A little Rochester pizza history

(Pizza Guy note: be sure and read the comments to this post for some updated information on this topic.)
In the course of doing this blog, I’ve been to some pizzerias dating back to the 1970s and even ’60s, and I got to wondering - what’s the oldest pizzeria in Rochester? So one afternoon I stopped by the Central Library downtown to do a little research among the old city directories.
Supposedly pizza’s widespread popularity in this country dates to the post-WWII years, with the return of GIs who had discovered it while serving in Italy. By the 1950s, it was enough of an American staple to show up on popular sitcoms like the Honeymooners, though it also took some pretty bizarre forms in those days (tuna pizza, anyone?)
So I started with the 1950 directory. No business heading for pizzerias - no surprise there - and none of the restaurant listings mentioned pizza, either. That’s not to say that pizza wasn’t served at any local Italian restaurants, but there’s no evidence of it from the 1950 directory.
Moving forward, the first place calling itself a pizzeria, by the name of Giuseppe’s, shows up in 1954, at 324 Lake Ave. I doubt if the building's even there today. Now there is currently a Giuseppe’s in Gates, and they do serve pizza, but at this point I don’t know if there’s any connection. The Giuseppe's website claims that Giuseppe's was "est. 1927," but it doesn't provide any detailed history.
The year 1958 brings us a Perri’s Pizza at 1899 East Main St., which now is the address of Main Place Tavern. Again, there are a few Perri’s in existence today, but can they trace their lineage back that far? I don’t know. The Perri’s website has a “Perri’s History” link, but it’s one of those “Coming Soon!” pages (why is it that when a web page says “Coming Soon!” you know that it’s not coming anytime soon?).
The first mention of a pizzeria that I’m sure is still in existence comes in 1961: Pontillo’s, at 3194 Lake Ave., an address that, according to Google, today is that of a vacant movie theater. Pontillo’s started out in Batavia in 1947 - unfortunately the original location closed a while back, due to unpaid taxes, I believe, though the building’s still there, vacant - so within 14 years Pontillo’s had reached Rochester, making it perhaps the first local pizza chain, if not the first Rochester pizzeria.
Also of note, Amico Pizza appears on Waring Rd. in 1965. Amico is now located on E. Ridge Rd. in Irondequoit, and it’s still in the family. Their website says that Amico Pizza was founded in 1962, but the first listing for it I could find in the directory was in 1965.
There’s also a mid-1960s listing for a Proietti’s Pizzeria at 1717 N. Goodman (where today you’ll find an insurance office), and these days Proietti’s Restaurant in Webster does serve pizza. Again, the connection, if any, is unclear to me as of now.
Finally, the year 1965 also brought us Mama Taccone’s at 495 Monroe Ave., the present-day address of Acme Bar & Pizza. I remember Mama Taccone’s, which closed in the early '90s, I'd guess, and this reminded me of the likely reason why Acme has always served pizza - it inherited the pizza ovens from Mama Taccone's.
So here’s how things stand right now: (1) Giuseppe’s, or Perri’s, might be able to lay claim to the title of oldest existing pizza purveyor in Rochester, but their connection to the originals by those names is not established. (2) If they’re not the oldest, then Pontillo’s is. They date back in Rochester to 1961. (3) Barring any claims by Giuseppe's or Perri's, the oldest family-run pizzeria originating in Rochester appears to be Amico. Proietti’s may be in the mix as well - again, the connection is uncertain - though today Proietti’s is a full-service restaurant rather than a pizzeria. (4) The geographical location with the longest history of serving pizza seems to be Acme.
When I have time, I’ll try to follow up on some of these leads with the current owners of some of the places mentioned. In the meantime, if anybody can shed any additional light or has any memories to share, please do.

Max Market

“Max” is a brand name for a local culinary mini-empire founded by chef Tony Gullace. There’s Max of Eastman Place, Max Chop House, Max at the (Memorial Art) Gallery, and Max at High Falls, making the pseudonymous Max something of a Rochester version of Emeril.
Then there’s Max Market in Pittsford, which combines a specialty/gourmet food store with a café and deli. Somewhere I noticed that they serve pizza, so I decided to give it a try.
The sign outside advertising brick oven pizza looked promising. Inside, I walked past shelves of sourdough bread (also promising), imported Italian tomatoes, and Pittsford Dairy ice cream to the counter in back, where I ordered a small Margherita. To me, the Margherita - traditionally, fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil - is to “gourmet” pizza what the basic cheese, or cheese-and-pepperoni pie is to “regular” pizza, kind of a benchmark.
My order came up surprisingly quickly. Now a super-hot pizza oven can bake a pizza in a couple of minutes, but this was still pretty fast, making me think that the pizza had been at least partially premade. That inkling was somewhat confirmed by the relatively thick crust, since I don’t think it would’ve been possible to prepare and fully bake a pizza this thick in the time it took for my order to come up. Not that it’s a big deal, I mean if it’s good, that’s all I really care about, I was just a little surprised that it was ready so soon.
As I said, my pizza, which measured about 9½ inches in diameter, had a fairly thick crust. That was also a bit of a surprise, since a lot of upscale, brick-oven places seem to make a point of stretching their dough nearly to the gluten’s breaking point (which I don’t necessarily like, as it prevents the pizza from developing a chewy, bready interior). The underside was crisp, and baked to a mottled, medium brown. The interior displayed numerous small air holes.
Visually, the most prominent feature of the pizza was the large slices of fresh mozzarella - larger than on many Margheritas I’ve had, where the fresh mozzarella forms more of an island in a sea of crushed tomatoes. Closer inspection revealed that there were actually two cheeses here, as the fresh mozzarella lay atop a second layer of a yellower, more aged cheese, though I couldn’t identify the variety. Whatever it was, it was pretty mild, as there was not much cheese flavor here at all.
What did have a lot of flavor were the slices of fresh (probably Roma) tomato on top of the cheese. I imagine the cooking process, which would have caused some of the water in the tomatoes to evaporate, would have concentrated their flavor somewhat, but even so these were remarkably good tomatoes, especially at this time of year. If, in this age of year-round produce, you’ve gotten accustomed to tomatoes that are more decorative than tasty, these will come as a revelation. The smaller pieces of sundried tomato furnished comparatively less flavor, and seemed to have caramelized a bit in the oven. The shreds of wilted basil added an herbal note to the overall profile, but were not especially prominent on the palate.
That left the outer edge, which had a nice crunch. It seemed to me reminiscent of a good, French bread dough.
Max’s other pizza offerings are a pepperoni pie, roasted vegetable pizza, pizza bianca (white pizza), and rotating daily specials, in small and large sizes. Other food choices include salads, sandwiches, pasta, and various ready-to-go prepared foods, and desserts as well.
And of course, there are the packaged foods. I picked up some rarely seen, imported “00” flour, which supposedly is a necessity if you want to make “authentic” Italian pizza (I’ll let you know how it goes).
As far as my pizza is concerned, well, there were things I liked about it and things I didn’t. It seemed to have been made from good dough, but as my favorite bread guru, Peter Reinhart, writes, baking good bread is all about manipulating time and temperature in order to maximize the flavor and texture of the finished product. This crust lacked the high-heat charring and toasted aroma and flavor that marks the best pizza, so I’m not sure that Max fully realized this dough’s potential.
And though the tomatoes were very good, the tomatoes and cheese had proportionally been applied in reverse to what I would have preferred. I would rather have had those tomatoes used as a flavorful base for some melted, creamy mozzarella, rather than the thick, double layer of relatively bland cheese that I got here, with the tomatoes adding some teasingly good accents that left me wanting more.
Though I say it often, those are, of course, just my opinions. But since this is my blog, those are the only opinions I can offer. To me, this was good pizza, but it lacked a certain complexity, was not as well balanced as it could have been, and the components didn’t seem to mesh all that well. It struck me as more like upscale fast food than as truly great pizza. So I liked it, but not as much as I'd hoped for, and I’ll give it a C+.
Max Market, 2949 Monroe Ave. , 271-1210
Monday - Saturday: 8am -8pm, Sunday: 8am - 6pm

Perinton Pizza

Perinton Pizza is a family-owned and operated pizzeria that’s been in business since 1985. Technically the address is Courtney Drive, but for practical purposes it’s in a small plaza on Pittsford Palmyra Road (Rt. 31), between Turk Hill Road and Rt. 250.
I picked up a couple of cheese slices at lunchtime. While waiting for them to come up, I noticed that the pizza here is baked in a conveyor-belt oven, which you don’t often see around here.
The results, in this case at least, were not impressive. My slices had a faint scent of frying oil, and the underside was soft, browned, and oily. The crust was pretty thin, except at the thick outer lip. It had a soft, spongy texture, except again for the lip, which was crunchy. The lip - which was probably the best part - displayed some air holes inside, but the rest of the dough didn’t seem to have risen much, and even the lip didn’t have much in the way of breadiness, with a bland, white-bread flavor and texture.
The sauce, which was modestly applied, had a mild tomatoey flavor. The cheese was rather thick, and was well browned and congealed into a solid mass.
Perinton Pizza has a fairly extensive list of pizza toppings, and quite a few specialty pizzas, which cholesterolically speaking run the gamut from a veggie pizza to the potato skin pizza, with potato skins, chives, bacon, mozzarella, cheddar, and sour cream.
There’s also a long list of specialty subs, as well as wings, wraps, calzones, salads, appetizers, “landfill plates,” Italian dinners, fried fish or shrimp, and a few desserts too. All items are available for pickup, delivery, or eating on the premises.
According to the menu, Perinton Pizza has won the “Perinton Pizza Poll” five of the past six years. I don’t know who the other candidates were, but Perinton Pizza must have its fans. Based on this visit, I can’t count myself among them. As always, it all starts with the crust, and this one was too soft, spongy and greasy, and the cheese was overcooked. I also got the impression that the yeast hadn’t been given enough of a chance to do their thing before the pizza went in the oven.
Speaking of which, I don’t know to what extent the oven itself is to blame, but to my way of thinking, a conveyor belt system really takes away any ability of the pizza maker to control the final product once the pizza has gone into the oven. In effect, it renders the pizza maker little more than a machine operator, rather than a chef or true pizzaiolo. That may be convenient, if you’re staffed with inexperienced help, but it doesn’t bode well for the pizza.
But again, just my opinion. Presumably these folks haven’t stayed in business for nearly 25 years by making pizza that nobody likes. But based on my idea of good pizza, I’ll give it a D.
Perinton Pizza, Courtney Commons Plaza, Fairport 223-8118
Mon. - Thu. 9 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. 9 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.