Home > Des Moines Restaurants > Editorial Review > Editorial Juice Review: Scornovacca's North

Hate to break it to you, Des Moines, but finding a great pizza in this town is not the easiest of tasks.

Now before you go and get your aprons in a bunch, let me say there are plenty of good pizzas, but few that wow me enough to get to great . I'm a Chicago transplant, so I'm probably just being picky.

But I can say that of all the pies I've eaten in these parts - and there have been a lot - Scornovacca's on the city's East side comes the closest to my personal gold standard: Fox's Pizza on Chicago's South side.

For that, I call Scornovacca's thin crust the best pizza in Des Moines.

THE GOOD

Let's start with the sauce. There's a lot of flavor packed in with good spice that makes it tangy, but not overwhelming. The crust is exactly how I like my thin crust: Extra crispy around the edges, with the center soft enough to chew, but not doughy. A dining partner and I split a medium pie. I went with pepperoni and Italian sausage on my half. She ordered green olives and mushrooms for hers.

It came cut half in squares, half in pie slices, and slathered with sauce and plenty of cheese. And grease. Nearly perfect.

The restaurant itself looks like what it is: a neighborhood pizza joint. They cram a lot of tables and booths into the small, green-carpeted and wood-paneled room, and there are a half-dozen stools up at the counter where you can wait for your carry-out or grab a beer. The decor leans heavy toward auto racing, and on this particular visit we were bombarded with Christmas lights and tinsel and glowing snowmen. But pizza fans know that none of that matters as long as the pizza was good. And it certainly was.

THE BAD

The first thing we noticed walking in for lunch was the temperature. It was far too cold inside, so much so that my dining partner left her jacket on while she ate. The bathrooms were even colder. They were also dirty, with bits of the molding in the corner of a wall coming apart. I kind of didn't want to touch anything. But the service was great and the food was delicious. That's the part I'll remember.

BOTTOM LINE

Until proven otherwise, I'll keep calling this the best pizza in town.

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