De Pizza Review: Nicola Pizza

Rating:

Final Composite Score: 5 out of 8 slices (rounded up from 4.9 average)

[Her: 4.75 out of 8 slices]

[Him: 6 out of 8 slices]

[Younger Son: 4 out of 8 slices

Read the full "dialogue review" below these real-time pictures of your reviewers' pizzas.

Actual pizzas partially consumed by your reviewers (that's a lot of food!) after this picture was taken by your correspondent.

Him:

This is our review of Nicola Pizza, now in Lewes, Delaware. And “now” is important because Nicola’s used be in a different place with a different style.

For years, Nicola’s was a much smaller, family-oriented pizza joint near the beach and boardwalk in Rehoboth. We used to take our kids there when we visited the beach or the Funland amusement park.

And whenever we went to Nicola’s, we waited. And waited. And waited.

I think half of Grotto Pizza’s business in Rehoboth came from families who tried to go to Nicola’s, were told they would have to wait roughly a week and a half for a table, and decided their children would starve before then.

Her:

I think we said that in our Grotto review.

Him:

It bears repeating.

The old Nicola’s was very much a family place. One of its defining features was an electric train that ran around a track near the ceiling. Kids would sit there mesmerized by that train, which gave their parents time to scarf down their slices.

Then Nicola’s moved to Lewes and built what can only be described as a pizza-plex.

The place is enormous.

The dining room looks like it could seat two or three hundred people. There is a banquet facility upstairs, a huge takeout operation, an outdoor bar and dining area, and televisions everywhere.

The old neighborhood pizza joint has become something much closer to a sports bar.

And the train?

The train is now a museum piece sitting on a short stretch of track near the entrance. It does not move.

Younger Son:

It is disgraceful.

If you are going to spend all that money building this enormous facility, you can put up some train tracks and a functioning choo-choo.

Him:

You feel strongly about this.

Younger Son:

I want my train.

You can have a sports bar and still welcome families. There are a million televisions and multiple bar areas, so obviously they were going for a different vibe. But screw the vibe.

Put the train back.

I probably would have given them an extra slice in my rating just for having the train running around the room all night.

Him:

So we have established our first scoring criterion: Train with tracks.

Now let's talk about the pizza.

We ordered three: cheese, pepperoni, and mushroom.

Her:

Everything about Nicola’s felt very familiar to me.

Even the salad. It comes with big globs of shredded mozzarella and packets of salad dressing. They do not even pretend the dressing did not come out of a packet. It is basically cafeteria presentation. But it tastes fine.

The iceberg lettuce was hopefully very, very clean.

Him:

Hopefully. [Note: We visited Nicola's while the cyclospora outbreak, which may have been connected to bagged lettuce, was fresh in our minds.]

Her:

Nicola's is incredibly busy. But they also seem extraordinarily organized. I cannot imagine how many people they can fit into that building, and yet they seem to have the whole restaurant operation down to a science.

Despite the crowds, everything works.

And the pizza tasted exactly the way I remembered it.

The sauce is incredibly sweet. The crust is not particularly chewy. It has a little crispness but not a lot of flavor. And then there is the cheese.

I do not think there is anything particularly special about it. I assume it is mozzarella, maybe with something else mixed in. But it is thick, heavy, chewy, and there is a lot of it on the pizzas.

And there is something about that I like.

Him:

There is definitely a lot of cheese.

Her:

They do not skimp. And I hate when a pizza does not have enough cheese. So the cheese was probably the highlight for me.

The pepperoni pizza was my favorite because the saltiness of the pepperoni helped balance the sweetness of the sauce. The cheese and mushroom pizzas were simply too sweet for me.

But I still liked being there. It feels familiar and welcoming.

Him:

Younger Son?

Younger Son:

First, a disclaimer.

I burned my tongue on a meatball appetizer, so my taste buds may have been slightly singed. That said, I agree that “familiar” is the right word.

But the sauce is almost saccharine. There was too much of it, and it was far too sweet.

I am generally not a big sauce person anyway. I am perfectly happy with a white pizza or a pizza with very little sauce. But pizza sauce should never be this sweet. I found myself adding salt just to fight the sugar. It tasted like somebody dumped Splenda packets into the tomato sauce.

Him:

That criticism is not subtle.

Younger Son:

Neither is the sauce.

The dough had some flavor. It was not completely unsalted, which puts it head and shoulders above some of the pizzas we have reviewed.

The cheese was pretty good. I liked that there was a lot of it. But everything was overwhelmed by that sugary sauce.

And then we get to the pizza engineering.

Him:

Pizza engineering! My favorite science.

Younger Son:

This pizza has a serious structural-integrity problem. From the first bite, the entire layer of cheese is begging to come off the slice with you. The cheese wants a divorce from the pizza.

So you have two choices.

You can eat it with a fork and knife, which is an outrage best explained by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

Or you can stick a finger into the middle of the slice to hold the cheese in place, which exposes your finger to hot grease, sauce, and cheese.

Him:

And exposes everyone else at the table to a fairly unattractive eating technique.

Younger Son:

It also exposes the pizza to your hand. There are no winners here.

Her:

When my cheese slid off, I ate it. Then I added some of the mozzarella from the salad and some parmesan from the table.

Problem solved.

Younger Son:

That is not problem solved. That is replacing baked, melted pizza cheese with cold shredded salad cheese. The pizza should work on its own.

And this was not just because it arrived hot. Even after it cooled down, the cheese still slid off.

You cannot fold the slice because all the cheese comes out the top.

You cannot bite it normally because the cheese comes off with the first bite.

There is no way to eat the pizza with your hands like a normal slice and have the cheese stay where it belongs.

That is a major problem.

Her:

Do you know what your grandfather would say? “That should be your biggest problem.”

Younger Son:

At a pizzeria, it should not be a problem at all.

Him:

I agree. Keeping the cheese on the pizza is one of my pet peeves. Somebody has to understand how to do that.

I think the engineering problem here is simply load: too much cheese and sauce for the crust.

Younger Son:

Load-bearing crust. A fundamental engineering principle.

Him:

Exactly. An important engineering fail.

Her:

I still ate the cheese.

Him:

We all did.

Now, neither of you has said much about the mushrooms. Were they not memorable?

Her:

There were not many of them. The mushroom pizza was pretty skimpy on mushrooms.

At first I thought they might be canned, but I am not confident enough about that to say so.

Him:

I actually thought they might be fresh.

I ate one separately, and it had some mushroom texture and flavor. It did not seem soft or gloppy like a canned mushroom. But the mushroom pizza itself was bland.

Younger Son:

Neither the mushrooms nor the pepperoni stood out to me.

Her:

I liked the pepperoni. It was comfort pepperoni.

Him:

I thought the pepperoni was good, but inconsistent. Some pieces were crisp. Others were still chewy and meaty.

It was not the kind of pepperoni that crisps uniformly and creates those wonderful little cups of grease. But it helped the pizza because it added salt.

And that brings us back to the sauce.

I like sweet pizza sauce. Everyone who has read these DE Pizza reviews knows that.

Sweet sauce is part of the New York/New Jersey pizza tradition I grew up with, and I have defended it repeatedly. So I am about to shock both of you and probably some of our readers.

This sauce was too sweet even for me.

[Gasps, fainting, and general expressions of shock and awe.]

We have finally answered the question: Can pizza sauce be too sweet?

Yes. It can be too sweet. Nicola’s has demonstrated that it can.

Now, let me be clear. It was not horrible. I ate an enormous amount of pizza tonight. Far more than my share. Far more than reasonable judgment would advise.

And I enjoyed it. But the sweetness became distracting.

I think saltier cheese would have helped. The cheese was creamy, fatty, rich, and plentiful. I really liked it. But it was not particularly salty, and more salt might have helped balance the sauce.

The crust had a decent crunch but very little chew. Really good pizza crust should have both. This crust was crunchy around the edge and crunchy underneath. It reminded me a little of reheated pizza—not because I think they reheated it, but because of that toast-like consistency.

Her:

Toast?

Him:

You heard me. It was almost like toast.

It needed more character—a little more yeast, a little more salt, something.

Again, nowhere near as bland as some of the crusts we have suffered through during this project. But not a great crust.

Her:

I had an odd experience with the pizzas because I thought the mushroom pizza tasted sweet too.

Him:

Which is funny because I thought the mushroom pizza tasted blander.

I started with the cheese pizza and liked it. At first, the sauce did not even seem excessively sweet. Then I ate the mushroom pizza, and it seemed bland.

Then I moved to the pepperoni pizza, and somehow the sauce seemed even sweeter.

Maybe my palate was changing as I ate. Maybe it was the ginger ale I was drinking.

Who knows?

But the pizza did not taste entirely consistent to me.

Younger Son:

Maybe the train would have fixed it.

Him:

I thjnk it would have to be a magic train.

Younger Son:

Correct.

Him:

We should say something about the service because Nicola’s is an extraordinarily professional operation.

Our server was quick, polite, and gracious. When we were not ready to order at first, she went off and did something else and came back at exactly the right time instead of hovering.

There was a problem with my soda. She apologized, explained what happened, and immediately replaced it.

They are very, very good at running that restaurant.

Her:

I agree.

Him:

And I should admit that I went into Nicola's with fairly low expectations. My memory of Nicola’s Pizza was considerably more negative than my experience tonight.

We have eaten there before, including the three of us together, and I did not remember the pizza being this good.

Tonight? I thought it was pretty good. Not great. Not at the level of our best-reviewed pizzas.

But pretty good.

There have been restaurants during this project where I finished the meal thinking, “I cannot believe I had to eat that.” I did not feel that way at Nicola’s.

I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed the pizza. I have criticisms—clearly—but the overall experience was good.

Her:

I agree.

Him:

Younger Son?

Younger Son:

There are worse places to go. But knowing what I now know about the sauce and the engineering, I would not choose to go there for pizza.

Her:

Would you go back for a Nic-o-boli?

Younger Son:

Absolutely.

And I want the record to reflect that I was unjustly prevented from ordering a Nic-o-boli tonight. The Nic-o-boli is their signature dish. Their famous dish.

It is basically a Stromboli. Or a calzone.

Him:

Stromboli.

Her:

Do you actually know the difference?

Younger Son:

Is “stromboli” even a word?

Him:

Here is my suggestion.

Start your own stromboli and calzone blog. This is a pizza blog. We eat pizza.

We review pizza.

Younger Son:

I am going to put you out of business.

Him:

I welcome the competition. Even within the family.

Alright. It is time for scores.

As always, we rate pizza from one to eight slices. One slice means: please get out of the pizza business and sell plumbing supplies. Eight slices is the metaphysically perfect pizza. Pizza Nirvana.

Younger Son, what do you give Nicola’s?

Younger Son:

...

Him:

Readers should know that there has now been an extremely long pause. We had to pause the recorder. We have restarted the recorder.

And he is still thinking.

Younger Son:

Four and a half. No. Four. I am giving it a four.

If there had been less sauce, or if the pizza had stayed together, maybe I would have gone to four and a half.

If the train had been running, I would have given it a five.

But if the pizza is falling apart because of a sauce I do not like, that is a problem.

The people are lovely. They are obviously doing enormous business. I do not think my review is going to bring the Nicola’s empire to its knees. But if I went back, I would order a white pizza or a Nic-o-boli.

If somebody gave me a pizza with that sauce, I might scrape it off. So I cannot give Nicola’s more than four slices without betraying my professional creed.

Her:

Your professional pizza-eating creed?

Younger Son:

The same.

Him:

I am going much higher. I am giving Nicola’s six slices.

Younger Son:

What?

Him:

Here is why.

I gave Dough Bar a six, and this was roughly the same quality of overall experience for me. At the end of the day, my most important question is simple: Did I enjoy the pizza?

And I did. I have criticisms. This is definitely not perfect pizza. But it was good enough—and, importantly, celebratory enough—for me to give it a six.

Younger Son:

You are allowed to be wrong.

Him:

And yet, I am not.

Her?

Her:

I am not giving a long speech explaining my score like some people.

I cannot decide between four and a half and five. So I am giving Nicola’s 4.75 slices. You can figure out the math. Period.

Him:

Hard stop.

So we have a four, a 4.75, and a six. That disagreement probably tells you more about Nicola’s than any single score could.

It is an institution. It is, dare I say it, venerable. It is comfortable. It is professionally run. It brings back a lot of great family memories. It serves an enormous amount of cheese and an even more enormous amount of very sweet sauce.

And depending on which member of this family you ask, that pizza is somewhere between decidedly mediocre and genuinely enjoyable.

But there is one thing on which we can all agree.

Younger Son:

Bring back the train.

Him:

We should have t-shirts made up with that slogan on them.

And that is our review of Nicola Pizza in Lewes, Delaware.