Gino & Joe’s will prepare a pizza especially for you

(It’s a debate every Central New Yorker has had at some point: Who has the best pizza? This year, we’ll do our best to find out. I’m on the hunt for the best pizzerias in the area of Syracuse Throughout 2024, I will visit more than 50 pizzerias. In each of them, I will taste their most popular pizza, or what they recommend, as I go, I will note. each of them and will tell readers a little about the store itself.)

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Liverpool, New York — You’ll find no fewer than 10 pizzas vying for your attention behind the window of Gino & Joe’s on Old Liverpool Road.

Melissa Hewitt, the daytime waitress here, stocks the shelves at lunchtime with at least one cheese pizza, meat lover, garlic, pepperoni, sausage, chicken and bacon ranch and the chicken Buffalo, unusually popular. They’re all cut into eight large slices, ready for Melissa to place in the mini pizza ovens behind her.

The regulars here know the menu and Melissa has this uncanny ability to remember their favorites before they can place their order.

“A cheese lover, a meat lover, honey?” she asked a guy as he approached her counter. He has been buying food every day since a series of apartment buildings started going up on the street a year ago.

He smiled and said nothing as he passed her his credit card.

“They like me because I know what they like,” Melissa said. “Do you see that woman getting out of her car now? She will receive a slice of vegetables and an iced tea.

Yeah, she called that one.

Vincenzo Amato opened the first Gino & Joe’s Restaurant and Pizza at the Seneca Mall in 1973. Others popped up in Clay, Baldwinsville and this one on the corner of Electronics Parkway. All use family recipes originating from Palermo, Italy.

Ilir Latifi is the only daytime cook who follows these recipes. He came here from Albania five months ago. He cooked pizza in his home country, which is a four-hour ferry ride across the Adriatic Sea to Italy.

Here, he makes his own bread used for subs and steak sandwiches, and he mixes the dough each morning for service the next day.

“I want to work hard and eventually open my own pizzeria,” he said while waiting for Melissa to offer us a unique pizza to eat on this visit, our 23rd stop on the CNY Pizza Tour.

Let’s try something different…

Address: Gino & Joe’s Pizza and Restaurant, 700 Old Liverpool Road, Liverpool. (315) 451-7337

Do they deliver: Yes, and you can order online.

What I ate: A large pizza with meatballs and banana peppers.

Why this pizza? An employee made this for Melissa a few years ago, and it’s been her favorite ever since. “I fell in love,” she says. “I’m a simple person, and this is a simple pizza.”

RATINGS (out of 5)

Crust: 4/5. I can’t tell you much about this crust because Ilir said he was ordered to keep the recipe a secret. Never mind. The only thing I can say is that he rolls out the dough for each pizza ordered and then gives it a few slow spins for his audience at the counter to see.

Most pizza doughs contain the same basic ingredients: flour, yeast, water, salt and olive oil. The secret lies in the proportions and temperature of each. Ilir does something special to make this crust soft. It’s not soggy at all, but it’s gentle on the roof of your mouth.

Maybe it’s because it rotates the pizza every two minutes while cooking, or maybe the internal temperature of the oven stays slightly below 500 degrees. Who knows. Regardless, it works.

Toppings: 3/5. This pizza is built on a white base, also known as garlic pizza. Ilir pours a few tablespoons of garlic butter over the dough and adds minced garlic. After slipping his fingers into the oily mixture, he grabs a brick of Grande mozzarella in his right hand, a grater in his left and makes thick snow.

The all-beef meatballs arrive at G&J pre-rolled and frozen, so he only has to cook them each morning. For this pizza, he cuts them into small pieces. Banana peppers are already sliced ​​and canned. All he has to do is spread them on the cheese.

Melissa slipped me a cup of G&J red sauce. It’s the same marinara this pizzeria has been serving since 1973, made with Alta Cucina Italian tomatoes.

“It makes my favorite pizza even better,” Melissa said. “Dip it, spread it, do whatever you want with it. Eat it.”

I felt like I had just discovered a pizza secret. The first slice I inhaled was sauceless and tasted like a roast beef sandwich on garlic toast. I dipped my second slice in the sauce and had a different experience. It was more like spaghetti and meatballs with a breadstick instead of pasta.

Value: 3/5. This 16-inch pizza costs $22.50 ($18.50 for the base plus $2 per topping). This was before taxes, tips, and surcharges/fees/taxes/scams/whatever for the “convenience” of the credit card. This is about what most stores receive. The outside cost was $32.

Charisma: 4/5. The blend of lightly salted meat, tangy peppers and sweet garlic provides an incredibly satisfying combination of flavors, textures and aromas. It held well on the not-too-crispy crust, leaving only a few oil spots on the cardboard box.

Total: 14/20. The online menu encourages customers to work with employees to create a meal we will enjoy. This is perfect, since I let the employees at each restaurant dictate what I buy.

Melissa started asking me questions before I could even introduce myself.

“I like to change it up a little and try something different,” she said. “Let me guess: everything except the chicken wing pizza.”

You read my mind, Melissa.

Charlie Miller finds the best food, drinks and entertainment in Central New York. Contact him at (315) 382-1984, or by email at [email protected]. (AND he pays for what he and his guests eat and drink, just so you know.) You can also find him under @HoosierCuse on Twitter and on Instagram. Subscribe to its free weekly Where Syracuse Eats newsletter here.

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