If you’ve been reading our blog for some time, you’ve probably guessed that we like pizza.  We’ve written entire posts about our quests to find the best pizza in the Chicago area, New Haven, Philadelphia, Long Island, and Staten Island.  And of course we’ve sampled pizzas from around New Jersey, our neighbor and Miriam’s home state.  But New Jersey doesn’t lack for good pizzas, thanks to its large Italian-American population and it’s strong food culture, so in the past few months we went around the state once more to try and find some excellent pies and slices.  Here’s our results – which happen to all be meatless, for you fellow vegetarian pizza lovers out there.

We’ll move north to south on this pizza journey, starting with Brooklyn’s Pizzeria in Hackensack.  This place is steeped in a rich pizza history:  the founders are related to the man who opened Patsy’s in Harlem, which is one of the oldest pizzerias in New York City (we featured it here).  As the name suggests, this branch of the family originally opened a restaurant in Brooklyn but then decided to head out to New Jersey – this is the first location in the state, and there’s second in Ridgewood.  We decided to go for something simple here and got just this plain cheese and tomato pie.

Not too far away, we also tried Bruno’s in Clifton.  This place is tucked into an unassuming storefront in a strip mall, but over the 50 years it’s been around it’s received a lot of praise.  We decided to share a few slices there so we could try several different types of pizzas, including a margherita …

… a plain cheese slice …

… and a cheese grandma slice.

Moving a little bit west is Reservoir Tavern in Boonton, which opened in 1936 as a restaurant serving all kinds of food – but it quickly became famous for its pizzas.  There’s just one type on the menu, a plain cheese in three different sizes, but you can choose all different kinds of toppings to mix and match on your pie.  We went with hot cherry peppers.

Now down in Metuchen is Antonio’s Brick Oven Pizza, which has been a staple in town for almost 30 years and is also notable for its commitment to brick oven cooking.  There we decided to try their speciality:  this cucina-style pan cheese pizza, made simply with fresh mozzarella layered onto tomato sauce.

And finally, we ventured all the way down to central Jersey to check out Pizza Den in Princeton.  This place is the youngest pizzeria we visited – it was opened only four years ago – but in those few years it’s received a lot of praise for its streamlined menu of classic and inventive pies.  We decided to get two small pizzas so we could sample some different things:  on top is the Brooklyn pie, made with fresh mozzarella and basil on tomato sauce, and underneath is a plain tomato pie with basil.

It was interesting going to all these different places around New Jersey and sampling some such different pizzas:  you’ve got some places that are almost nine decades old, some places that are deeply connected to the pizza history of this country, and some that are newcomers.  And we’re glad, too, that we were able to get some good meat-free pies everywhere, which goes to show how vegetarian-friendly pizza can be and that you don’t have to give up interesting and tasty food when you go meatless.  If we had to pick our favorite out of all these places, it would be Reservoir Tavern, because the pizza was made in a really good New York style, as we’re used to, and there’s so many different toppings that you can choose from for your classic cheese pizza.  But all these places were delicious, and they’re all accessible by either bus or train, so if you’re looking to get out of the city or explore the great state of New Jersey, these five pizza spots are a good place to start.