Fellini's vs. Bob and Timmy's Pizza in Providence

Friday night, last night in fact, four of us ran our own side-by-side taste test of pizzas from two well-known pizzerias in Providence: Fellini's and Bob and Timmy's. My brother-in-law and his wife are keen on providence dining and drove down from Douglas, MA, to join us for our pizza experiment.

From Fellini's on Wickenden street we ordered their "Sweet Heaven" pizza, with bacon, ricotta cheese and scallions in a creamy parmesan sauce. From B & T we ordered a three mushroom pizza with portobello, crimini and shitake mushrooms, diced tomatoes and grilled yellow onions.

OK, first the basics.

The pizzas come in only one size: Fellini's specialty pizzas are 18-inch and cost $20. Bob and Timmy's specialty pies are about 14 inches and cost $15. Fellini's is traditional oven baked, B & T's are grilled. The Fellini's round pie was sliced in the typical pie shape, while the B & T square pie was (supposed to be) sliced in small squares/rectangles.

Both were ordered at the same time and were ready at the same time (about 20 minutes, early Friday night).

Both locations provided tables but one could certainly be safe in saying that take-out is the primary source of business.

Second, the comparison.

The ingredients in both were fresh and very tasty; the mushrooms in fact filled the kitchen with their earthy aromas as soon as the box was opened and the grilled onions on the B & T pie were just right, nicely al dente.

The Fellini pizza was equally tasty and the use of ricotta appealed to all four of us. (We are all used to making our own pizzas, both oven and grilled.) And their method of using bacon was tres cool indeed. They used entire strips (not bits or pieces) and they were cooked to perfection. The scallions I thought a nice touch, although the parmesan sauce escaped us.

The issue came down to the crust.

The Fellini crust was just right, held it's shape when picked up and had a nice texture to the bite.

The B & T pie was more like naan bread than pizza. It almost seemed as if it had not been cooked through, yet it looked fine when examined closely. It was very soft and doughy and, like I said reminded two of us of Indian naan bread. It made it very difficult to cut -- and in fact they had hardly cut it at all before boxing it.

The B & T crust really put off two others at the table who have spent the better part of the last 20 years grilling their own pizzas at home. I must admit that while I liked the flavor of the crust there was something fundamentally flawed about the crust and clearly they had not done something properly.

So the winner for the evening was clearly the Fellini pie.

Fellini Pizzeria, 166 Wickenden Street, ph: 751.6737; www.FelliniPizza.com
Bob and Timmy's Pizza, 32 Spruce Street, ph: 453.2221