Thank you to all of our Facebook followers who voted on the best pizza spot in the Capital Region. The top three favorites from the poll were Marino’s Flying Pizza, DeFazio’s Pizza and Kay’s Pizza. We decided the best way to equally rate each location was by using a cheese pizza as our barometer. We rated each spot by crust, sauce, cheese, and overall flavor.
One of our lucky social media followers will win a $100 gift card to our winning location, a $25 Lia gift card and a car detail worth $159. Keep reading to find out which pizza restaurant we liked best!
Marino’s Flying Pizza - Schenectady, NY - http://marinosflyingpizza.com/
Marino’s Flying Pizza is an intimate, casual dining, cash-only experience. They had such a friendly staff and were the only location we visited that offers pizza by the slice. Of the three locations we visited, this felt the most like an old school Italian pizza shop with its vinyl & wood booths and quiet atmosphere.
Marino’s pizza had a great cheese to sauce ratio. Out of the three options we tried their crust was on the thinner side. For those that enjoy thinner or NY-style crust, this is the pizza for you!
DeFazio’s Pizza - Troy, NY - https://defaziospizza.com/
DeFazios is a hole in the wall and off the beaten path of Troy. They are one of the more unique places we visited and offer several different types of crust options for any palate! They have traditional, garlic and herb, spicy red pepper, whole wheat, multigrain, and Brown’s brown pale ale dough. They also offer gluten-free (12” pies only) and vegan options for those diets. Currently they don’t have dining available inside during the summer, but instead offer outdoor patio dining instead.
DeFazio’s presented the best looking cheese pizza; this delectable pie’s blanket of tomato sauce was a good combo of sweet and acidic. The crust was thick and fluffy, and the underside was marked with patches of gritty carbon, a trademark tell of baking in a traditional brick oven. Yum! Overall, we agreed this pizza was a well-“rounded” indulgence.
Kay’s Pizza - Burden Lake, NY - https://kayspizza.com/welcome-to-kays-1
Kay’s Pizza is a lakeside restaurant that offers beautiful views of Burden Lake. Not only do they offer pizza, but they also have sandwiches, wraps and seafood dinner options. It was the busiest of the three pizza places we visited with cars lined up all along the streets. Hurry in to Kay’s, as they are only open in the summer and you don’t want to wait a whole year for a taste of these pizzas.
Kay’s had the thickest and fluffiest crust topped with our favorite cheese that had the best cheese pull. They had the most cheese on their pizza, but us cheese lovers really liked that. It also made it the greasiest, but we didn’t mind too much---we agreed that the cheese here was the most unique. It had a nutty, umami-heavy flavor which really set the cheese apart from the other contenders. The sauce was more on the acidic side, which balanced nicely with the rich & fatty cheese.
The Winner
All of our contenders were really close, but our favorite pizza place was DeFazio’s Pizza. They had the best flavored sauce.
For a chance to win over $280 in gift cards, keep a lookout for our post to win on Lia Auto Group Facebook page