[Photographs: David Kover]
Pizza Inferno has never garnered much attention amongst San Francisco pizza-philes, but they seem intent on changing that, as they recently installed a VPN-certified, Naples-born pizzaiolo in the kitchen. The owner makes it sound like a high-powered oven will soon follow, but right now they're still cooking out of a traditional deck oven. Currently, only the size of the pies (12 inches) evokes Neapolitan-inspired pizza, while they otherwise feel a bit like the pizza you'd get if you pulled off a Northeastern highway and into a restaurant with red-and-white checked tablecloths.
A crisp undercarriage runs all the way to an end-crust with a crunchy outer edge. On our Champignon pie, Pizza Inferno delivered a good balance of shredded mozzarella and sauce, a scatter of mushrooms, and a few pungent leaves of basil. The pie scratched our generic pizza itch, though we found ourselves applying a heavy hand with the red pepper flakes. I will also note that the price ($14.50) struck us as a mite steep given that, just up the block, Delfina Pizzeria would have given us a 'Magic Pie' for fifty cents less.
Pizza Inferno
1800 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115 (map)
415-775-1800; Facebook
Notes: Pizza Inferno offers a wide selection of beers.
About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He occasionally gets his tweet on at @pizzakover.