Mark’s Score 8.5
Pizza is one of the all-time great culinary inventions. You have bread, diary, vegetables, meat; what more could you want out of a meal? I have visited both gourmet and traditional pizzerias. I much prefer traditional variety. I’ll pass on the arugula fig pizzas, thank you very much. It is not possible to improve on a good-ole traditional Italian family style pizza. It is one of humanity’s great inventions. Part of my journey here is to find the best traditional pizzerias on the Delmarva, which brings me to Laurel Pizzeria.
Laurel Pizzeria is my kind of pizza joint. It was opened by siblings George and Maria Sakellis in 2008, and it has since become a restaurant staple in Laurel. The Sakellis family is deeply rooted in the restaurant business. When they moved from Ohio in 2008, they wanted to open a family-style Italian pizzeria offering consistent, high-quality, Italian dishes that would provide a reliable everyday affordable dining experience. Their menu and cooking style focuses on consistency over experimentation. You are going to get classic Italian family-style dishes here.
I was up Laurel way a few weeks ago, so I decided it was time to give Laurel Pizzeria a try. Laurel Pizzeria is located on the northside of downtown, and Laurel is yet another one of the inland towns of Sussex County that has obviously seen better times. Never having eaten here, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew nothing of this restaurant as I had found it through a Google Map search. The outside of the building wasn’t much to look at, but the parking lot was full, so, that was a good sign.
However, discouraging the outside of the building was, the inside was clean, cheery, and charming. The interior design was typical of North American pizzerias, lots of arches, terra cotta tiles and earthenware vases, in short it was familiar and homey.
A friendly young woman, who turned out to be my waitress, sat me at a table, and for some odd reason she immediately called me “love.” It isn’t that I minded being called “love,” it just seemed a tad too familiar. But that is OK, at my age I’ll take any term of endearment I can get.
Being my first time here, I ordered their “House Special” pizza. If I am in an unfamiliar restaurant, I will sometimes eat the dish the house highlights. If they highlight it then one can assume it is something they believe they do well.
I would classify their house special as deep dish, though they do not describe it that way. I am not a big fan of deep dish; they can be soggy. But to their credit, though the pizza was loaded with condiments the crust was crisp and it did not droop when lifted. The sausage was sweet the peppers crisp, and there was a generous covering of cheese. In short, it was a very good pizza. This restaurant clearly achieved its mission, and I would gladly return.
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