We’ve gotten quite a few requests for this place, some going so far as to deem it a “local institution.” Located on the Post Road in the heart of Darien (or at least the middle of Darien), Post Corner has a bit of a long-standing following and—as we’ve been known to do—we’re determined to see if it’s the nostalgia or the pizza that’s keeping them in business.

Establishment. Post Corner Pizza is a family staple and borderline landmark in Darien with a menu that goes far beyond pizza. A Greek diner ambiance complete with urns on display, an indoor adobe tiled roof and ample seating set the stage for a hauntingly familiar dining experience complete with quick service and a family-friendly atmosphere. In past visits, Post Corner has been jam packed on a pretty consistent basis (especially on a Friday night) however, we were met with quite the opposite, as the dining room was pretty dead when we stopped by and flat-out empty once we left (don’t expect this to be the norm). Post Corner attracts many fervent regulars with children in tow with its deep, Greek-influenced menu featuring salads, sandwiches and grinders, kabobs, souvlaki, moussaka, gyros, and other fun-to-say items in addition to Greek-style pan pizza. Also, if it seems like we just cut-and-pasted our Establishment blurb for Hope Pizza in Stamford, it’s because we pretty much did.

Pizza. Post Corner Pizza regulars often claim that this is the best pizza in Darien and rightfully so, as Darien isn’t exactly the most competitive of pizza hotbeds. Still, this is not a bad pie. Our pizza of choice was a large, bacon and green peppers number, infuriatingly cut up into stupid square slices.

Founded on a spongy, buttery, unmistakenly Greek pan crust, this pie delivers what we’d expect with a few shortcomings in the texture department. For one, it was greasy even for a Greek pie (blame it on the bacon if you’d like), sapping the overall product of its crispness despite the crust’s beautiful golden brown color, forcing us to go the dreaded knife and fork route on some slices. The sauce was pretty tasty, but it felt thick and cooked down, again taking away from the overall texture with an unwelcome clunkiness. Speaking of clunkiness, avid readers might recall our fiery opposition to square slices which incidentally, has not changed. Pulling the pizza together however, was a deliciously creamy and stringy blend of bright, fresh-tasting cheeses that did their damndest to salvage this markedly heavy pie. Additionally, the toppings—while partially to blame for the pizza’s texture issues—were doled out generously and absolutely delivered in the flavor department (as bacon tends to do).

The bottom line. While Post Corner might chalk up its following to having the best pizza in Darien, it’s much more plausible that their popularity has something to do with the personable, family-friendly environment they foster, as the pizza’s just north of mediocre.

Establishment: 23/30
Pizza: 20/30
Hits the Spot: 7.0/10
Large Cheese: $13.00

Located on East Main, Sergio's is built for locals with little to no flair, quick service, and a menu that is reasonably priced by 1989 standards.

Establishment. Sergio's is a relatively large restaurant with ample parking, flexible seating, and the personality of a coatroom. Marked by furniture reminiscent of your high school cafeteria, this restaurant has no frills whatsoever, capped off by dingy, brown, Wendy's-esque greenhouse windows and long, pink tables. The service was quick but minimally personable and attentive; our waitress exchanged only a few words with us before making herself scarce and darting around the laughably understaffed dining room. However, Sergio's offers an extensive menu including traditional Greek and Italian specialties, sandwiches, hamburgers, salads, seafood, beer and wine, in addition to traditional Greek pan pizza. Almost everything on the menu is dirt cheap, which makes us think that one waitress is really all that Sergio's can afford to staff without going belly up.

Pizza. Sergio's makes an excellent pizza. This Greek-style pie has a traditional, buttery pan crust, cooked to golden brown perfection. As is the norm with Greek pies we've had, the cheese was immensely flavorful and twice as greasy, congealing rather fast but with a good overall taste. The sauce, while in relative short supply, was also rather tasty, light, and well seasoned with a bit of a tang to it, complementing the otherwise heavy pie pretty well. Worth mentioning is a rather rare, slice-to-slice inconsistency issue we noticed, as most of the pizza was as described, but some select slices had excessive sauce, some had cheese slip-sliding around with a mind of its own, and some were really soggy with oil (but they were all cut into stupid square slices so chalk that up as another reason not to do that!). Our topping of choice, sausage, was average, but nothing special adding further masses of oil to an already slicked up, glistening pie. All in all, this pizza was exceptional, with all the makings of a good Greek pizza: mediocre indgredients that inexplicably Hit the Spot with deadly accuracy.

The bottom line. Sergio's has some tables, some chairs, a waitress, and a very good, very cheap pizza.

Establishment: 20/30
Pizza: 21/30
Hits the Spot: 8.7/10
Large Cheese: $9.00

Located just outside the heart of Stamford's downtown, 122 Pizza Bistro bills itself as a "hot spot" and pushes its "nuovo" martini bar and wine list a lot harder than it does its pizza. Regardless, 122 Pizza Bistro stands out with an alluring presence in an otherwise dead stretch of town.

Establishment. 122 Pizza Bistro has all the makings of a trendy contemporary pizzeria except for the requisite hipster/foodie following (or any real following, for that matter) and the lack of decimal places on the menu. We walked into a low lit dining room to find ample, comfortable, (and in places, velveteen) seating separated quite effectively from Bistro's full bar. Dotted with eclectic fixtures, decor, and unidentifiable breadlike appetizers, this incredibly glorified pizzeria feels very lively and modern, especially given its location on a rather dull stretch of Broad St. The service here was insanely quick, but rather brusque and businesslike as, evidently, a trade-off. 122 Pizza Bistro offers a relatively broad menu including dressed up iterations of traditional Italian appetizers, salads, pastas, and gourmet entrees as well as a unique selection of specialty pizzas including the likes of "California Club" and "Tri-Color Salad" variations in addition to traditional offerings.

Pizza. Despite Bistro's gussied-up-pizzeria-of-the-new-millennium facade, they too serve a bar pie (but it comes on a fancy wooden peel). The crust was moderately flavorful despite being very thin, but it was spongy and less crisp than we would have preferred. The sauce was extremely flavorful, so much that that it overwhelmed the rest of the pie with a veritable spice rack of bold spices and seasonings. However, the overall pie managed to break through this flavor avalanche with a delicious, equally bold medley of Italian cheeses complemented very well by our topping of choice, sweet Italian sausage. The wooden peel, while extremely gimmicky, insulated the super thin pizza very nicely, keeping it piping hot for as long as we needed to eat it. All in all, this pizza was extraordinarily flavorful, but its boldness was divisive amongst our judges, coming across too strong for some and just plain weird to others (not at all helped by its lackluster texture). It was a unique, moderately good bar pie with some strong flavors that not everyone will love.

The bottom line. 122 Pizza Bistro is a intimate, trendy restaurant on the cusp of downtown that serves an alright bar pie with a very unique taste.

Establishment: 23/30
Pizza: 19/30
Hits the Spot: 7.3/10
Large Cheese: $9.45 (12")

AWARDS WON:

2009 – Best Seat

Located on West Main, Athens Pizza & Family Restaurant is a family owned institution calling Stamford its home since 1977. Athens contends that "[their] restaurant is clean, hospitable, and best of all, entertaining," and while we don't have a metric for "entertaining" (nor were we sure that it mattered), we're in the position to test most of that claim and then some.

Establishment. Athens Pizza looks to be a wonderful restaurant from afar, and to an extent, it is. Their dining room is large and open, with beautiful tiled floors an abundance of windows flooding the restaurant with natural light. Unfortunately, this dining room is packed to the rafters with cramped, torture rack seating that can barely accommodate a party of four. The restaurant is considerably clean save for some stray food scraps tucked away under the tiny, impractical tables and a peculiar slippery film that coated every tile in the building. While we couldn't sit comfortably or juke a defensive back, we certainly could order off an amazingly diverse menu stacked with salads, soups a soup, hot and cold sandwiches, and a wide array of Greek specialties including gyros, souvlaki, falafel, and of course, traditional Greek pan pizza.

Pizza. There aren't too many good things to say about this pizza and we could chalk it all up to our topping of choice, loukaniko. This authentic Greek pork sausage, flavored with fennel, anise, and orange peel offended both our palates and our sensibilities, coming back to haunt us in the form of wretched burps and scarring memories for the remainder of the day, if not longer. The sausage rendered this pie just short of inedible, exuding oil such that the pizza looked like a waxy mess from the moment it hit the table. The crust was nothing like the buttery, Greek style crusts we've come to know and love, it was chewy, airy, and largely flavorless. The cheese was absurdly greasy (again, due to Mr. Loukaniko) but passable in the flavor department, however, it congealed almost immediately, forming a shell like coat that slid around across the thick, now loukaniko-ized sauce like Brian Boitano in the 1988 Olympics. It pains us to have a single ingredient weigh so heavily on our opinions as this devil sausage did, but thems the breaks for now.

The bottom line. Athens Pizza looks great from the outside and tempting from the dining room, but our visit was inconclusive, as it was unfairly tainted by a extremely poor choice of toppings on our part.

Establishment: 20/30
Pizza: 13/30
Hits the Spot: 2.7/10
Large Cheese: $12.75

UPDATE: We've decided to give Athens another bite at the apple, so to speak, as our penchant for choosing unique toppings if a restaurant offers them just plain blew up in our face on this particular visit. This review will stand as our honest opinion of this particularly topped pie, but shouldn't speak for the quality of Athens' pizza in general. We'll be back.

UPDATE 2: We went back.

Located rather unsurprisingly on Summer St., Summer Street Deli & Pizza seems to be open exclusively for breakfast and lunch (and presumably brunch) despite claims of being open until 8 pm. Its proximity to Planet Pizza may draw comparisons, but Summer Street offers a very different Greek style pizza (to Planet's New York/Neapolitan pie) and doesn't lie, straight-faced, about their abysmal parking situation.

Establishment. While near impossible to find open for dinner, Summer Street Deli & Pizza is surprisingly comfortable, larger than one would think from the outside, and a decent lunch option if you're in the area. We walked into a moderately sized dining room adjacent to a considerably large dining room, both of which smelled absolutely extraordinary. Unfortunately, these big, comfortable rooms were filled with tables as steady as Dane Cook is funny. Boasting family ownership since 1984, Summer Street's diverse menu consists of deli sandwiches, hot wedges, pasta dishes, Greek specials, and of course, pizza.

Pizza. Summer Street's pizza conforms to the traditional Greek pan mold with an airy, buttery crust that was cooked to perfection. The cheese and sauce were collectively average: both moderately flavorful and very complementary to the crust, but nothing extraordinary. The sausage, our topping of choice, was spastically strewn across the pizza and was also of average quality at best. As with most Greek pies, Summer Street's product tended to stew in its grease over the course of the meal, becoming less enticing with each additional (infuriatingly square) slice; this pie was considerably greasier than the rest, so this effect was noticeably amplified. That said, the last slice still wasn't terrible and managed to "hit the spot" quite effectively.

The bottom line. If you happen upon Summer Street Deli & Pizza and it's open, their pizza is worth trying, but don't expect to be blown away...expect to be full.

Establishment: 17/30
Pizza: 19/30
Hits the Spot: 7/10
Large Cheese: $12.00

Located in downtown Stamford, SBC Restaurant & Brewery is exactly what it sounds like it is. Operating primarily as a bar in several locations in Connecticut, SBC specializes in microbrews and admittedly upscale bar food including but certainly not limited to brick oven pizza.

Establishment. SBC is a brewpub in downtown Stamford equipped with all sorts of copper brewing tanks and a full bar, which is cool in its own right and certainly adds to the uniqueness factor. However, the atmosphere from the bar side tends to trickle over into the otherwise large, comfortable restaurant side, ushering in crappy music, bar service (read: slow, inattentive, terse), and drunk people. The brewery element does not go without notice either, as the restaurant carries a diverse selection of microbrews and has an industrial air that feels surprisingly genuine and necessary. SBC also has a full menu including hamburgers, steaks, salads, and other traditional bar fare in addition to pizza.

Pizza. SBC boasts a brick oven pizza with a tasty cracker-like crust and such an abundance of char that it might as well have been burnt. While just the right amount of cheese topped our pie (a welcome change to the cheese mountains we've been subjected to as of late), it left something to be desired in the flavor department as well. However, SBC's phenomenal sauce managed to carry this pizza through the flavor doldrums, adding a perfectly seasoned, perfectly proportioned element to an otherwise average pie. Possibly aware of its latent boringness, SBC manages to deliver a super thin New York style crust, cut Greek style (read: asinine square slices), on a large cookie sheet that makes the product pretty cumbersome to eat (also difficult to swallow was the astronomical $15 price tag). Idiosyncrasies aside, SBC puts together an above average pizza that's likely one of the better pies you'll find at a bar, but certainly not the highlight of their menu.

The bottom line. SBC is a brew pub that's clearly focused on things that aren't pizza; considering this, they make a fairly good product.

Establishment: 21/30
Pizza: 20/30
Hits the Spot: 8/10
Large Cheese: $15.00

Hope Pizza is another of the go-to restaurants for at least one of our judges (see Ridgeway Pizza), and with good reason. Located on Hope Street, Hope Pizza Restaurant is a fantastic establishment with very good pizza that you'll definitely enjoy.

Establishment. Hope Pizza is a family staple in Stamford with a menu that goes beyond simply pizza with a very well-rounded offering. A Greek diner ambiance and ample seating set the stage for a wonderful dining experience complete with top-notch service and a family-friendly atmosphere. Their relatively generous parking lot fills up fast on a Friday night as loyal patrons arrive in droves, often with children in tow. The only negative that we can manage to scrape together is that the booths sit peculiarly low relative to the tables, and we're grasping at straws with that one.

Pizza. Hope's pizza is excellent to say the least. With a perfect Greek-style buttery crust, quality cheese, and expertly seasoned sauce, this pizza arrived at the table screamingly hot and stayed as such until we could not eat any more. The toppings (pepperoncini, pronounced "banana peppers") were both unique and very good. As with most Greek pizzas however, Hope falls into the "stupid square slices" category, adversely affecting both its otherwise flawless texture and ingredient slip on (or more accurately, off of) the center squares. Greek tradition be damned, those middle pieces are an abomination and we have yet to devise an effective consumption technique. These last-to-be-picked crustless slices are like the kids no one wants to pick for their team in wiffle ball. In the big picture though, this is a minor nick on a very good pizza that should be tried by all.

The bottom line. Hope Pizza Restaurant is the blueprint for good Greek pizza in Stamford that the whole family will enjoy time and time again.

Establishment: 24/30
Pizza: 24/30
Hits the Spot: 9/10
Large Cheese: $12.50

AWARDS WON:

2009 – Best Greek Pizza

2009 – Tournament Finalist (5th place)

This place looks like death from the outside. Tucked away behind a Dunkin' Donuts and the hilariously named For Your Convenience convenience store, the half burnt out sign atop John's Pizza screams, "we'd probably fail our health inspection." But never fear, just beyond its doors is a downright respectable pizza restaurant.

Establishment. Beyond the hideous exterior is a bright, clean, spacious pizza parlor with a diverse menu and loud, boisterous counter service. Unfortunately, John's only takes cash which is a practice that we believe should be reserved for drug dealers, hookers, and Slovenians. Also, one kind of has to navigate through the kitchen to get to the bathrooms, but beggars can't be choosers, yes?

Pizza. Here's where the place takes off. John's Pizza is excellent. The dough is made in-house daily, the cheese is great, the pie would have stayed piping hot for 3 days straight had we not finished it in 6 minutes, and while the sauce isn't perfect, it's worlds better than some of the flavorless garbage we've been subjected to thus far. Everything falls into place to yield a superb product save for the less-than-stellar toppings (meatball, read: crumbled ground beef). Had it not been for John's unfortunate use of the dreaded cut-the-round-pizza-into-square-pieces-leaving-four-crustless-and-undesirable-center-slices technique, we might be willing to just give them the trophy now.

The bottom line. Uninviting and brown from the outside, John's offers an excellent, delicious product to those brave enough to delve into its guts: the kiwi of Stamford pizza restaurants.

Establishment: 17/30
Pizza: 23/30
Hits the Spot: 9/10
Large Cheese: $11.75

Atlantic Pizza was once a takeout-only pizzeria located in the heart of downtown Stamford. Fortunately, their brand new dining room was more than hospitable to our large party of five.

Establishment. The beautiful new dining area was spacious and accommodating, but if Michael's parking was nothing short of abysmal, Atlantic's parking was simply nonexistent. Otherwise, Atlantic Pizza is a fine establishment with good service, ample seating, and a phenomenal menu. However, the restaurant atmosphere seemed a bit manufactured and antiseptic, without the soul of a true small town pizzeria.

Pizza. We all agree that Atlantic Pizza House has a good product. Unfortunately, there was no clear consensus on what made it good. Crust, cheese, and sauce received good to excellent marks across the board while texture was almost unanimously derided. We'd venture to say that this may have something to do with the asinine practice of cutting a circular pizza pie into squares rather than conventional slices (like, you know, a pie), but the jury's still out. This haphazard cutting technique has a tendency to provoke considerable ingredient slip as well, so yeah...don't do that.

The bottom line. Atlantic Pizza is a Stamford mainstay, but meddling little details get in the way of what is an otherwise good product.

Establishment: 20/30
Pizza: 21/30
Hits the Spot: 5/10
Large Cheese: $10.75