Ten Great Pizzas Portland Monthly Missed

Portland Monthly purports, in the magazine's March issue, to have discovered the 32 greatest pizzas in Portland. While Karen Brooks' top picks (Apizza Scholls, Ken's Artisan, Nostrana, etc.) are solid, the list, compiled by a handful of PM staffers and PDX writers, starts to break down towards the end: Hot Lips? Awesome corporate culture, over-rated pizza. Mississippi Pizza? You're there for the music, not the pie. Pizza Schmizza? Flying Pie? Old Town? Oh, come on.

Here are ten pizza places we think Brooks Portland Monthly missed. Have one to add? Leave it in the comments.

Atomic Pizza
2150 N Killingsworth St., 285-5490, atomic-pizza.com.
Every real neighborhood needs a pizza joint. And though Portland is far from replicating New York City's shop-on-every-street-corner scene, Atomic Pizza is a good hangout spot for anyone in the Overlook Village 'hood. Everything about Atomic Pizza has a Portland vibe, from pies named things like "Yellow Line" and "Hwy 99" to the toppings, which range from veggie faves like the "Alberta" (a large pesto, mushroom, artichoke heart and sun-dried tomato pizza for $20.40) to gut-busting meat assaults (the aptly named "Paul Bunyan" stacks four kinds of meat on one slice). Though the shop does takeout pies, it's best to enjoy a slice ($2.95 for cheese, $3.95 for the daily special) and a pint at the cozy bar before heading out for the night. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

Pizza Contadino (pictured)
Corner of North Richmond at North Lombard Street, 935-4375, pizzacontadino.blogspot.com
"On one visit, the "fancy meat" option (cooked on site in about 10 minutes) included housemade sausage rich with fennel, thick-cut mushrooms and stringy kale that tasted fresh and untreated—nothing here is oversalted or overcooked. That's an aesthetic you notice before you even order—the cart's hand-scrawled dry-erase-board menu and hanging baskets of veggies in its front window, not to mention the patchy-bearded, Kerouac-ian figure behind the counter, are all giveaways. But it takes more than fresh veggies to make a killer slice, and Contadino's crust, made from a sourdough starter dating back to the 1890s, isn't the cracker-thin variation found in many woodfire eateries—it's the perfect balance of chewy and crispy, doused with a bright, pepper-speckled sauce." (Read more.)

WWeek 2015