucumber or pears on my pizza! Most of the meat was centered around prosciutto, which is better than the typical Peruvian straight processed sandwich ham slices. The music played in the restaurant was crappy 80s hit songs off of the pop charts, so it all deeply sucked. On the plus side they did incredibly have crushed red pepper in shaker. For a score- I give them a 2.75 pepperoni, a hair below Pizza Hut. Yes, I would go back to Spizza for lack of options in Lima, but would favor Pizza Hut over their pies.

1.75 Pepperonis

La Piccolina, at Av. La Encalada 895 in Santiago de Surco. It is popular with middle class locals that have not yet developed a comparison basis for quality. I found their pizza to have the following characteristics; flat pizza, flat flavour, and strange pepperoni with flat tasting. The sauce a bland flat, unnoticeable cheese, and it is the lowest ranked in this survey. The venue is nice enough, and they serve a wide variety of Italian food. Therein is the problem of not respecting the pizza, and coming up with a better product. The only plus is that they serve grated parmesan cheese that all other establishments in Lima have not heard of yet. Unfortunately, they have four restaurants in Lima spreading the lowest-ranked pizza found in this survey.

2.0 Pepperonis

Popolo pizza, Miraflores: tucked away in a corner basement facing a small open patio, this hole in the wall place does alright with no frills but pleasant simple patio dining. They do have pepperoni, which they use sparingly. Their score is lower by only having a limited selection of soda drinks and no cerveza. They deliver too. The crust was on the thin side and floppy. The cheese was not spectacular, or in other words, they used a cheap variety. The sauce is lacking in flavour, and was somewhat orange-ish in color. The price is cheap. They get a 2.0 pepperoni score, a full one pepperoni below Pizza Hut.

3.0 Pepperonis

Morelia Pizza a la Parrilla – Pastas: located on the southeast corner of the intersection between 2 de Mayo and Calle Atahualpa, is a hipster joint de la moda, glamazon glitteratti copa de la vida, happening swank-box cement, iron tutti frutti, eat your pie by fork and knife, high-heel patrols, fast-set urban artisan, uber thin crust borderline vegan, wannabe pricy chillaxin Miraflores venue, garners 3 pepperonis…Thankfully they used more than that on their personal wafer-thick pizza. So thin that with a cup of wine it is like taking communion on Sunday. The sauce was plentiful and robust. The grilled pizzas are the thinnest I have ever seen. Square shaped and served on a square wood cutting board, credit points for presentation. These ultra-thin pizzas make this place a favourite amongst the chicas where they can indulge and have a glass of wine too and not worry about tossing all those hours at the gym away. The bonus is they at least provide crushed red pepper. The pizza tasted good but cannot substitute a university pizzeria in the states. Watch the time- they close between 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. I have returned to Morelia several times, but still I prefer Pizza Hut for a better pie.

2.35 Pepperonis

Mozza Pizza, Miraflores: Calle San Martin, about a block and half south of Parque Kennedy. The place ranks a bit higher than Pizza Hut for being in a historic building with a high ceiling and diagonally cropped corner building front. While placing the order the waiter actually asked thin or thick crust, which was a first for a restaurant outside of Pizza Hut. Now to the gory details; the pepperoni on the pie means it qualifies as a pizza, but it had an off flavour, however, they did not skimp on this topping. The cheese was less than ordinary. The pizza definitely lacked enough tomato sauce. The crust was crisp and decent though still ranked below Pizza Hut’s “ale crust.” It is unsatisfactory that I have to reference a fast food pizza chain for quality, but this is Peru.

The end result- no place brings a solid respectable pizza combined with craft beer in a meaningful way in Lima. Nobody in Peru scores a 5! None of these places have decent music to go along with the pie. We are actually left with Pizza Hut being the most frequented because Peruvians can’t make pizza. And if you think this is rough, wait until our upcoming post about finding Mexican food in Peru: Hay Carambas!