Zorba's Pizza, Northside Richmond

Tucked away in the Bellevue area in the north side of Richmond is Zorba’s Pizza and Subs; a small, dirty little hut of a pizza shop next to a 1930′s Art Deco style theater turned Grotto.

Clad in old, faded promotional photos of gyros and a Greek flag hanging above the register, the thick accented men behind the counter serve up some pretty well cooked NY style pie.  Well cooked, but not terribly great tasting either.

The pizza comes to us with noticeable rivers of oil on top of the softest mozarella cheese I’ve had in a while.  The cheese is very fatty, soft and chewy.  I am a huge fan of cheese but this is terribly too much as it does nothing to keep the toppings from sliding off the crust.  If you wanted to replicate the endless stretching of gooey mozz seen in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons, this is the pizza to do it with.

At a glance, the crust looks great; crispy exterior with enough thickness for a soft inside and cooked just the right amount of time.  Alas, the crust tastes like it alone had been sitting out in the open before the toppings were piiled on to it.  Such a good looking pizza crust that tastes of cardboard.

The sauce is very boring, cheap tasting tomato paste and the pepperoni on top floppy and plain.  Zorba’s Pizza looked to be a gem of an authentic, unique place which is a rarity in Richmond these days but failed to meet my expectations.

For the first time in a long while I had no desire to finish the last couple slices of pizza sitting on my table, but maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did.