I love pizza. I just love it so much. I love its flexibility, its taste, often its price point, its familiarity. There is very little not to like about it in my book. That is why you keep seeing more of these “top pizzerias of” or “best pizzas in” articles regarding cities I visited. They will continue as long as I live and breathe, and thus I just had to write one for Kazan as well, which (positively) surprised me with its own selection of pizzerias that offered rather different types of this Italian delicacy. Let us dive deep into them now!
Halal Pizza Napoletana – https://yandex.com/maps/-/CCUoyJDJlD
Kazan is one of the more Muslim Russian cities, due to its rather sizeable though not so dominant (anymore) Tatar population. Therefore, the term halal, which is used to refer to food that is religiously permissible to Muslims that adhere to an orthodox Islam, is quite ubiquitous around the city. I for one do not even know what makes “normal” pizza not halal, despite perhaps putting some bacon on it, but regardless, it is what it is. This particular pizza was decent, but it was not perfect. I really liked the dough itself, and the cheese was very flavourful. The sauce was good but there was never enough of it, and it did not help that they did not really put much of it in the centre where it was also pretty much needed. The highlight of this establishment was the fact that they had some spicy olive oil, which was not really spicy, but as long as Russian food goes, it was “spicy.” Service was top notch, seating was comfortable, and the location is just perfect. There really is not a reason not to visit this fine pizzeria if you crave some pizza after spending an entire day or two in Kazan’s beautiful Kremlin.
Brooklyn Pizza – https://yandex.com/maps/-/CCUoyJTLlD
I would argue that a better pizza, well at least a better Neapolitan style pizza can be found a bit further away, in Brooklyn Pizza. Service etc. is also quite excellent here, if not even better. Where it truly shines however is its use of a tastier tomato sauce that is also used more generously, as well as its less salty and more abundant cheese. They do not have spicy olive oil on the table but the normal one does the job quite well as well. Prices are similar, so it really is up to one’s taste buds to figure out which one is worth a visit, and mine would pick this any time of the day. But then again, I am the kind of guy that prefers those burnt bits for some extra “cancer” in my system so make up your own mind about it!
Nostalgia – https://yandex.com/maps/-/CCUoyJh8pD
The question of whether I should crown this or that establishment for serving the best pizza in town is a difficult one, not only because I cannot really choose one, but also because we have to answer what a pizza is to begin with. Nostalgia makes you question what a pizza truly is in the best way possible. Tasting much like a mother’s homemade pizza-like “thingy” made in a simple conventional oven, this tasty monstrosity was twice if not thrice the weight of the previous two pizzas on this list. Stuffed with four types of cheese and an almost ridiculous amount of what appeared to be canned tomato sauce, it has everything you want from a delicious yet most likely quite unhealthy lunch. It was doughy, fatty, salty, saucy, and heavy. Would I eat it again and again, especially on a hot day as it were on that lovely day? No. Although I am not so huge on sharing my pizza, in this particular case I wished there was a second person there just so I can give half of this pie to them. In my book, if you need to try just one pizza in Kazan, I recommend you visit this particular place. Not only because they serve tasty food, but because what they serve is unique. You can easily find those Neapolitan wannabe pizzas all around the world, even in some Turkish villages these days, but this is certainly quite different. It reminded me of the “communist” pizza in Budapest, the one that used paprika instead of tomato for its base sauce, but this one was more Italian for sure.