Last week we decided to order thai green curries from takeaways around Dublin and rank them to see which was the best. This week we set ourselves the arduous task of doing the same but for pepperoni pizza!
It's important to note firstly that we are based in Dublin 8 so the places we chose were takeaways that are nearby or deliver to our area. We know there are many delicious pepperoni pizzas in the city, but we decided to rate: Four Star Pizza, Dominos, Mizzonis, Apache and Base Wood Fired Pizza. We also intended to order size medium in each but thanks to 5 of us ordering a pizza each a few wires were crossed and we ended up with few larges, so bear the sizes in mind when checking the prices. The results of this challenge were surprising leaving us delighted in some cases, and shocked and appalled in other cases. Read on for our results…
4th. Four Star
Four Star's delivery time here wasn't great, but the main problem was the taste. The pizza was pretty tasteless (there was no taste from the tomato sauce or the pepperoni) and the crust melted in the mouth, in a bad way. The cheese was a bit rubbery too. If Barbie ate pizzas it would look and taste like this... Fake.
Order time: 16:37
Pepperoni: €12 (medium size)
Coke: €1.20
Delivery charge: €1.50
Total: €14.70
Delivery time: 17:36
Time taken: 59 minutes
3rd. Apache:
Apache was the cheapest pizza of the bunch and their delivery time wasn't the worst at 38 minutes from phone call to door. I honestly hate giving bad reviews on things but this was pretty grim. It was literally dripping in greasy oil. I have no idea where all the oil came from, but it was dripping off the pizza and all the way through the bottom of the box. It was also way too cheesy and didn't have much tomato sauce. We couldn't eat much of this as we just felt too sickly full after a bite. On the plus side is was the hottest of the bunch.
Order time: 16.39
Pepperoni: €9.99 (large size)
Coke: €1.20
Delivery charge: €2.50
Total: €13.69
Delivery time: 17.17
Time taken: 38mins
2nd. Dominos
Dominos was the fastest of them all for delivery at just 26 minutes. This was actually okay, the main issue was that the base was a bit undercooked. I wouldn't be a Dominos fan but to be fair it was decent enough as far as takeaways go, I was surprised considering it was coming from such a big chain.
Order time: 16:37
Pepperoni: €14.00 (medium size)
Coke: €1.20
Delivery charge: €1.00
Total: €16.20
Delivery time: 17:03
Time taken: 26 minutes
1st. Mizzoni
The winner of the bunch was Mizzoni. The base was nice and crusty with a bit of chew. The tomato sauce was tasty, there was a decent bit of cheese and their garlic sauce was the best. The only downside was that the pepperoni was a bit bland, however, all in all we were very happy to eat away on this pizza. The delivery time was also really good at just 29 minutes.
Order time: 16:43
Pepperoni: €15.70 (large size)
Coke: €1.20
Delivery charge: Free
Total: €16.90
Delivery time: 17:12
Time taken: 29 mins
Disqualified - Base WFP:
Base WFP was the one that I was convinced would win hands down over the rest, as it's a posh pizza, uses quality ingredients and I've always been really happy there previously. I put in the order at 16.35 and after a good bit of waiting on the phone they said that as deliveries start at 5pm I wouldn't get my pizza until 5.40pm, it didn't come until 6pm so it took the longest, but I wasn't going to hold that against them. When we opened the pizza there was no pepperoni on it despite ordering and being charged for it so we had to disqualify them (we are ranking pepperoni pizzas here and this turned out to not be pepperoni pizza), the pizza was also cold. I think they just must have been having an off night. Their pizzas in general are great so we were very disappointed as we were looking forward to this one the most, however we decided for the reasons explained above Base would have to receive 'nil points'.
Order time: 16.35 (don't start delivers until 5pm)
Pepperoni: €15.80 (large- no mediums available)
Coke: €1.10
Delivery charge: €2.50
Total: €19.40
Delivery time: 17.59
Time taken: 59 minutes
It's important to note that we are ordering these pizzas on a particular night, and our experiences might vary from the norm, we're just judging on what we received and the experience we had on the night we ordered them. The different pizza take aways also vary a lot in quality. If you have had a different experience with any of the above pizza joints, or if you have a favourite pizza takeaway you want to share then let us know!
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