Delancey

I’ve reviewed pizza places in the South end, CD and all around; this is my new fave… Best I’ve had since DUMBO Brooklyn about 8+ years ago; Oh and they have Rachel’s Ginger Beer… and a chocolate chip cookie for dessert that is craze-mazing…Great atmosphere as others have said, though I took it to go; only strange fact — I called them to order and though they do carry-​out, they refused to actually take my order over the phone, requiring me to order in-person…which I found a bit odd… they were very prompt, however, very friendly and gave me a glass of ICE water while I waited… This one quirk ALMOST took one star away, but the food was so frigging good I couldn’t do it… Umm, try this place!!!

As a New Yorker who used to live near Delancey & Essex, I’m happy to find a pizza place and bar named after those streets. No idea if that was the intent of the owners, but I’ll believe it.
We put our names down and since we were quoted an hour’s wait, we grabbed drinks at Essex. Lucky for us, we only had to wait 30 minutes and the hostess was nice enough to seat us at a table instead of the bar seats we originally were going to be at.
Our waiter recommended sharing an appetizer and pizza after I asked how much was appropriate for two people. We were way overstuffed after dinner, so I think 1 pizza is actually enough. However, the brussels sprouts appetizer was so tasty we were glad we got it. We shared the sausage pizza; their pizza is Naples-​style which you eat with a fork and knife given it’s somewhat soggy. The pizza was very good, but I wasn’t too impressed by the toppings.
We had a delicious dinner here with very nice staff and service. Just don’t expect New York style pizza which I was kind of hoping for; guess I’ll just have to go home for that!

Why?
So, you can stand in line and wait forever (despite open tables), then get pizza with burnt crust, and a cookie that used to be much better.
But why?
This place has deteriorated.

This place will make you appreciate pizza, and a full stomach. That’s right, you make it here, and expect a nice evening out, with good eating between. Sure it’s just a pizza place, with a salad that could be split between 4 people (get the half jersey instead, unless you LOVE vegetables), it’s a good place to be.
Let’s set the occasion… date night, drizzling slightly, and behold a local neighborhood place, in a row of brick shop buildings from years of past. Stepping in, immediately welcomed by a smooth breeze of warm air, and a host equally warm. Seated, the menu appears, and the aroma of savory Italian goodness invigorates the appetite.
I’m overcome with the beautiful woman, my love, who is sitting in front of me, and before I know it, our food comes. We ordered what amounts to be, a pepperoni pizza, and with Rachael’s Ginger Beer in hand, we go for it. The salad we ordered before the pizza was delish, and a half was just enough.
The flavor rich pepperoni, cheese and tomato sauce fill the senses with all things lovely. The yeast crust completes the overflow. Eyes closes, one just savors the food, bite to bite.
So yes, there are places that make for a great date night, and perhaps even if you aren’t coming here for that, you should still enjoy the good eats.

This was a solid pizza place, the hype though is out of control, it was good but not amazing enough to warrant a 2 hour wait. This is a very small establishment with maybe 15 tables for two, it was also really loud since the tables were so close together. If you have a large party I would not recommend this place. The best thing we had was the cookie, it was AMAZING. The jersey salad was good as well, loved the presentation there. the only let down was the pizza, we got the bacon and onion. The flavors were alright but I was expecting more from all the glowing reviews I’ve heard. The service was on point.

Sat at the counter on an Autumn weekday. The hostess was kind enough to shut the door when I asked, because it was freezing. Started with a glass of red and was both bemused and annoyed as I watch the waitress take what seemed like forever to pour to an imaginary line. To be clear, the wine pours are not generous. Brussel sprout salad was solid, as was my pizza, but it didn’t feel like a $ 40 meal when I walked out.

Nom nom nom nom !! ‘Nuf said lol …
Ok I’ll elaborate — the restaurant is very cute and cozy. The accent wall of wine bottles give a nice touch. This place is kind of small which is what gives it nice intimate ambiance so Guys– I would say great first date spot ;). However, even if you go by yourself there’s a bar section by the the kitchen that has a cool casual feel as well.
Ok so the food– Margherita pizza was delicious! Just what you expect from a wood fire oven baked pizza. Perfect thin crust with right amount of toppings and flavor. I have found my go to spot for pizza. I will take my brother here next time he visits cuz he’s kind of a pizza snob but I know he would totally approve of this spot! We also ordered the special salad — radicchio, pomegranate seeds and a hazelnut vinaigrette.
And last but not least –Of course I tried dessert– had the chocolate chip cookie with gray salt. I had to really use willpower to not eat the whole thing.

We had a really great, and I mean really great bacon pizza here along with baked Brussels sprouts. Everything was from a wood fired oven, and it showed. Pizza was thin crust, which we really like.
The beer and wine selection was good. Make a reservation because this place fills up! Ok, the atmosphere wasn’t quite what I would call a five, but the food and drink more than made up for it. This is a truly great pizza dive.

I am not joking when I say that I literally said «mmmmm…» every time I took a bite of pizza!!! No. Joke. This place knows what it is doing. We sat at the bar top facing the kitchen, which was a really fun spot to watch all the makings of delicious things in action. They really put thought and work into their food, you could see this as ever employee buzzed around the kitchen. We ordered the salad to start, a heaping plate of fresh greens and shredded mozz piled high! Definitely big enough for two to share. The pizza. it’s just amazing! We got the Margherita and gobbled every single bite up. The crust, the flavors, everything. It could be the best pizza I’ve ever had. On top of that the service was friendly and efficient! I can’t wait to go back.

Tired, Tired, Tired of this mentality around service and treatment of customers of, «Your actually lucky to eat here» that seems so common in the restaurant scene in Seattle.
We had a larger party of 7 and knew we couldn’t make reservations so we’re prepared for a wait. When we put our name in the hostess said it «could» be a 2 hours wait. This was a special occasion and the celebrant really wanted to eat here so we had drinks at their sister bar next door. What the hostess didn’t say was that the owner and all of his friends were going to have a 3 hour birthday party and essentially take over the restaurant for as long as they pleased. If we knew this was the case we would have definitely gone down the road for something else. 2 hours into our wait and no sign of the owners party dissolving we checked in, and then were told it could be a while longer with no explanation, or immediacy, per usual. We actually, after 2:30 hours, had to make a serious point to get the table to move to their bar area, as the last hour they were just drinking anyways.
My problem; no expectations were set by the hostess and nothing was explained properly about what the real situation was. Second, what is an proprietor doing, taking a 12 spot table in a 30 – 40 seat small restaurant on a Saturday night for 3.5 hours and not caring that real customers are waiting on them to give real money to them. Third, no apologies for the wait, inconvenience, or anything at all. Same old take or leave it mentality of restaurants in Seattle. This is especially disturbing after we dropped over $ 500 at the bar and restaurant and were treated with this snide attitude so common in service sector here.
And the the pizza is okay, it’s not ground breaking, nothing amazing, and at the end of the day folks it’s just pizza. Quite frankly nothing is good enough to evoke being treated like a second class citizen because you don’t serve food. There are plenty of pizza places that are better than this in town, and as the hype always leaves, my bet is good luck in 5 years. When you focus on being the cool place, the cool kids leave to go to the next cool thing. If you treat your customers with this «lucky to get served» mentality you’ll have no one who is an actual patron of your business. With the explosion of restaurants in Seattle and most using the same formula it’s amazing that these half wit business people don’t understand a competitive market and how to build brand loyalty. And, secret here: it’s not the too cool approach that does it. As regular customers of Seattle businesses please stop accepting this treatment, in so many places we are paying good money to get treated as if we should be honored to sit, drink, eat, or shop. It’s time for this city to grow up an start acting like an adult. Don’t give business like this your money, because they don’t respect you as a customer.

The biggest reason that I gave 3 stars was based off of the service.
Walking in my girlfriend was super excited to eat here. She had heard great things from her friend and so naturally had to see for herself what this pizza spot was all about.
Walking in there was a 30 minute wait so we went across the street to get a drink before dinner. a little over an hour passes and we decide to cross the street and see what’s going on because that seemed a bit long. When we walked back in there were several open tables and so naturally I was a little confused about what was going on. They asked our name again and said they were just getting our table ready and we were seating right away; however I had gotten the feeling that they had kind of forgotten about us.
We sat down and the menus were brought out. It was our first time there and so we were trying to figure out what to order. I thought it was strange also that they had a note that they had additional toppings to choose from aside from the assorted meats, but they were written on the wall of the small room in the entry and not the larger room that most of the people there were sitting in. However, when the waiter came to get our order we asked for one more minute to finish deciding. Within that one minute they plated and seated the table next to us, took their order, and we still probably had time to play a game of checkers.
By this time I asked my girlfriend if she just wanted to ask for the bill and go eat somewhere else, but she insisted that we stay. The server finally came over and took our orders. The pizza and drinks came out probably within 10 minutes which was nice, but we were both a bit hangry by that point which kind of bled into the vibe for the rest of the evening. We saw the server one more time when she was clearing the plates and we asked for the check.
The décor was nice, the crust was crisp, sauce and cheese were good as well, however the service killed it for me.

There was a lot of hype about Delancy from my family and friends and it definitely lived up to the expectation. Delancy is a hard place to walk up and get a table at, we had a 45 minute wait for 2 on a Thursday night around 7. We shared a small salad which was much larger than the average small salad at a comparable restaurant. The couple next to us ordered the large and it was gigantic. Could easily feed 4 people for a started salad. After the salad we each ordered a pizza. We got the margarita and the pepperoni. Both were delicious. I would recommend getting 1 pizza for every 2 people in the party but it was our first time and wanted to have leftovers. The pizza had a great balance of sauce, pepperoni, and cheese. I loved the taste of the wood fired crunchiness. The service was average. Our waitress was nice and professional.

Okay, updating review to a solid 4 stars now!
I came here on a Saturday night and different than last time, there was less than a five minute wait — awesome! We split the small jersey salad for $ 6, and it was a good portion — enough to share for an appetizer, and a very refreshing salad :) Watch out for the croutons though — they have a slight kick to them! We also ordered a pizza — half crimini mushroom (because I remember loving it last time, and they actually don’t use any sauce, just drizzled oil and seasoning on top) and fiancé chose half pepperoni. Both were delicious, and I almost forgot how amazingly thin and crispy their crust is! Very good. We also had a view of the pizza being made from our seats, so it was fun watching pizzas created from scratch throughout our meal :) They definitely don’t skimp on the toppings! Anyway, I’d recommend checking out Delancey. just hope the short wait this time wasn’t a one time tease.

Gah, I miss my old ‘hood. I miss Delancey. So I found myself revisiting. Yum. Best pizza. Why does the best pizza have to live so far away from me.
I like the margherita pizza, and bacon onion. And crimini. And fennel salami. Okay, I like all of them. But the salads on the menu and dessert choices are all seasonal and locally sourced high quality ingredients so I must Try All The Things.
Delancey is more than pizza, be sure to try all the things on the menu. And have a bottle of wine with your pizza!

This is a tough one. I planned a date specifically for Delancey, knowing we needed to show up and possibly wait (hoping to drink at the co-​owned Essex next door while we waited). The hostess said it was a 5 – 10 minute wait, as a table had just finished. As a result, we didn’t bother with Essex, assuming we wouldn’t be able to drink and pay in time.
25 minutes later, we were tired of waiting and watching a finished table take up space in a 6-​table restaurant. To make matters worse, there was a 2-​top not being used for seating (presumably to store take-​out pizza? That’s all I ever saw on the table). I understand there is an aesthetic and management decision for restaurants to not rush patrons, but I also don’t think 25 minutes post-​dinner, with a huge waiting list, and no reservations is appropriate or considerate, and I want them to feel the loss of my business because of that choice.
As a consolation, we took to Essex, because they had food. After waiting 15 minutes for our first drink, I realized they had 14 tables and only two servers, one of which doubled at Delancey, the other was the bartender. To make matters worse, the Delancey server had seen us next door and just assumed we weren’t eating, and raced away with menus, no chance to order. When we finally got sick of waiting for the second drink we indicated it was time to go by putting a card out. It was that busy. Suffice to say, we left at 8:00, an hour and a half after arriving, with no food, and one cocktail before we threw in the towel.
I want to reserve a star for possible good food, and the great cocktail from Essex, but this was just such a terrible experience overall. My date and I felt like were shuffled around, ignored, assumed to be X instead of Y, and even tried to indicate we wanted more than we were getting. A simple minute from staff to feel like you were more than another paying bill would have been enough to salvage the night.

The pizza was solid. Not amazing, but solid. I would not, under any circumstances, wait 90, 60, or even 30 minutes for it however. Honestly, I’m not even sure I’d drive across the city for it. We live near by and will certainly be back but it wasn’t a transcendent experience, by any means.

Best pizza I’ve had in Seattle by approximately a zillion billion thousand miles. We got the Brooklyn (mozzarella and grana cheeses and tomato sauce on a thin crust), and I had to eat mine quickly to avoid getting tears of pure joy all over it. Coupled with a jersey salad, which we split between the two of us, and some divine cocktails.
We only had to wait about 30 minutes on a Saturday evening and we spent it walking around the lovely little neighborhood admiring the flowers in bloom in peoples’ yards… once we got our table, we were greeted with genuine friendliness by several employees. This is the way it should be done.
Can’t wait to come back.

I’m a whore for pizza. There are nearly infinite things you can do with a pizza because it’s such a versatile food group, most of which are dirty, unmentionable things.
I would have visited Delancey the moment I heard about it if they did not have their limited hours, inability to do take-​out, and do not sell pizza by the slice. On top of that, you will have to navigate through Ballard, the city spawned by the devil.
That is some serious bullshit. How will I know if it’s good pizza if I can’t have 5 or 6 different flavors by the slice? What if I don’t like the type of pizza I ordered and I’m stuck trying to dispose of it? Bad pizza is bad. It’s like having sex with a douchebag and being consciously aware of that detail. Instant grief.
I played it safe and had the margherita. It’s always about the margherita; it brings out the pleasant side of me. When I bit into it, it felt like making sweet love on wood-​fired bread. No one said a word as we fervently ate. We had a collective moment during a great pizza when your brain blocks out everything – money, work, traffic, testicles, horse porn, whatever – and nothing else mattered.
I ate at Delancey last week and I already miss this place.

Ok, for months I have been bragging to hubby about Delancey’s and this past Friday we came as a family straight from work and right around their 5pm opening time to avoid waiting times. We had our 5yo daughter with us, so let’s just say this wasn’t as err *relaxing* as my last visit.
We ordered the asparagus again (wood fired w/​a hazelnut romesco and pecorino) and it was still excellent. We split a pizza (½ housemade pork fennel sausage off the menu and ½ chalkboard specials– spicy coppa + arugula). To finish we ordered dessert, but ended up taking most of it to go and eating the next day– a rhubarb shortcake and one of the famous cc cookies w/​grey salt).
The pizza was super cheesy/​greasy and both of us were pretty much in a coma the rest of the night, despite not eating too much. We also has certain *ahem* digestive issues the next day, very uncommon for us. It is unfortunate that we dined at Roberta’s (in Brooklyn) last month… probably one of the best pizza joints in the country right now, and only drawing the (unfavorable) comparison since Delancey’s does Brooklyn-​style pizza.
I definitely need to come again before dropping my rating anything below a 3, given how excellent it was last summer during my visit.

This is Seattle’s best pizza restaurant, seriously?
We came on a rainy Tuesday and were seated immediately. We ordered the jersey salad (good) the margherita pizza (the crust was BURNED in some spots), and the chocolate chip cookie (which was served at room temperature.)
The next day, I went to Serious Pie, and it was MUCH better pizza.
Sorry, Delancey. Despite your cool New York name, you are over-​hyped and over-​rated.