REVIEW
There are a handful of Grimaldi’s pizzerias in Arizona, owned and operated by sons of the owner (no longer Patsy Grimaldi, incidentally) of Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn. We’ve only visited the one in Old Town Scottsdale (they’ve been expanding: there are now seven in AZ, twelve in Texas, six in Vegas, and more in California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, and South Carolina), but in our experience the pizza in Scottsdale, if you order correctly, is superior to the pies found at the Brooklyn original.
We adore the toasty browned cheese on the white pies.
Our first visit to an Arizona Grimaldi’s came about by way of an aborted attempt to sample Chris Bianco’s celebrated pizzas. The process of securing a table at Pizzeria Bianco can be onerous, and we were forced into looking for an alternative. So Grimaldi’s it was.
It’s Scottsdale’s superior crust that makes us prefer these pies to the ones made in Brooklyn.
Grimaldi’s uses a coal-fired brick oven, just like in the Brooklyn store. The pies are built in much the same way, too, from the good crushed canned tomato (not sauce) right down to the sparse scattering of fresh basil. What we most appreciate, though, is the chewy-crisp, smoky pizza crust (but we recommend telling them you like your pies well-cooked, because they’ve learned that the locals are turned off by East Coast burnt spots). For some reason, the Brooklyn crust just doesn’t have the same depth of flavor, and can be flabby-textured, in our opinion. And we always fall for superior fresh bread.
Pizza here is not inexpensive. If you load on the toppings, the price can rise dramatically. Note that the Phoenix location listed on this menu no longer exists.
The chunks of juicy Italian sausage are excellent. If you love fresh mozzarella, know that the white pie is blanketed rim to rim with the stuff. We would recommend a request for extra fresh basil (extra charge) so that every slice could feature a fresh bite of the fragrant herb.
The coal-fired brick oven is key to the fine pizza crust.
Like everywhere in spacious Arizona, the restaurant is roomy, with that shiny-happy midscale-chain aura, and there’s plenty of parking. What Scottsdale’s Grimaldi’s lacks in character, it makes up for in first-class pizza.
Bianco gets all the attention, but Grimaldi’s is top-notch.
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