The Pizza Diaries: Citizen Pie

There are some pizza places we keep passing on the street or hearing people talk about that we’ve been meaning to try but for some reason or another we keep failing to check them out. At the top of the list was Citizen Pie. Every time we’re on West 25th street, we say “oh yeah we need to go to there!” Well, we’re happy to report we finally made it there and enjoyed some real solid pies.

We enlisted the help of our friends Amelia of Deliciohio and Melvin of Crave the Land, two of our favorite food bloggers. Amelia describes herself as a pizza connoisseur and eats pizza about once a week. Her favorite pizza is Neapolitan style. Melvin is a self proclaimed pizza slut, all pizza is good pizza! He eats pizza about once a week and his favorite is Pequod’s Meat Lovers Pizza.

Citizen Pie
Citizen Pie says they are “pizza for the people.” They specialize in Neapolitan style pizza. They have two locations, one in Collinwood and one in Ohio City (we went to this one). The pizza is cooked for ninety seconds in their wood-fired brick oven which according to them, is the right amount of time for the cheese to melt and the dough to cook perfectly.  They have a Dough Meter online which tells you how much dough they have available for the day. How cool is that!? You can also order online for pickup. They really strive to get you good pizza quickly, which we can appreciate.

What We Ordered

We had four people total and ordered three pizzas, which was probably the right amount. We could have ordered a fourth, but would have felt terrible about ourselves.

• Margherita Pizza: with mozzarella and basil
• Cacio e Pepe: with mozzarella, pecorino, stracciatella, garlic, black pepper and basil
• Pepperoni: with mozzarella and oregano

Sauce
We all agreed the Cacio e Pepe pizza had the best sauce. Amelia is always a white sauce fan and loved the Cacio. She thought the red sauce was good but not memorable. Melvin felt the same way about the red sauce. Both Beard and Broad are not big sauce people but loved all the sauces because these were not sauce-forward pizzas, with the exception of the Cacio one. But the Cacio was just so garlicky and flavorful, you almost wanted more of it!

Crust
Amelia thought the crust was good, and not too dense. Melvin thought the Margherita’s crust was a little burnt. Broad like the crust because it was thin enough but still doughy and a little chewy which is what she likes. Beard is a big fan of this style of crust and feels they nailed it. He and Broad agreed the Margherita was a little too charred, but it was the good kind of charred.

Toppings
We LOVED the pepperoni. They were the tiny little “cups” that crisp up at the edge, they were so good! We wish they would have been spread out a little more evenly, some slices had a ton some didn’t have many. We also all agreed the Margherita could have had more basil, it was lacking a bit in flavor. Like we said before, the Cacio was unbelievable. The toppings just meshed so well together!

Cheese
You know Broad is a crazy cheese girl, so she thought there could have been more cheese on these pizzas. Amelia thought the cheese didn’t stand out, and the pizzas could have used a bit more. The boys also thought it wasn’t the star of the show. Beard felt the cheese could have been melted a bit more, especially on the Margherita.

Overall Experience
Amelia arrived before the rest of us and said the staff was very attentive and kept checking on her. The restaurant has great decor and wasn’t crowded at all when we went which was nice. You order at the counter, which was really convenient, and the pizza came out SUPER fast. We didn’t even have time to sip our beer yet! They have High Life on tap, which is key. Pizza places should always have good cheap beer.

Next Day Deliciousness
We ate all the pizza so we didn’t have leftovers! That’s probably a good thing right? We agreed that if it was heated right, it would be delicious the next day. Amelia said she would even eat it cold. We all agreed the pepperoni one would be best the next day.

Overall Rating
3.75 Pizza Peels. We had a great time and really enjoyed the low key vibe of the restaurant. We were there during happy hour so our pies were $10, but they are normally a little pricey for us. We thought for a Friday night there would have a been a bigger crowd, but were so impressed with how attentive the staff was and how quickly the food came out. We really loved two of the three pizzas and will be heading back, during happy hour, to try some different ones.