The Ninja takes on Santucci’s Original Square Pie
Hello pizza fanatics and welcome to the August edition of the East Falls Pizza Review. There was no July edition because the Ninja was on vacation for the summer in the south of Italy indulging in all of the amazing pizza the region had to offer. Just kidding, he was sweating away in his living room with no air conditioning while consuming mass quantities of Chinese fried rice but that’s a story for another column.
It was a dark time, and the passing of Anthony Bourdain did not make things any easier. If we can all be serious for a second, there would be no Pizza Ninja if there was no Anthony Bourdain. Rest in Pizza, Anthony, you will be missed.
For this month, the Ninja tried pizza from a shop that has quite a fanbase and following throughout Philadelphia, and at one point had a shop in Manayunk. One of the Ninja’s personal favorites, Santucci’s Square Pie. The Santucci’s Manayunk shop closed down some time ago, but guess what, they are back and better than ever with an all new location on Ridge Avenue in Roxborough!
The Ordering Experience (3.5 out of 5)
The process of ordering through Santuccis is frought with pitfalls. For one, Santuccis is CASH ONLY. So if you’re ordering delivery make sure you hit that ATM first. Santucci’s has an ATM on site in their new restaurant for pickup orders.
Santucci’s has indicated that one way around this is to order online via their website, where they will accept credit card:
The problem here? While you CAN order online and indeed pay with a credit card, Santucci’s has still not updated their system to allow orders from the East Falls area (an issue they acknowledge they are actively attempting to resolve). So to recap, your options are:
- Order over the phone and pay cash
- Order online and pay credit, but then you won’t get your pizza anyway because the website does not let you complete the order.
The Ninja wasted precious pizza minutes getting to the bottom of this before finally going with a phone order and quickly running down the street to an ATM on Midvale.
Pizza was ordered at 6:15 after a conversation about the web issue and delivery time was quoted as ‘with in the hour’. To the ninja’s delight, it arrived at 6:38pm, 23 minutes later!
The Pizza Experience
Presentation (4.75 out of 5)
The box is understated, yet classy. It bears the Santucci logo, and overall I really like the color and design of the packaging. It’s a rectangle, smaller in size, but hefty in weight. Lets take a look at the pizza inside:
Oh you didn’t know about Santucci’s? Not only is it a square pizza, it’s a square pizza that does sauce on top, cheese on the bottom. Similiar in construction to previously reviewed Franzones. Not your typical pizza construction by any means.
The crust has a beautiful color underneath and throughout.
Cheese (4.5 out of 5)
Creamy, milky cheese. Surprisingly the cheese has a nice snap to it when you bite in considering it’s sandwiched between the sauce and the crust. There is more cheese than there is sauce when you take a look at the cheese/crust/sauce ratios.
Sauce (4.75 out of 5)
This sauce seems to have a little bit of everything. It’s zesty, it’s tangy, it’s slightly briney all at once, and even sweet. When a shop puts the sauce front and center on top of the cheese, you know it’s going to be a winner.
Crust (4.75 out of 5)
Is this a perfect crust? Could be. It has a crisp exterior that gives way to a warm chewy interior once you start to eat your way through the slice. Slightly buttery, this is a real satisfying pizza experience when pared with the sauce and cheese.
Conclusion (4.45 out of 5)
Best square pizza? Best square pizza with sauce on top? Who is to really say at the end of the day. Santucci’s offers a unique pizza experience, certainly worth trying if you’d like something one of a kind and still actually pay for things with cash.
And now your August Pizza Moment of Zen
The Santucci’s in Roxborough is not the same as the Santucci’s in Manayunk. That was Santucci Brothers. Different branch of the same family but not the same business.