Great effing news, pizza fans. Zoli’s NY Pizza is just as good as it’s hyped up to be. After a rocky start this week due to some staff and computer problems, it seems Jay Jerrier is really getting the hang of his NY-style joint. The food’s been perfected for MONTHS now, and it really is really, really, really like slap-your-own-grandma-if-she-tries-to-steal-your-pizza-good.

I’m a pizza purist, so I ordered a NY-style cheese pie, a slice of plain and simple grandma and some garlic knots with both house-made jalapeño ranch and marinara sauces and had a seat. No, we didn’t eat it all. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Damn that shit was good.

The garlic knots at Zoli’s are doughy and good. I swear I haven’t had a decent garlic knot in Dallas like ever. So these were a welcome part of the Zoli’s experience. The house-made jalapeño ranch has gotten a lot of attention. Kind of like when Lockhart BBQ started letting folks have forks, Mr Jerrier was anti-ranch but has created it especially for Zoli’s as a dipping sauce for the knots and his zucchini fries. I’m a certified ranch snob, and this one didn’t do it for me. It wasn’t bad, just not good enough to match the tasty that surrounded it. The knots are better plain or with marinara, IMO.

THIS PIE Y’ALL. Don’t wait. Go get you one right away. It’s big, awesome and $18. NY prices? Yes. But worth it.

THIS was what I was waiting for. A perfect slice of NY-style goodness. Hot, foldable, salty, cheesy and yeah, just perfect. I had more the next day for breakfast. And later that night as well. I’m not ashamed.

We waited a bit longer for our slice of grandma-style goodness. Prob because they forgot the order, but it wasn’t a biggie. This was our dessert. This is a lot of people’s favorite, but for me, I’m NY all the way. The thing that’s great about grandma though, is the crushed tomatoes and the perfect thickness of the dough. It’s good stuff. It’s just that my heart belongs to NYC.

Overall, I’m happy to report that other than a little in-restaurant warmth and some waiting, Zoli’s lived up to my expectations and Jay Jerrier’s hype. Everyone asks: What’s better? Cane Rosso or Zoli’s? The obvious answer is that they’re both great and different. I like them both, but the sit-down, take-your-time experience at Cane Rosso scores them some points over the wait-in-line, kinda sweaty, fight for seating experience at Zoli’s. That being said, I think I love my NY slices more than my Neapolitan. But that’s just me.

Zoli’s NY Pizza  |  202 W Davis  |  zolispizza.com