Pizza lovers often flock to New York and Chicago, but one Midwestern city is carving out its own place on the map as it gains national attention for its unique style of pizza. In the state capital of Ohio, Columbus, there is a special type of pizza called Columbus pizza. The regional specialty is characterized by a thin crust, a slightly sweet tomato sauce, and lots of cheese – provolone mozzarella or just provolone.<\/p>\n
The pizza is also packed with edge-to-edge toppings, often pepperoni \u2013 and is baked into a round pie with little to no exposed crust. Columbus-style pizza is cut tavern-style into squares and rectangles rather than slices, making it easy to share and popular in groups. It’s somewhat similar to St. Louis-style pizza, but Gateway City pizza has a cracker-like crust and signature Provel cheese that sets it apart from other options.<\/p>\n
The Columbus favorite dates back to the mid-20th century, when the style began to take shape in local restaurants. The local outlet credited brothers Dan and Jimmy Massucci, who opened Romeo’s Italian Restaurant and Massey’s Pizza in 1949, with helping to shape the style and popularize it throughout Columbus.<\/p>\n
A unique feature of Columbus-style pizza is that it doesn’t have a "dough ring," said Kevin King, CEO and president of Donatos Pizza in Columbus. \u201cWe make sure the sauce, cheese, and toppings cover the entire surface of the pizza,\u201d he told. \u201cWe\u2019ve even been known to put 100 pieces of pepperoni on our large pizzas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded in 1963, Donatos has helped \u201cgrow and popularize Columbus-style pizza,\u201d the CEO noted. It has become one of the most famous pizza brands in the city. The brand uses smoked Wisconsin provolone to give it a \u201csharper flavor profile\u201d that sets it apart from other regional styles. The pizza’s unique characteristics are helping Columbus gain national recognition as "one of the premier pizza destinations" as the city continues to build its reputation among foodies.<\/p>\n
King cited a recent study that found Columbus was the fourth most pizza-obsessed city in the world, ahead of Chicago and Rome. Publications like USA Today and Eater have said that Columbus is one of the best pizza cities in the country. \u201cDonatos Pizza hopes to spread the message across the country by offering consistently high-quality pizza at all of our locations in 28 states,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The executive also attributed the continued popularity of pizza to tradition and consistent preparation. \u201cOur founder, Jim Grote, is an innovator at heart,\u201d he noted. \u201cHis goal was to develop pizza machines that always offer customers a consistent pizza experience.\u201d For example, Donatos has developed machines that deliver "the right amount of sauce and the optimally sliced \u200b\u200bpepperoni" to keep the pizzas consistent.<\/p>\n
If pepperoni doesn’t interest some customers, King says, the Columbus style goes beyond traditional toppings and offers more experimental options. \u201cColumbus pizza has a plethora of different topping \u2013 and even sauce \u2013 combinations,\u201d he said. \u201cDonatos recently launched a range of white sauce pizzas, the base of which is the creamy Parmesan sauce… [and the] The hot honey trend on pizza has spread to Columbus-style pizzas as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to Columbus Pizza Pizza lovers often flock to New York and Chicago, but one Midwestern city is carving out its own place on the map as it gains national attention for its unique style of pizza. In the state capital of Ohio, Columbus, there is a special type of pizza called Columbus pizza. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[27392,15215,15212,4011,21841,27390,27388,877,27389,20836,1915,20829,27385,17337,6675,15216,27387,20834,27391,27386,18300,13035],"class_list":{"0":"post-32793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lifestyle","8":"tag-bechamel-sauce","9":"tag-bread","10":"tag-cheese","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-cracker-food","13":"tag-donatos-pizza","14":"tag-francesco-massucci","15":"tag-innovation","16":"tag-kevin-king-tennis","17":"tag-mozzarella","18":"tag-ohio","19":"tag-parmesan","20":"tag-pepperoni","21":"tag-pie","22":"tag-pizza","23":"tag-pizza-pizza","24":"tag-provel-cheese","25":"tag-provolone","26":"tag-rome-georgia","27":"tag-st-louis-style-pizza","28":"tag-tomato-sauce","29":"tag-wisconsin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32795,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32793\/revisions\/32795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}