Editor's note: In honor of National Pizza Month (aka October), the Serious Eats editors, staff, and Slice writers will top off our regular content with their deepest thoughts on all things cheesy, saucy, and crusty.
Making pizzas at Pizzeria 712 in Orem, Utah.
I'm going where? For pizza? Ummmm, okay.But I try to be polite when people offer up their recommendations for the next pizza that will change my life, which explains how I got loaded into the car to search out a reportedly stellar pizza place in the unlikely location of Orem, Utah—45 miles south of Salt Lake City.
I found myself reviewing my list of half-compliments as we pulled down the long driveway towards the restaurant. You have to come up with something nice to say when someone drives you an hour each way for lunch!
So imagine my relief when the pies that came out of the oven at Pizzeria 712 turned out to be... really good! No false compliments to my hosts (who, in this case, also happened to be my in-laws), and the double-bonus of enjoying a standout pie where I hadn't really expected it.
Just goes to show that great pizza is spreading all over the place. That was the response that our own Slicemeister, Adam Kuban, chimed in with when he read my report on Pizzeria 712.
It would make me happy if he's right. How cool it would be if the legacy of the Great Pizza Boom of 2010 became, not that every major city had doubled its pizza population, but instead that the smaller places on the map found themselves an artisanal-minded joint to go along with the more traditional chain options.
Is there any chance that my populist pizza fantasy could become a reality? Have you discovered really good pizza in a surprising place?
About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He occasionally gets his tweet on as @pizzakover.