One of San Francisco’s Most Famous Pizzerias Just Launched a Pizza Tasting Menu

Now you can taste your way through seven distinct pizza styles at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana.

There’s a tasting menu for just about every kind of San Franciso diner. There are high-end ones worth splurging on and affordable ones for those who crave a deal. There are vegan and dairy-free ones, at least one that stars wagyu beef, another that shines a spotlight on fish, and a tasting menu that’s entirely about pasta.

Now, there’s also a tasting menu for pizza lovers. Starting today, February 15, famed North Beach pizzeria Tony’s Pizza Napoletana is offering a new pizza tasting menu that takes diners on a world tour of seven styles. The Pizza Around the World Tasting Experience menu costs $500 for the table, which can accommodate up to six diners — though you’re welcome to try to tackle seven pizzas with fewer people if you want. Seatings will be available Wednesday through Sunday at 5, 7, and 9 p.m. and for those who want to avoid waiting for a seat at the ever-popular restaurant, note that you can make a reservation for this experience.

It’s a lot of food, pizzaiolo Tony Gemignani warns, adding that for years, customers have been asking for a way to taste the many pizza styles offered at his eponymous restaurant. “So, I kinda finally did it after nearly 15 years,” he says with a laugh.

A coal-fired clam and garlic pie.

Here’s what the menu includes: You’ll start your meal with a glass of Prosecco and a spread of appetizers including Italian chop and caprese salads, string bean fritti, and fried squash blossoms. Then it’s onto the pies. There are seven of them in the lineup and all are full-sized pizzas. That equates to seven pizzas for six people — assuming you max out the table — so definitely wear your stretchiest pants.

The pizza parade will start with one of Gemignani’s all-time fan-favorites: a leopard-spotted Neopolitan-style Margherita pizza. That’s the pizza style that helped launch Gemignani’s now sprawling pizza empire and just 73 of them are made each day using using wooden boxes imported from Naples. Next in the lineup comes the Artichoke Joe, a canotto-style pizza. This is a newer style coming out of Naples, Gemignani explains, with a raised crust that’s flaky with micro-blistering around the edge — it almost tastes like it’s fried. “There’s not really another pizza like this in San Francisco,” he says. “It’s just different.”

Then the pizza tour heads out of Italy and over the States, with a New Haven-style coal-fired clam and garlic pie. Gemignani says Tony’s is the only place serving coal-fired pizza in San Francisco — possibly one of just two or three in three in the state — and he’s bringing in his anthracite coal for the oven from Pittsburgh. Next he’ll take diners further east with a Grandma the Hippie pizza, a vegetarian pie that’s cooked in a pan but with a crust that’s thinner than a Sicilian or Detroit-style pizza. And speaking of Sicilian, that’s where you’ll head next with the Sicilian New York All-Star, one of the thickest pies on the menu, Gemignani notes.

To round out the pizza offerings, diners will get a Detroit Motörhead pie and, finally, a “cracker-thin” St. Louis-style pizza. There’s still dessert though, so leave room for a selection of assorted cannoli and tiramisu. There will also be two options for wine pairings, a lower tier dubbed an “introduction to Italian wine” and a more elevated one that’s for the “wine enthusiast,” the menu lists. Both have been put together by wine director Jules Gregg with the first tier costing $45 per person and the second ringing in at $60, though it requires at least three diners to participate.

Aside from hardcore pizza lovers who want to experience a range of styles in one sitting, Gemignani envisions groups of friends coming together to put their favorite regional styles aginst each other in a head-to-head competition. There’ll be plenty of food to tackle in the one hour and 45-minute timeframe set aside for the experience. But Gemaignani says that’s by design. “At Tony’s, I cook like my mom cooked,” he says. “You know, when you came over for dinner you always left with food. So I always kind of mirror my restaurants and portions with how my mom served food at home.”

Reservations for the Pizza Around the World Tasting Experience menu at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana are available via Yelp.

Grandma the Hippie pizza.