 Pizza's like an open canvas. You put whatever you want on it, and that's it. They just wacky, blacked out pizza at its best. The last five years, they changed how a pepperoni looks now. Honestly, they look like contact lenses. Like a bunch of just sticking in my eye right now. People are like, oh my gosh, that is not what Jersey's like. They're like, go back to New York City right now. Listen, New York loves its pizza, and they really love to stick to the classics, cheese, margarita, and pep. But with so much international influence from Asia, Latin America, and modern-day Italy, you kind of start to wonder, do people want interesting pizza flavors? Should crust be Neapolitan or New York style? And are there any real rules left for pizza? We're going on a massive tour from Manhattan to Jersey with our second-generation Sicilian friend Marco to see firsthand just how pizza is evolving. Let's go. All right, so for our first spot, we are starting in Hoboken, New Jersey here at Tony Bologna's where we're about to see some pizzas that we have never seen before because he is taking a very, very non-traditional route. Marco, how familiar are you with wacky, funky, out-of-this-world pizzas? Well, for growing up in New York City, obviously, I don't see a lot of pizzas with a lot of everything thrown on there, like I've seen in Tony Bologna. In Manhattan, sort of the traditionalist, purist perspective is more enforced, right? Yes, yes. It's 2020. Tony Bologna's is very, very popular. It started in Atlantic City. They got locations in Hoboken and Jersey City. All right, you guys, let's check it out. Tony Bologna's in Jersey. All right, you guys, we're inside Tony Bologna's in Hoboken right now. You guys, they've got 15 different slices. This is not de faras. This is not necessarily your traditional. This is wacky, wacked-out pizza at its best. Is that kind of like you? That's kind of like me. I cannot oink. Tony Bologna's actually got really famous in 2017 for their taco pizza. I believe it's like $80, $90. A lot of people are like, $90 for a pizza. Trust me, just look at it. It's worth $90. I'm going to get one of each slice, and then we're also probably going to try like your top three most popular sub sandwiches. At Tony Bologna's, Jersey is getting our business today. All right, you guys, we're here at Tony Bologna's. We got to get it in round one. This is probably the pioneer of the ultra wacky slice. I got the Adios meals. I'm sorry, I said it wrong, but it's got like chicken cilantro sauce. It has potato chips on it, white sauce, duck town. It has bacon, duck on there, mozzarella cheese. And I've got the K-pop slice, which is a sweet and sour Korean chicken. Tony Bologna's crazy pizza. They could only one bite. Not one bite as in like, you know, still Presidente. I'm serious about the one bite. This slice is probably one of my favorite slices ever. Marco, do you understand what you're saying as an Italian Sicilian American? Are you sure? I'm telling you, this is amazing. That is a good slice. It's literally just real duck duck. What I'm amazed is that they got to cook all these toppings back there, guys. This is like they're cooking all these different dishes. With the crema sauce, which is sort of like, you know, your Spanish Latino cream. I don't know, I'm pretty torn between this and the duck town to be honest. I feel like this might be like, probably like the healthiest slice that's on the table right now, but I got to go with duck town. All right, if you're going. You know what, out of round one, I barely agree with you, but I agree with you, duck town for round one. Get the duck town. Okay, you guys, round two, we've got the night in Bangkok. That's a Thai slice. You are looking at a sesame chicken and Andrew, you're looking at more of a cone hot chicken. Yes, the General Khan, aka the General So one. Thai Bangkok slice. This is pretty good. Sesame chicken. Very sweet. It's similar. You mean this Thai slice, David? I've been to Bangkok. The Bangkok slice is fire. I haven't tried it yet. No, no, try it. I don't want to sway your opinion, bro. I can tell you straight off the bat, I had all three sizes between the General Khan, the sesame chicken, and the Thai Bangkok boardwalk. And the Bangkok boardwalk wins by a mile, man. That was delicious. That's a must get here at Tony Bologna. Round three, guys. This is a round all in and of itself. This is the taco slice here at Tony Bologna's. This is a $90 pie. This is a one slice. Some of these meats are marinated in mezcal. So they really didn't just throw like a whatever taco. They tried to do it up, took it serious. So a lot of the old school times would see this and they probably would be like, what is this? But the new school guys like us, we're into this stuff. And this is something that they actually ship nationally. Taco pizza. There's a science to it. You got to flap it over it. And that just, oh my gosh. Wow. That's actually way better. I thought it was one bite. Take it only one bite. They mix a taco and pizza together. That's a slice of cheese pizza with just a taco on top. I know it even looks messy. It even held together better than I thought too. Here at Tony Bologna's, I have one that is Mexican inspired right here. I have the honey chicken Parmesan. And then I got the Frito fry chicken. Crazy subs. This honestly tastes like an elevated chopped cheese. I predict this one wins. Really? This one is so good. This one really good. All right. The winner of the sub round is the fried chicken Frito guys. That is a must get here. We are looking at slices that they generally have some version of at traditional either slice pizza shops in the New York tri-state area. Traditional slices. No joke. Nothing has been bad and nothing has lack of flavor. So what they were able to do here is actually create some sort of a garlic bread type crust and then put the white slice on top of that. I love an oily slice. All the oil you can see on the plate. I thought this was one of the better chicken parm slices I've had. I got a traditional margarita slice. So over here we have the burrata vodka slice. Here I have the buffalo chicken slice. It tastes different, way more basil. That burrata vodka slice is really good and it has a nice kick to it. Last but not least, you guys, we have the mac and the barbecue chicken. That's like a perfect mesh. You know what? No one's ever elevated a mac at slice. The best traditional slice, and I'm sure you guys probably agree with me, was the burrata vodka. You know, I liked everything but I felt like the Latino-inspired slices were my favorite. I might say that the taco slice was my favorite. I really liked the Olay sandwich. My favorite slice was definitely the first slice I had was the duck top. My favorite non-pizza would be the frito fried chicken. If you're in this area, go get that sandwich. My favorite slice, I might have to go with the Adios Mios. That was pretty good. And then my favorite was the frito sandwich. Continuing our modern style of pizza food crawl, we just came from sort of the wacky spot to some spot that I believe is designed to mimic what they are eating in Naples and Rome in 2020. Wow. So Sicily got left out yet again. That's how it is. Vereza, let's go. This is where the magic goes down. It's a brick oven pizza right here. The oven is what makes the pizza the best. Our dough is special because it's double fermented, so it's very easy to digest. So the thing is about our pizza, it's very light. Next up here at Vereza, you guys, we came from something wacky to something that's really trying to recreate Naples. And this is something that you kind of have to lift with two hands. It's not going to be your New York style slice. It's going to be very, very thin. As you can see, look at how thin that crust is. Fungi. That's good. I would eat these pizzas growing up and I didn't always like them because I always thought that the sizes were a lot smaller. Right now, we're going to put in some tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, we got arugula, Parmesan shavings in there, and basil as well. Guys, I'm not going to lie, I took a slice and I swear I just took like half the prosciutto. Do I have to roll it up like this? You know what's actually really funny? We were just at Tony Belloni's talking about how messy the pizza was. Not going to lie, this pizza actually ends up being kind of messy too. I like them both at least a four out of five level, but I might go with the original. Now listen, is the closet has your last name in it? It has an impact. Marco, as an Italian-American, what does it mean if anything to be at these like 2020 Naples spots? It's amazing to be honest and I love the fact that like from the owner here, he's from Italy and he's bringing a nice modern type of pizza back to the States and it's really, really simple food, but very, very, very good. We started our video at kind of a wacky New York style pizza spot and then we went to a current modern-day Italian pizza spot and then now we're going to go get some skateboard pizza. Jersey, let's go. All right, so before we go to our next spot and pizza, they make you order through an app. Input, what do you guys want? Marco, maverick meat lovers, pepperoni hot honey. Maverick. Get the maverick. Well, if it's only $11, I guess I'll get the extra hot too. All right, everybody, we have made it down to Jersey City, New Jersey and we're outside of a spa called And Pizza. They are serving what they call hero pies. Yeah, we call them skateboard pies, but since these are a little smaller, they're almost like tech decks. You can see the Freedom Tower. Just saying, I haven't been here before, okay? And Pizza is doing pizza very differently. You can pick your own toppings if you go in an order. I made an order online. Even the, like, the ordering boards kind of have like a matrix theme going on. Kind of movie, yeah. A tech music festival. Kind of a techno-ish house. People are like, oh my gosh, that is not what Jersey's like. Like, go back to New York City right now. They're kind of like a vaporwave chipotle of pizza. So you can see them. You can order your ingredients. They're gonna grab them from the ingredient trays right in front of you. Like a high-end cafeteria right now. Pizza cafeteria. Is this the only make-it-your-own-pizza spot? In the area, definitely. We use real organic and non-DMO ingredients. So our pies are considered really healthy. So And Pizza has only been in the New York market for about, like, three years. That's the same Tom Tony Baloney's popped up. I just noticed even the last three years, that's how you define when something's modern. All right, we got our two pizzas here. We got the American Super Hot Honey, and then we have the Maverick, which is the best-seller. Look, they have the little bag of arugula rolled up. 15, that's 15. I got you, bro. I got you. Pretty different, guys, in terms of the millet that's on the bottom. Spicy pepperoni. I love the breadcrumbs on the crust. That's good for me. Very sweet. It's got honey inside. Like, this spot is, like, the highest-end fast-food pizza spot I've ever had in my life. Yeah, the Maverick. I like this one better. That's one way better. I love the sausage on that one. And the green sauce actually reminds me of a pizza at Ruby Rosa in New York. Very different from the DIY Make Your Own Style on the West Coast. Blaze, Mod Pizza, primarily. Pyology as well. Honestly, only for, like, $11 or $12 per pizza. That's not a bad deal. I'm getting the arugula to go. All right, you guys. Our next spot is in the Lower East Side. We're in front of Zazzies. In 2020, so many people are getting in the pizza game, whether they're international or in the case of Zazzies and an Italian American that's trying to elevate an ancient tradition. The interesting thing about Zazzies is this location just opened, but they have plans to open up up to 12 locations in the next year. So they are trying to blow up. All right, let's check it out. It's a bridge between New York-style and Neapolitan-style pizza. We use flour imported from Naples. Tomatoes imported from Naples. We do a three-day fermentation. It's on our pizza-based robins at 650 degrees, something that really isn't heard of here in New York. Massive crusts, and we still kept the traditional New York-style crispiness to the pizza. All right, you guys. So we're at Zazzies. It's a very modern concept. They have a whole vegan mozzarella stick menu. We're on off, man. It's healthy, and the time doesn't go together. 10, 15 years ago, you would have never had a vegan meatball. But in today's world, you got to check it out. Let's go get some slices, and we're going to try them. Continuing our modern pizza crawl, we're at Zazzies. Like we said, every spot we've been to has pretty much been only open for two years. And some of these spots, for example, here at Zazzies, this has been open for two months. Sicilian with pepperoni. What I like about this slice is that it's a very fluffy thick dough, but it does dissolve, and you can chew it up easily. It's not too thick. The last five years, they changed how pepperoni looks now. Honestly, they look like contact lenses. Like I'm about to just stick it in my eye right now. That's a white slice. That's a tomato slice. That has just a little bit of Parmesan on it. Mostly sauce. Let's go. I think the sauce, it really stands out to me here. It's really fresh and zesty. Last but not least, guys, we got the pepperoni slice. This last square slice. It kind of looks like focaccia bread a little bit. You guys, as far as the slices here is as it goes, the pepperoni Sicilian was by far my favorite. We are on to the meatless portion here. They have an entire vegan side of the menu. Vegan peppercini poppers. Vegan mozzarella sticks, which is really interesting. You can tell by the crust, it looks different. Vegan calamari, which is actually hearts of palm. And then these are meatless meatballs, but they totally would have fooled me. That does not look like it's vegan at all. Meatless meatballs. The texture I could tell is a little bit different. But taste-wise, I'm like, man, with all the seasoning and stuff, it's really hard to tell. It tastes pretty much like a real meatball. Did you trick your grandma? She has senses of a cat. She'll know right away. All right, these are hearts of palm, guys. I'm going to suck them from Gaumah, too. That's good. Best vegan calamari I've ever had. Very interesting vegan options at the Italian pizzeria. We're outside of Casio Evino, which has been here since 2007. The owners are Sicilian, but a lot of the pizza chefs are from Naples. And, you know, they're just doing things a little bit differently. They wanted to blend a traditional Naples-style pizza with a little bit of thin crust of New York. Vereza, the spot that we were at earlier in the video, you almost couldn't fold it because the Naples dough is so soft, but this is a little bit crispier. So you can actually fold it like a New York slice. Shrimp pizza here at Casio Evino. Okay, it's different than anything we have. Wow. It's almost more like a seafood pasta on a pizza. This is like an Italian person who's like parents were born in Italy. Moving on to dessert. We got the Nutella pizza, and Nutella is from Italy. It's kind of like this what Hazelnut chocolate. Nutella pizza. Let's get it. Almost more crunchy than crispy. Dessert after eating pizza and some more pizza? You can't eat it. I actually enjoy how it's like shattering in my mouth right now. Yeah. It's actually kind of cool. You gotta be like Snoop Dogg, guys. Snoop Dogg is constantly reinventing himself. Pizza adaptation. All right, you guys. We have arrived at Artichoke Pizza. Now they have a crab slice, a artichoke cream sauce slice, and what is this? A vodka slice. What can you tell us about artichoke pizza? All right. So with artichoke pizza, when I was growing up, we only had like regular slices with a pepperoni on it. We didn't really have this whole thing where it was artichoke on a pizza or even crab on a pizza. So I feel like even though that this is started by two very, very New York guys, of course, when they first opened, a lot of people were like, what do you want to do? Put imitation crab on pizza? That's weird. Yeah. This is the crab slice. This basically takes our crab bisque on a pizza. Artichoke didn't open up in the past three years, but it was sort of the first chain to do different pizzas and be so successful. They opened up like, you know, multiple, multiple locations. Right. Okay, you guys, take a look at these artichoke slices right here. I think a lot of people in a lot of cities don't have access to this. They're only in New York City, artichoke pizza. This is supposed to be kind of like artichoke dip on pizza and this crust is double thick artichoke slice. That does taste like you took the thick bread stick and just dipped it in fettuccine mixed with spinach dip. I feel like all their slices here at Artichoke are a little bit based off almost like a pasta dip. This is the vodka slice. I need some pasta on that slice right now. I'm going to go with the artichoke slice. I mean, we're at artichoke pizza, but I'm going to be different. I love that vodka slice right there. The artichoke slice is pretty heavy, but I'm going to roll with that. That's the best one here. All right, on to our next spot. One of the coolest things was seeing all types of faces behind the pizza joints. Egyptian, Mexican, Asian, and women too. You know, just groups that you wouldn't typically think of when you imagine pizza shop owners, but that just goes to show you how universal it is and how ingrained pizza is into American life. All right, you guys, just a few years old, Moderino is really interesting because the chefs and the owners are from Italy, but they do experiment with more non-traditional flavors. This crust does look like a pretty traditional Naples style with the burnt little bubbles here. It's made in a stone oven back there. This is a Thai sausage. This is a Brussels sprouts in bacon, and last but not least, that is a clam white slice. That's the most famous slice here. Clam slice. Very, very oceanic flavor. Very clammy. All right, you guys, we are in front of Emmet's. This is the only Chicago-style pizzeria that is authentic in the entire island of Manhattan. Yeah, I mean, growing up, I never had a Chicago-style pizza, so I had to do a lot of research today. Marco, this is sausage, pepper, and onion, authentic Chicago-style with extra eggs. This was a New York-style pizza right now. That all would have been collapsed. Here we go, guys. That's a definitely a 4 out of 5 out of 5 for sure. Easy. It's a 4 out of 5 out of 5. Yeah. All right, a 4.5 out of 5. Sorry, guys. Okay, let's break it. That's really good, right? You know what I noticed, though? Way less tomatoes than the ones in Chicago. As a New Yorker, I enjoy Chicago-style pizza. We love grab-and-go stuff. Pizza, you fold it, you know, your average New York size, and you can just walk wherever you want. But with this, you kind of have to sit down and not be like me and eat it like this. So this was definitely good in quality, but in terms of the price, man, it is pricey. It's pricey. This was like $35 for like 4 slices. That's why I didn't give it a 5 out of 5. You know, that 0.5 was because of the price. This is an incredible and insane amount of mozzarella. Look at that. I can still fold the bottom, so shout out to that. I'm not gonna lie, man. I love New York pizza. I think overall, it is the best style of pizza. But I gotta say, I do miss the deep dish. And we used to eat a little bit more deep dish back in Washington and Seattle area. Chicago-style pizza here at Emmits. Another pizza style that has popped up in the last two to five years are the vegan slice and the halal slice. Obviously, vegan, being a lifestyle, you know, people have religious things that they can't eat with halal, but both these sort of types of pizza spots were not around when you were growing up. Yeah, growing up, I didn't know what that was at all. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and the vegan slice, obviously, people have, like, diet restrictions. I'm excited to try the beef pepperoni because no pork. Vegan hang-up spot. You've never had vegan food before. Never have. All right, we're here at Artistic Pizza. We got two vegan slices. We have a vegan buffalo chicken. That's not real chicken. Smells delicious, and you could have fooled me because it does look like real chicken. It's definitely different. The taste is definitely different. I can pass for chicken for sure. The vegan ranch is really, really good. It's very spicy. No meat, all vegan. Vegan cheese and everything. Considering that kind of looked like a garden salad, it was actually pretty tasty. All right, on my pizzas, I'm gonna definitely roll with this tomato, onion, and pepper one. I thought it was juicy. I can tell that that vegan cheese is kind of getting stuck in the little crevices on my mouth, but it does taste like cheese. I give it a 4 out of 5, actually, considering there was no impossible meat on it. I'm gonna give this a 3 out of 5. I like the taste. It was really good. It was really messy. All right, you guys, they have some non-vegan slices here. They got the halal side. So these are gonna be beef pepperonis, Marco, and this is a chicken scallion with ranch on top. To me, right here is a nice New York slice. It's greasy. It's cheesy. It's hot and it's a wide slice. It's like an old-school classic New York slice. Hey, the owners are Bengali, so listen, this is like chicken scallion. This is almost like durian chili. Halal slices. The pepperoni is a beef pepperoni. Really, really good. I mean, this is the first time that I've ever had a chicken scallion slice. Halal, no marinara, strong. To me, I'm a meat eater. It was 135% better than a vegan slice. No shade of vegans, though. All right, you guys, we are in a seldom village that we go to West Village, but we're in front of Emily Restaurant. Their whole goal is basically be non-traditional, but still high quality. This little pie right here, 25 bucks. Korean chicken wings on pizza. They're doing Detroit-style diversion of the Sicilian, but it even has more of that like crispy crust around because in Detroit-style, they cook it in almost like a brownie. Okay. Like a mini tray. You're having Chicago for the first time. This is Detroit for the first time. Detroit-style Korean pie. It's so tasty and just that sauce is amazing. It's really, really good. This is the best Korean-style slice I've had in American pizzeria in my life. I second that. All right, you guys, we had to end off here at Gino's Pizza Marco. This is your neighborhood pizza shop. This is where I grew up, practically. I was in here probably more than 3,000, 4,000 times. This is, they have a New York old-school slice. They haven't changed anything since probably like the 90s. We went on a crawl. We tried over 10 modern pizza spots that have opened up in the past three years. Very sort of like 2020, 2021 style. Let's check out 1990 style. Yo, let's do it. I know I'm around 13 a year. Oh, 30 a year. There we go. There it is. That's it. It's in a vaping. My man, Lala, watching me grow up eating pizza as a kid and now I'm an old man. All right, you guys, we have arrived with a multi-flavored slice here at Gino's. How does all the new pizza spots that opened up in New York in the past three years symbolize something larger? It's a really competitive game right now in 2020 with pizza that lasts like five or 10 years. I think with Gino's, it's so unique that they really just care and provide pizza for the neighborhood people. One thing that I know is with the pepperoni slices, pepperoni in 2020 are the bold pepperonis. They're still going with the flat pepperonis. I still like myself a fresh canned mushroom slice. I'm going with a sausage slice right now. All right, you guys, we went to so many different pizza spots. Most of them were open within the past three years. Very, very modern concepts. Everything from stuff from Italy, wacky stuff that wasn't even cooked by Italians. My favorite was a Scars Pizza. It has to be. I love the way it's old school inside in there and then the pizza is like reminds me of my childhood. Reminds me of this, but a more elevated slice. For me, I got to go one with Tony Bolognese because they're just doing some wacky stuff. I love that taco slice. Very expensive, Instagram-worthy, but for well-deserved. I did like the pizza at Verezza, the Italy-Italy spot. Just opened up by real Italians in the year 2020. That's what they're eating in Italy right now. So I think that I kind of had a soft spot for that Neapolitan stuff. All right, man, what's the future of pizza? We had to say, for me, I think this is just what I think. Thinner crusts that could still hold together if they could figure out some sort of formula ratio to get that to happen and way more like multi-hugging toppings. I just really think that sky's the limit for pizza. And I think we're like just on our way. We just ordered. So we've come to the end of our journey and we ate a whole lot of pizza. And with this much diversity amongst pizza in New York, it makes sense that this is where pizza is headed in the future. The traditional New York Italian-American stuff isn't going away, but you're going to see more new techniques and flavors that you would have never thought of. Maybe pizza is a blank canvas flatbread, but maybe you should still have a regular's cheese slice. Let us know what you think in the comments down below. Until next time, we out. Peace.