Tom and Sue’s incomplete guide to Lowcountry pizza

Sue’s greeting: Coming off the success of snagging Tom to join me for ice cream research in July, I cast him the pizza research idea and he took it like a bass hitting a fresh minnow – running out the door heading to the pizza parlor with no chance of me reeling him to shore. Here’s our take on the local pizza scene.

 

Tom’s greeting: If I may be so bold as to quote the legendary philosopher Kelly Clarkson, some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this. A moment in which my wife laid out the dinner menu for the coming week and every night was pizza night. And not just dinner, but lunch and breakfast, too. It’s as if I died and went back to college, minus the hangovers and general malaise about missed classes, of course.

 

Vespa Pizzeria

224 Seven Farms Dr., Daniel Island

 

Sue’s Take: Vespa has been serving outstanding wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizzas made with local produce since 2009. The white pizza has always been my favorite and Tom and I like to share it with their Greek salad. When I go with my daughter, we order the margherita – her favorite – and the beet salad. This is a wonderful spot for tasty pizza and healthy salads. We like the outdoor seating – there is plenty of shade and a large fan so it is pleasant even during the hottest time of the year.

 

Tom’s Take: I am a country boy at heart, so when Sue informed me that Vespa serves Neapolitan-style pizza, I thought it would come with a layer of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate, like the ice cream, and the eating would be over when there was nothing but strawberry left in the box. Turns out, “Neapolitan” refers to the Naples region of Italy, and their pizza is light and crispy, having been cooked in an oven the approximate temperature of the sun, for no longer than the time that my beloved New York Giants have held a lead in an NFL game since Eli Manning was unceremoniously “retired” (under 2 minutes). Like the best Italian cooking, it is simply and expertly executed.

 

LIDI Restaurant

901 Island Park Dr., Suite A, Daniel Island

 

Sue’s Take: Happy hour pizza! A friend clued us in about the food at LIDI’s happy hour – it’s good and super affordable! We stopped in on a rainy evening and ordered the 10-inch shrimp and artichoke pizza off their regular menu and the $6.50, 10-inch cheese pizza from their happy hour menu. Both were great but the shrimp/artichoke was an outstanding combination I never had before. I’ll be back for more! Give it a try!

 

Tom’s Take: A happy hour that serves pizza puts all non-pizza-serving happy hours to shame.  And, a happy hour pizza that tastes like shrimp scampi sounds like it could only come from a state that has recently legalized recreational marijuana. But this scampi-pizza is a work of genius because trust me, I visited one of those states once, and the best I could come up with is a Choco Taco/margherita pizza. And, thanks to the evil executives at Klondike Bar Inc, the Choco Taco/margherita pizza is sadly no longer an option. 

 

Famurali’s Pizzeria

1721 Clements Ferry Rd., Point Hope, Cainhoy

 

Sue’s Take: We headed down to Point Hope and Famurali’s after a heavy Saturday thunderstorm – the helpful staff dried off the outdoor seating and we selected two pizzas: a Neapolitan and a Chicago-style – both have build your own options. For our traditional pizza, we opted for the pesto base with mushrooms and onions and it was delicious. The Chicago-style was filled with chunky tomato sauce and spinach and onions. Both choices were so good that I was too full to drink any of their craft beer options, but I will return to try the Skinny Vanilla Latte Stout. 

 

Tom’s Take: OK, this one almost broke me. This Chicago-style pizza is like nothing I have seen. First they put a pizza dough in a 14-inch round deep-sided pan, then they threw in triple the cheese and toppings of a normal pizza, covered that with more dough, baked it, then covered that with sauce and more cheese. The result is eight slices of deep dish pizza that the FDA guidelines suggest will serve 16 beefy Bears fans. I ate two slices and was fast asleep within 15 minutes, which was unfortunate since I was driving Sue home down Clements Ferry Road at the time.

 

Ali Baba Daniel Island

186 Seven Farms Dr. #500, Daniel Island

 

Sue’s Take: Ali Baba is the island’s pizza outlier – their fatayer is amazing! It is served open, like a pizza, and is of Lebanese origin. It looks like a boat of dough holding cheese and other toppings. Their Greek fatayer is out of this world good! 

 

Tom’s Take: It’s no secret that everything that made Rome great had its origins in the regions it conquered. The fatayer’s garlicky, cheesy, vegetable-y, doughy combination was only slightly improved upon when either Marco Polo or Christopher Columbus or perhaps Al Capone brought back the deadly nightshade tomato plant from the New World, made the pizza round and served it in a square box. 

 

Orlando’s Brick Oven Pizza

295 Seven Farms Dr., Daniel Island

 

Sue’s Take: Orlando’s was our family’s go to spot before the kids flew the nest – a pie feeds the family and the kids loved the taste. So do the adults! We usually split the pie with toppings: my half gets ham and pineapple and Tom usually goes for mushroom and onions.

 

Tom’s Take: Having grown up a bit north of New York City, I’d say that Orlando’s is as close to the pizza I ate in my formative years as it gets. It’s the kind of pizza the goodfellas ate on their way back to the city, after a hunting trip in which they never bagged a deer, but always returned a man or two down – if ya know what I mean. 

 

The Dime

30 River Landing Dr, Daniel Island

 

Sue’s Take: The newest local spot for pizza on Daniel Island, The Dime’s brick oven pies are served noon-4 p.m. on Monday through Wednesday, and noon-8 p.m. on Thursday through Sunday. The pie is just as wonderful as its riverfront location. We went for the margherita pie, which was served with a sweet sauce and large fresh sprigs of basil.

 

Tom’s Take: I hereby award pizza at The Dime my Gomer Pie-l award because Surprise, Surprise, Surprise, it’s good. It’s worth the mile walk from our house to Waterfront Park to share this pie on the swings with Sue. I have no qualms saying that I’d fight Sue for the last piece of this pie. Of course, she’d pull out one of those sneaky pressure point moves she learned at Sensei Glenn’s women’s self-defense classes, but I’d put my odds of landing the last slice at borderline even. Pizza above pain is what I have always said. 

 

Domino’s

162 Seven Farms Dr., Daniel Island

 

Sue’s Take: They deliver warm brownies in a pizza box to the front door!

 

Tom’s Take: Ok, it’s easy to be a pizza snob and bash the pizza chains, but I will not sink so low as to suggest that when I once ordered delivery pizza, I threw away the pizza and ate the box. It was 3 a.m., and I was in college.

Anyone could have made that mistake. Here’s the real deal: Domino’s pizza got me through the Great Recession. Not only did I survive financially with a weekend job delivering pizzas to the tourist families on Isle of Palms, but the mis-cooked pies and forgotten orders were my primary food source during those years. Domino’s pizza is way better than it used to be (not a high bar – see above story), the cookie-brownies make Sue happy no matter how many times she tells me not to order them, and they bring the food right to the front door. It’s not a perfect pizza, but it’s nearly a perfect business model.

 

Quick Hits – Sue & Tom Agree! Kind of 

 

Best Pizza Downtown: 

Sabatino’s Authentic New York City Pizza, a hole in the wall joint on Calhoun Street, is one of our favorite spots for pizza. They claim it’s made exactly as in the Bronx – a thin crust, heavy on the cheese and light on the sauce. Superb!

 

Biggest Pie:

Benny Palmettos! Located on Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant, their large pie is so big that you need an SUV to take it home. The box fit wheel well to wheel well in our small SUV.

 

Best Place for Pizza and Philly Sports:

Mellow Mushroom in Mount Pleasant. The owner is a Daniel Island resident and a Philadelphia sports fan! Tom puts up with the Eagle’s vibe because the pizza is so good and they have so many TVs that he can catch one of his New York teams!

 

Closing thoughts:

 

Sue’s Takeaway: If it is pizza you want, you can’t go wrong with any of the pizzerias in the Daniel Island and Cainhoy area. Every parlor has great tasting pizza and each is a little different. Have you found a great Lowcountry pizza you can recommend? Share your experience with our readers, send your comments and photos to sdetar@thedanielislandnews.com

 

Tom’s Takeaway: Sue tells me our next Lowcountry guide will be about local workout options. She also said that right before our ice cream and pizza assignments, so I figure that we’ll either be reviewing burritos or full-spectrum CBD gummies next. Also, despite Sue’s misguided enthusiasm, Philadelphia sports are highly overrated.