Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Herrine Ro: America's favorite pizza topping has time and time again been pepperoni. We visited three top-rated restaurants, Prince's, Rubirosa, and Emily, to find which pepperoni slice is best in town. Erin Kommor: OK, so, what are we looking for? Herrine: So, at each spot, we're going to be looking at three qualities. One, thick-cut pepperoni. Each cup should be thick enough to cup up and have that nice crispy exterior. Two, distribution. Since the ronis are the star of the show, there should be a generous amount of cups on each slice. And three, overall flavor. The three pizzas are all different, so whether the pepperoni is the only topping or not, we're thinking big picture. No singular topping or sauce should overwhelm the palate. Erin: Let's go. Herrine: Let's do it. So, our first stop is Prince Street Pizza, and this place inspired me to make this whole entire video. Erin: It is? Herrine: The reason why is because the Spicy Spring here is unlike anything that I've tried. Erin: What is "Spicy Spring"? Herrine: It is a pepperoni pizza that is just covered in pepperoni. You haven't seen anything like it. Erin: I believe you. I am pumped. Wait, is that the line? It is fully wrapped around the entire block! Employee: There you go. Customer: Thank you! Dominic Morano: Prince Street Pizza started January 2013, and our most famous slice is our Spicy Spring pepperoni pizza. Customer: You can't find this pizza anywhere else. Dominic: With a lot of the slices that we have in the store, they're named after streets in the neighborhood to pay homage to the neighborhood because I have a lot of roots in here. Herrine: Why Spring Street specifically? Dominic: It just rhymed. [laughs] Honestly, it just rhymed. The Spicy Spring is a Sicilian. It's a special cut of Italian pepperoni, and it has a low-moisture fresh mozzarella and has fra diavolo sauce, which is my grandfather's recipe. For the people at home that don't know what fra diavolo is, it's a spicy marinara sauce. With our pepperoni, it's different from the original types of pepperonis that are really flat and they're kinda, like, bologna-ish. These ones are the sticks, and we cut them to where it's not too thin and not too thick. We cut them right in the middle. Herrine: Why do you decide to put so much pepperoni on here? Dominic: This goes back to what we originally talked about in the video from a couple years ago. It'll upset people if you don't give an even amount of pepperoni on every slice, like Robert De Niro said. Herrine: We waited, like, 40-ish minutes? Erin: 43, to be exact. It is around the block. Herrine: Thank you. OK, there is truly no place to sit. Dominic: You guys got it? Herrine: Yeah, we got it. There's no place to sit. Erin: Wait, where is he taking us? Oh... Herrine: She's stunning. my goodness! Herrine: Is it anything like you've ever seen before? Erin: No. I've literally never seen that many peps before. Herrine: Honestly, this whole experience is a very new thing for me. Sitting in a basement of a pizza shop. Erin: I've never sat in a basement of a pizza shop. Herrine: Do you have a preference of what slice you want? Erin: Yeah. Herrine: Which one do you want? Erin: They're all honestly perfectly beautiful, but, let's see, this one's, like, calling to me. Herrine: OK. Even distribution, thick cups. Erin: Even, thick. It looks spicy. Let's see if it's spicy. I'm a little worried. Like, what if it's too salty? There's so many peps. Herrine: That's a good point. Erin: But let's see. Let's see, let's see, let's see. OK. So I don't know if it's 'cause I don't get out much, [laughs] but I've never had a pepperoni that's cooked like this. Like, do you see the coloring? It's like a beautiful work of art. It's perfectly crispy on the outside, and it's thick, and the grease, like, pools in the middle, like a little, like, hot tub that you wanna go swim in and never leave. Herrine: No. Erin: OK, cool. How's the crust? Herrine: So many things going on. You get the caramelization from the pepperoni, but also from the crust. The sauce is spicy and, like, not wet. Erin: Yeah. Herrine: It's just overwhelming, but in the best way possible. Like, overwhelming in the sense that, like, you're struggling to eat it, but you can't wait to get that next bite because it's just that good. The one thing is that, just because it's so greasy, like, if another place is less greasy but it has the same exact everything. Erin: But I don't think the flavors can be this good without the grease. But I do, I know what you're saying. Maybe, like, drawing the grease back a tiny bit. Herrine: A smidge. Erin: A smidge. Herrine: So this is already setting the bar so, so high. Erin: Oh, so high. I'm, like, a little worried. Herrine: The other two places that we're going to are, like, unique spins. The pepperoni is still star of the show. It's gonna be really hard to beat this. Erin: All right, our second stop, not far from Prince Street, is Rubirosa. Herrine: And this place is an absolute neighborhood gem. Today we will be trying their Tie-Dye Roni Pie. Bari Musacchio: So, I think the tie-dye roni pie is, like, just for people who cannot decide what they wanna eat. Because the tie-dye pie alone, you have tomato sauce, vodka sauce, pesto, all on one pie. Then, our other most popular pizza is a classic pepperoni pie. So one day, people just started saying, "Well I kinda want a pepperoni pie, and I kinda want a tie-dye pie." Decided to put it together, and it ended up being the best combination on Earth. Customer: It's the perfect texture of pepperoni. Just because of how it's cooked. It's got a little bit of everything. If you want that little bit of crisp with a bite, if you want that chewiness, it's got it all. Bari: I think it's the thinness that's really, like, the signature family technique, is that we get the pizzas paper, paper thin. For the tie-dye pizza, we use fresh mozzarella cheese. If you go to a classic slice joint, you're gonna use a low-moisture cheese. This is actually, it's a little bit more similar to the pies that you would find Neapolitan-style. It's a signature spiral move. So, we do tomato on the outside, then a circle of vodka,