When we started the Pizza Tour, we were absolutely set on giving out an award for Best Pizza and Best Establishment. It was ingrained in the lineage of the Tour, however, to expand these two awards to about thirty of them. We've already had our fun with Superlatives and doled out seemingly obligatory Best of the Neighborhood honors, so here's some of the more cut-and-dried winners from around Stamford that absolutely deserve recognition.

Best Pizza - Amore
This should be no surprise, as we've pretty openly posted our numbers throughout this months-long process with Amore topping the pack, if only by the slimmest of margins, and taking the "regular season" recognition in addition to our Pizza Tournament honors.

Best Establishment - Spazzio
This also shouldn't be much of a surprise, as Spazzio has had a stranglehold over Establishment scores since we reviewed them in March. Their pepper guy- and cheese man-having tendencies edged out Vinny's crap-on-walls-having tendencies by fractions of a point, as we're typically suckers for cloth napkins, free bread, and three foot tall pepper mills.

Best Delivery Pizza - Ridgeway Pizza
Ridgeway got hammered in the Establishment column for not really having a dining room to speak of. That said, they are the best pizzeria featured on our Tour to offer delivery and while Ridgeway's pizzas are extraordinary if enjoyed hot out of the oven in the confines of their tiny dining area, they also travel very, very well (unlike a certain sixth place pizza...).

Best Greek Pizza - Hope Restaurant
To those confused by Hope's inclusion in the Pizza Tournment, this is Greek pizza. Compared to Italian-style pies, it's a completely different animal and Hope Pizza, with their buttery, airy crust, traditional Greek toppings, and asinine way of cutting round things into squares, wins hands down.

Most Improvement Needed - Speedy Pizza
MIN has traditionally been the Razzie of our storied food Tours, and this is no exception. Speedy Pizza has the absolute worst pizza in Stamford, without question. We thought Michelina's would put up a good fight with its floppy circle of garbage pizza, but Speedy was utterly dominant in every category, from its cheap, tasteless ingredients to its horrible, frozen pizza-esque crust. With a 20 minute cook time, its hardly Speedy either.

We cataloged all of our reviews in a bunch of different categories. Among these many categories is a pizzeria's neighborhood, because if you live in the outer reaches of Stamford, even the best pizza on earth won't drag you across town.

Best of Turn of River - Sorrento

Best of Downtown - Remo's

Best of West Side/South End - Outpost Pizza

Best of East Side - Stamford Pizzeria

Best of Bull's Head/Ridgeway - John the Baker

Best of Shippan/Cove - TIE

Best of Springdale/Glenbrook/Belltown - Amore Restaurant

If you live in one of these neighborhoods and like another restaurant better than our certified Bests, then go there instead. We don't care.

In our Tour of virtually every pizza restaurant in Stamford, we learned far more about each establishment than just how good its pizza is. We'd like to offer some superlatives to some of the places we've come across and enjoyed that you might want to venture to try, if not for excellent pizzas than for these intangibles.

Best Bang for Your Buck - Emilia's
This is awarded to the restaurant with the best Pizza and Hits the Spot scores per dollar spent. We paid just $9.00 and we got a delicious, monstrous 18" pizza, personable service, and a new go-to for quick lunches down the Cove.

Diamond in the Rough - Villa Italia
This award goes to the restaurant that absolutely wowed us with its charming atmosphere, reasonable prices, and very good pizza despite being located in a less-than-savory shopping center that certainly doesn't attract new customers. Go here.

Best Restrooms - Cove Restaurant
This goes, quite unsurprisingly, to the restaurant with the most exquisite restrooms a pizzeria can offer, which means a lot because we've visited and rated all of them. Incidentally, they also offer a great product with toppings (spicy sausage) that still have us talking. Go for the pizza, stay for the bathrooms. Or the other way around, just go.

Best Seat - 122 Pizza Bistro
Not to be confused with a Best Seating honor, Best Seat goes to the very best chair, bench, or booth in a Stamford pizza restaurant. In this case, Best Seat was awarded to 122 Pizza Bistro's lavish, velveteen benches lining the back walls.

Best Mother@#$%ing Waitstaff - Tracks
This award goes to the waitstaff (or in this case, owner) who swore at us the most profusely while somehow bolstering a friendly, neighborhood atmosphere of attentive, personable waiters and waitresses.

Surprisingly Good - Brennan's
Not unlike the Diamond in the Rough honor, Surprisingly Good is awarded to the restaurant with the best pizza despite our preconceived notions of it being just another sloppy bar pie. Be not afraid, drinkers-but-not-eaters of Brennan's, the pizza is surprisingly good.

Most Fun - Vinny's Backyard
This award goes to the home of the most plucky signs, hilariously forged autographed photos, and flat-screen TVs. We've happily re-visited Vinny's for drinks and wings on numerous occasions and would love to make it our go-to college football bar if they'll play Michigan football games in the fall. Wink wink.

Bageliest Pizza - Liz Sue Bagels
This award goes to the pizza that tastes most like a bagel. Liz Sue absolutely ran away with this one.

Most Cheese - Garibaldi Mexican Grill (and Pizza)
This prize is awarded to the pizzeria to jam the most cheese on a crust, defying the laws of physics and all that is right in this world to deliver the artery-cloggingist likeness of Pizza the Hutt that we've ever seen.

Closed - Sammy G's
This one really goes without saying.

Most Bulletproof - Lucy's Pizza Parlor
This award goes to the pizzeria that can best withstand an onslaught of bullets and shrapnel. While we're unsure if Lucy's quarter-inch Plexiglas with pizza box sized hole is completely bulletproof, we know that it is at least the most bulletproof.

Closest to Teitelbaum - Long Ridge Tavern
This distinguished honor is awarded to the pizzeria closest to the Teitelbaum compound. That's it.

Tournament Champion - Amore Restaurant - 44 points

Amore's Tournament-clinching entries consisted of two of the simplest, yet most overwhelmingly tasty pizzas we've had to date. We began with a house specialty pizza Bruschetta, featuring fresh tomatoes, sliced mozzarella, crispy bacon, crushed garlic, and basil with a perfectly-seasoned light sauce atop a golden brown, crisp, delicious crust. Halfway through demolishing this pie, Al, the owner, came by and dropped off a small pizza Margherita, his specialty, admitting that his Bruschetta was "ultimate," but his Margherita, with tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil was still better.

Dan: "BOOYAH!!!"

Reaves: "Great sauce, great cheese, excellent sauce" (getting a bit redundant, aren't we, Reaves? -ed)

Elliot: "Good crust: crunchy and cooked to perfection, tomatoes are off-the-vine fresh, ingredients work so well together. Awesome."

Kait: "Bruschetta was amazing. Extremely fresh, great sauce, great atmosphere, very friendly."

Allison: "Bacon = excellent addition, liked Bruschetta better than Margherita, but both were excellent."

Scott: "Excellent sauces, cheese is incredibly fresh, crust is absolutely perfect. Huge, fresh, clean flavors make a near-perfect pizza"

Well, there you have it. We at the Stamford Pizza Tour can confidently say that the very best pizza in town comes from Amore Restaurant, and while we're torn between the Bruschetta and the Margherita pies, it seems they can do no wrong because both were extraordinary. We were blown away by this establishment when all we did was walk in and order a simple, classic cheese pizza (half plain/half sausage, as per usual) on the Tour, only to be reassured of our choice with a quiet, confident, "I don't think you'll be disappointed." We certainly were not, and we know that you won't be either.

When you show up to Amore in droves, clamoring for the very best pizza in the city, tell them the Stamford Pizza Tour sent you. Buon appetito!

Runner-up - Remo's - 35 points

Remo's entered what seemed like the entire left side of their menu into the Pizza Tournament with an unprecedented five unique, small pizzas: New York-style plain cheese (not pictured) and Four Seasons pies, Napoletana-style Margherita and New England pies, as well as a unique classic salad pizza. Every pizza was cooked on Remo's trademark brick oven charred crust and topped with some of the freshest tasting ingredients and sauces that we've come across on the Tour. Rather than running you through every one of them, we'll just let their menu and our photos do the talking.

Reaves: "Excellent sauce and crust, margherita pizza was really good and tasted very fresh."

Elliot: "Fresh, fresh, fresh, superb toppings, [New England pie] was phenomenal with red sauce, like an excellent pasta sauce."

Kait: "Clam pizza was the best: great taste and texture, very good crust."

Scott: "Perfectly cooked, slightly charred crusts all around, very consistent. Sauce is phenomenally flavorful, toppings are extraordinary."

Dan: "Clam pizza was very good, an honorable mention goes to the salad pizza, very refreshing."

Most of the time when we were offered multiple pizzas, it was quite evident what the better one was, but at Remo's, every pie had its merits and it was almost harder to rank Remo's entries than to rank Remo's against the rest of the restaurants that day. In addition to being scarily consistent and utilizing only the freshest ingredients to make absolutely phenomenal pizzas, Remo's offered an incredibly hospitable and comfortable dining experience that we'll be sure to revisit, Pizza Tour or not.

3rd place - John the Baker - 30 points

The fight for the podium was as close as it could be with John the Baker edging out Ridgeway by a single point with its dual offering of a classical pizza Napoletana with fresh plum tomatoes, a healthy amount of basil, fresh garlic, and stringy mozzarella, all sprinkled with fine olive oil, as well as a super-traditional half-plain/half-pepperoni pie featuring John the Baker's signature red sauce, both atop hearty, flavorful New York-style crusts.

Reaves: "Excellent crust, great ingredients, great cheese."

Elliot: "Crust cooked to perfection: crispy but still chewy. Fresh, full plum tomatoes and basil, no prominent cheese texture, but considerable taste."

Scott: "Tomatoes give it a phenomenal texture, crust is excellent and tasty, but a bit too thick, got cold pretty quickly too."

Dan: "Damn good."

Kait: "Napoletana was the best, good crust, excellent cheese, not too greasy at all."

Allison: "Well seasoned, good balance of fresh tomatoes, top notch crust, but the cheese is a little rubbery."

John the Baker is a family staple in Stamford, whether for its pizza, for its vast menu of other Italian specialties, or for its unique ability to throw a helluva pizza party (we all attended quite a few in our younger years). They have been incredibly generous and hospitable to the Tour and to all of their customers alike, proudly touting themselves as a family restaurant first and foremost.

4th place - Ridgeway Pizza - 29 points

Ridgeway Pizza is the only true "takeout only" restaurant to make the cut for the Tournament, and deservedly so. They've consistently provided us with excellent pizzas before, during, and conceivably long after the Pizza Tour, proving that you don't need a dining room to serve phenomenal pizzas. Ridgeway's entries included a specially-made Clams Casino pie with fresh clams and shrimp, crispy, delicious bacon (is there any other kind?), and a rich Alfredo sauce, as well as a plain cheese pizza with trademark smooth, stringy cheese and incredibly well-seasoned red sauce for those less inclined to try the clams, all baked on Ridgeway's perfectly thin, crispy, charred New York-style crusts.

Reaves: "Great crust, great excellent sauce, very good New York-style pizza."

Allison: "Great sauce and cheese, great thin crust."

Kait: "Clams Casino was delicious: good sauce, thin crust, very fresh ingredients."

Scott: "Superb thin crust, excellent sauce (both red and Alfredo), and absolutely piping hot."

Elliot: "Very crunchy, structural crust, mediocre cheese, but the best (sweet) sauce so far."

Dan: "Very good."

Whether for a quick lunch (2 slices and a soda for under $4), or for takeout, or for illicit deliveries to the back door of Westhill, Ridgeway has been our go-to place for years due to their quick service, personable staff, and phenomenal pizza. When we spoke to Nick, the owner, on Sunday, he told us that he trains his kitchen staff to make pizzas for his customers as if they were family. "If you wouldn't give it to your kids," he said, "throw it out, don't give it to my customers." Words to live by for any respectable business, in Stamford or otherwise.

5th place - Hope Pizza - 25 points

Hope Pizza was incredibly hospitable and welcoming, ushering us in with a super-attentive waitstaff, more than generous management, and two delectable pizzas. The first was a more traditionally Greek selection with sliced tomatoes, fresh garlic, feta cheese, and oregano atop their signature airy, buttery, Greek crust (pictured below sans a slice that Reaves couldn't wait to devour). The second also featured Hope's perfect Greek crust, but was topped a bit more conventionally with sliced meatballs and thin shoestrings of onion.

Kait: "Perfection until proven otherwise."

Scott: "Perfect buttery, Greek crust, unique texture, huge flavors, not crazy about the feta, though."

Allison: "Good cheese mixture, love the feta. Crust = fluffy and delish. A bit too greasy and garlicky, though."

Reaves: "Very smooth cheese, good crust, and good balance between the two."

Elliot: "Explosion of superb flavor, steaming hot, buttery, bready crust on a gigantic pizza."

Dan: "The Greek pie was better than the meatball and onions pizza, but both were very good."

As you can see, there are not too many bad things to say about Hope's offerings and regardless of their standing, they offer a unique product amidst many Italian restaurants in town that is executed to near perfection. Coupled with a comfortable, homelike atmosphere, this pizza can give just about anyone a good reason to eat out on a Friday night.

6th place - Colony Grill - 23 points

Colony's entry was their famed hot oil and sausage pie, founded on their iconic, chewy-but-crispy-and-flavorful thin crust and topped with just the right amount of sauce and cheese, pock marked by superfluous hot oil bubbling up from the inner sanctum of the pie as well as some delectable DeYulio's sausage from across the street.

Judges, sound off!

Reaves: "Great crust, great sauce, great cheese. I could eat this even when I'm stuffed"

Scott: "As expected. Someone sold their soul for this crust recipe, sauce and cheese are mediocre, greasy as ever. A novelty at best."

Kait: "Love the crunchy, delicious crust, but way too greasy and very small."

Allison: "Wet, messy, and delicious, but I couldn't eat any more [than one slice]."

Dan: "Colony is Colony. Not the best pizza I've had from here, though. Also, service sucked, Kait didn't even get a glass."

Elliot: "No crunch to this crust, chewy cheese, good sauce, great grease, awful service."

As we were waiting the compulsory 30-60 minutes for our single 12" greaseball pie, a member of their horrid, unfriendly waitstaff crept up and perched over Allison's shoulders to tell us that Colony was the best and that we might as well just stop looking. They're not and we didn't.

7th place - Stamford Pizzeria - 21 points

Stamford Pizzeria was kind enough to send two pies our way, a traditional Margarita pizza (pizza Margherita) with peeled plum tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and both Romano and light mozzarella cheeses as well as one topped with DeYulio's sausage and sliced onions, both on a thick, crispy crust.

Reaves: "Excellent crust, not too thin; great cheese, excellent sauce."

Kait: "Good sauce, the basil is a little 'meh,' kind of greasy."

Elliot: "Crust is perfectly crispy, cooked to perfection"

Allison: "Nothing outstanding, good sausage, though"

Scott: "Very thick and crispy crust, was put off by cooked, wilted basil."

Dan: "Good pizza, of course. Liked the sausage and onion better than the margarita."

We were probably split down the middle on which of the two pies were better, but all things considered, they were both top notch and cooked perfectly with just the right amount of crispness and bite. Everyone at Stamford Pizzeria was extraordinarily generous and welcoming as well, making for a rather enjoyable dining experience.

8th place - Springdale Pizza - 9 points

To be fair, we should note that Springdale was the very last stop of the night and while we were very careful to avoid gorging on pizzas throughout the day, it was unavoidable to an extent and the scores may have reflected that. In any event, Springdale's entry was a piping hot, classic cheese pizza with a thick, chewy crust, hearty, well seasoned tomato sauce and good quality, stringy cheese.

In lieu of our usual edited, refined, and dressed up reviews, we invite you to take what you will from some of the gritty details: our judges raw opinions, straight off the scorecards:

Kait: "Sauce is tasty, cheese is good, pie is very hot, but the crust is not the best."

Elliot: "Crust is very thick, sauce is a bit plain, regular."

Allison: "Crust is too much. Meh."

Scott: "Crust tastes excellent but is too thick and too chewy."

Dan: "Good, but not magical. A little underwhelming to be honest."

We can't take anything away from Springdale. While their pizza finished last in our Tournament, they have nothing to be ashamed of as their 45+ years of experience yield pizzas that are consistently among the very best in town, backed by a welcoming, family dining experience.

It's over. It took six judges, eight pizzerias, eleven hours, damn near 20 pizzas, and innumerable, yet-to-be-seen hours at the gym, but we did it and it's done. Here's how it happened.

We met at noon yesterday, the three original members of the Pizza Tour, Elliot, Dan, and Scott, as well as our most tenured guest judge, Kait, our once-original Pizza Tour cohort, Reaves, and Elliot's sister, Allison. We went to John the Baker, Hope Pizza, Ridgeway, and Remo's and asked them simply, "give us the best pizza you have." Then we took a much needed break because most restaurants interpreted our request as, "give us a bunch of really good pizzas and let us figure out which one is the best." Needless to say, by the break, we had a considerable amount of high quality leftovers.

After the break, we visited Stamford Pizzeria, Colony Grill, Amore, and Sergio's* Springdale with the same request, "all we ask is that you serve us the best pizza you've got." Again, most places found this to be as hard as a mother picking her favorite child and showered us with several phenomenal pizza pies (except for Colony, they gave us one). Seventeen pizzas later, we convened at Pizza Tour HQ in a scene straight out of Twelve Angry Men, arguing on behalf of the truth. The six of us ranked each restaurant's showing individually from first to worst, with the best receiving 8 points, and the worst receiving 1. These points were then totaled, giving us a clear winner for Best Pizza in Stamford in the Stamford Pizza Tournament.

Over the next week, we will count down our findings beginning with numbers 7 and 8 today and ending with numbers 1 and 2 on Thursday in hopes of filling the dining rooms of these establishments on Friday night with customers clamoring for one of the very best pizzas in town.

* Sergio's declined to compete, wanting nothing to do with the Internet, presumably due to the likes of Y2K, Napster, and the elf bowling virus.

Today's the day. When the smoke clears and the dust settles, we will crown a Stamford Pizza Tournament champion (followed shortly by the crowning of all sorts of other ancillary champions...). Anyway, the participants are as follows:

• Hope Pizza
• Ridgeway Pizza
• Amore Restaurant
• John the Baker
• Colony Grill
• Remo's
• Sergio's
• Stamford Pizzeria
• Springdale Pizza

We will be visiting each of these restaurants today. We will ask for their very best pizza. We will eat it. We will judge it. We will crown a champion. May the best pie win.

(Incidentally, we'll also be caving to this twitter thing by posting live updates as to our whereabouts if that's what floats your boat.)

Well, there are 24 hours left in the polling for the last Stamford Pizza Tournament entrants and while Colony and Remo's look to be safe, the last two spots are anyone's for the taking. Keep those votes coming!

In order to hold the Stamford Pizza Tournament in a single day, we need to balance some of our priorities so that it's both feasible and relatively fair. Obviously, we'll be paring down our list of 50+ pizzerias to something a bit more manageable given our time constraint. Eight seems like a good number, weeding out all but the top 15% or so, so we're sticking with it.

As we've mentioned in our illuminating piece on scoring the Pizza Tour, there are two ways to look at what a "good" pizza is. As not to weigh one over the other, we've taken care to analyze the top ten Pizza scores as well as the top ten eleven Hits the Spot scores to single out some of the top dogs. Incidentally, this is a lot easier said than done.

To begin, both Amore and Hope Pizza have excellent standings (top five or better) on both lists (top Pizza and Hits the Spot scores), so we're going to include them in the Tournament, no questions asked. Good? Good.

Next, we have pizzerias that still appear in both top ten lists, but only crack the top 5 in one of them. These are Ridgeway (top five Pizza) and John the Baker (top five Hits the Spot). While these guys' all-around numbers aren't as good as the latter two, there still pretty damn respectable, so they're in too.

This leaves us with four more empty spots to fill and as many as ten deserving restaurants to fill them with. Of these ten pizzerias, three bring up the tail end of both lists (Springdale, Stamford Pizzeria, Outpost), three appear only as top ten Pizza scores (Remo's, Sorrento, Pellicci's), three appear only as top ten Hits the Spot scores (John's, Sergio's, Michael's), and one would utterly piss people off if we didn't include it (Colony). As you can imagine, this also leaves us with some difficult decisions to make.

Or does it?


That's right, loyal readers, it's time for you to chime in. Considering we've pretty much dictated this whole operation from the get-go, we're going to go ahead and relinquish control on these last four picks. The above poll will be open until next Monday Saturday at 5 pm, accessible on the Pizza Tour website as well as here, and will take multiple answers at once. The top four vote-getters will be the final entrants in the Stamford Pizza Tournament. Have at it.

(Also, if you're one of our 9 feed subscribers, you'll probably have to visit the site to vote.)