Serafina’s Pizza is a pizzeria on Racetrack Road. They serve a wide variety of pizzas, including their specialties. Most notably of which is their “New Yorker” pizza. Me and my partner Nick recently visited an establishment. This was our experience.
Expectations: Before we arrived at the restaurant, we both read the reviews of Serafina’s, as well as the description of the restaurant. They claimed that their pizza was genuine New York style. Nick and I both are from the New Jersey-New York area, and in our experience in St. John’s, the pizza isn’t necessarily up to New York/Jersey standards. The reviews reflected this notion, with many ratings it 5 stars, and some reviewers stating that the pizza was very good, and that they were from the Northeast, implying that they know what good pizza tastes like. All of these overwhelmingly positive reviews led to high expectations for the restaurant. However, we were still both skeptical, as we’ve seen the same deal with many restaurants that claim to have New York pizza, and they all were very underwhelming. Our expectations were quite high for this place, despite a lot of skepticism, expecting approximately an 8 out of 10 in terms of our overall experience. Our experience definitely did not live up to the hype, as you will see.
Reality: Décor: The décor of Seraphina’s was very baseball themed with a lot of pictures of the New York Mets, and the New York Yankees. The walls were filled top to bottom with Baseball pictures, there was a Tv on the wall playing country music. They had two more TVs, one playing Scooby Doo and the other with a still picture of the statue of liberty.
Service: One of, if not the worst part of the experience, was the service. It started off well as we ordered our food. The cashier was very friendly to us, and there was no issues ordering. However, problems started to arise when we sat waiting for our food. We both ordered the same thing (for consistency): a slice of cheese pizza, and a slice of their specialty pizza, the New Yorker as they call it. Slices that are ordered are not made by hand, but are reheated in their oven, something that shouldn’t take any more than five minutes, especially considering that we were there on a Monday night, and the place was very quiet. We should not have had to wait 10 minutes just for the pizza to start being reheated, which was definitely unexpected, and not pleasant to say the least. Our food was served in two courses, with them serving us our cheese pizzas first, followed by the New Yorker slices. Another issue we noted was that the workers grabbed the pizza with their bare hands, instead of using gloves. Because of the completely unnecessary duration that it took to reheat our pizza, and the noticeable lack of gloves, overall, the service was a 3 out of 10 points.
Portions: The portions of the pizzas were good. the pizza wasn’t small and I felt it was defiantly worth the price.
Price: The price of the pizza was around 4$ a slice and we got 6 slices of pizza 3 drinks and then a full pizza to go it came out to 63.45$, which was defiantly worth it for the amount of pizza that we got.
Pizza: Now, for the most important part, the pizza. To sum up the pizza overall: it was underwhelming, and certaintly not New York style. We ordered two pizzas: a plain cheese, and their New Yorker specialty pizza. The New Yorker was very similar to the plain cheese, its largest difference is that it had fresh mozzarella on top of the cheese blend typical for the pizza, as well as oregano added as a topping.
The Sauce: The biggest complaint that we had about both pizzas in general was the sauce’s flavor. The foundation of a pizza is its sauce-it is where it gets all of its flavor, and it’s what makes pizza, pizza. The glaring issue with the sauce on both was its noticeable lack of garlic, salt, and oregano. Due to this, it tasted far too sweet, and lacking in flavor. Overall, the sauce was a 6.5 out of 10 on the cheese pizza. On the New Yorker pizza, the sauce did taste slightly better, tasting like it had more oregano and more salt, but still far less than what is expected. This may have been simply because of the added toppings, but we’ll give Serafina’s the benefit of the doubt and say that they used a different sauce for the New Yorker.
The Dough: The dough in the pizza wasn’t bad by any means, but it could’ve been so much better. It needed to be thicker, and had problems in how it was cooked. On the cheese pizza, the dough was cooked to the point where it gained rigidity, and was very fragile. When we took a bite out of the pizza, it fell apart very quickly. Dough should have a slight crunch to it, but it shouldn’t completely break apart when you bite it. Thankfully, this was only a problem with the cheese pizza, as the New yorker did not fall apart. Another issue in both of them was that the dough did not have a charcoal-y, almost burnt tasting flavor. We rate the cheese’s dough a 6.1 out of 10, and the New Yorker’s a 6.8 out of 10.
The Cheese: Possibly the highlight of the pizza was the cheese. The cheese didn’t have anything particularly wrong with its flavor, or its texture. The problem with it was that it didn’t taste good with the sauce. The cheese pizza’s cheese was worse because it had a lot of grease, which isn’t necessarily a problem on its own, but when it was reheated, the grease came out still hot, melting the cheese and making it very hard to eat. The New Yorker’s was definitely an improvement, as with the added mozzarella, there was less grease, making the pizza far less hot than its cheese counterpart. Overall, the cheese for the cheese pizza was a 7.1 out of 10, and the new Yorker’s was a 7.6.
The Crust: Finally, the crust. The crust at Serafina’s had one very good quality that most pizza places lack. It was crunchy. Crust is supposed to be very crunchy, but not hard and it needs to have flakiness at the edges. Serafina’s crust was crunchy, but it lacked flakiness. One very big flaw with the crust was its lack of charcoal flavor. Like the dough, the crust should have a burnt flavor. Serafina’s crust was possibly the best part, but could still use some work. The cheese’s crust was crunchy all throughout, but, as stated previously, lacked in the flavor. Overall, we gave the cheese’s crust a 7.4 out of 10. The New Yorker’s pizza had the same lack in flavor, but it was also fluffy in the middle, instead of being completely crunchy. For this reason, we gave the New Yorker’s crust a 7.8 out of 10.
Final grade: 6.6/10 (average of all the mean scores)
In Conclusion…
The New Yorker
Overall Soren and I would rate the New Yorker a 7.1/10 because it was missing some of the charcoal flavor on the crust and it was crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside. Also, the sauce was missing salt, garlic, and oregano.
Cheese Pizza
In short, the cheese pizza’s cheese was very melted and slid off the pizza. Additionally, the pizza was covered in grease and the sauce was missing salt, garlic, and oregano. Overall, the cheese pizza was a 6.7/10.