Pinocchio's Pizza is a longtime favorite of Harvard students – including Mark Zuckerberg
The scene: Pinocchio's Pizza & Subs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been serving locals and Harvard students for more than half a century, since 1966. An episode of the television show "Suits" even discussed how important its “square pizza" is to students. Its most famous devotee is former student Mark Zuckerberg – when he spoke at the school in 2017, the Facebook founder and his wife returned for his usual order.
While Zuckerberg gets his own mini-shrine adorned with clippings, the rest of the walls are covered with photos of other customers and newspaper and magazine articles. The notable exception is the main wall of the front dining room, which is covered with a giant mural of Pinocchio feeding pizza to a whale and a mermaid. You don’t see that every day.
The shop is in an alley off Harvard Square and easily missed if you're not looking for it. The door opens into a small dining room with eight tables, separated from the kitchen and counter by a large column. Customers order at the counter and can see into the kitchen, which is half traditional New York-style pizzeria, with a counter for making pizza and ovens down the left side, and half short-order diner kitchen, with a large flattop grill for making the subs on the right.
It’s fast, frantic and efficient. You order, then wait until staffers yell out your food as it is ready. But the employees are also very friendly and helpful. When I ordered a single slice of pizza, the server put it on the plate, then looked at it and determined that it had been cut too small – and threw on a second slice at no charge. You help yourself to napkins and plastic utensils.
The most notable thing here is the dizzying array of Sicilian pizzas ready to be served by the slice, with far more variations of toppings already prepared than at almost any other pizzeria you will encounter.
Reason to visit: Sicilian pizza.
The food: There are three main offerings at Pinocchio’s: rectangular thick-crust Sicilian-style pizza cut into square slices, round thin-crust New York-style pizza cut into triangle slices, and subs. The square slices are the most popular and are offered in the biggest variety, with around 15 styles of pies ready to serve at any given time. The toppings are as varied as chicken pesto, zucchini and artichoke, along with more common options such as pepperoni and sausage.
Interestingly, while it is the round thin-crust pizza that is generally known as New York style, it is the rectangular thick-crust Sicilian that is really more of a Big Apple specialty. You can find the former type all over Boston and the rest of the country, but Sicilian is much rarer, and this is the secret to Pinocchio’s enduring popularity.
While the triangle slices here are close to traditional New York style (just a little droopier and with a less-crisp crust), the Sicilian is appreciably thinner than the New York version. That's a good thing, because classic New York Sicilian style tends to be much too bready, overwhelming the toppings. At Pinocchio’s it is just under an inch thick, and the bottom of the crust is crispier. My favorite was the pizza rossa, covered with thick red sauce and with cheese here and there, topped with fresh chopped basil. Whatever you want to call it, the squares are solidly tasty comfort food, and this, along with the fact that Pinocchio's is very affordable and open late, helps explain why college students love it.
But some come for the subs, especially the steak and cheese, the best-known offering. The “steak,” or shaved beef, is cooked to order, but once they put it on the roll and call you for pickup, they ask you what you want on it, adding the garnishes on top of the steak and cheese, which is an unusual presentation – you won’t see that in Philly. There are a lot of choices, like raw or cooked onions, hot peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and so on. The steak and cheese sub is a widely beloved but generally underwhelming type of sandwich, and what elevates it here is the toppings, especially the standout hot peppers, which are spicy and flavorful, not just a hot burn. Some customers can’t choose between the pizza and the subs – according to Boston Magazine, for years Zuckerberg’s standing order has been a slice of plain Sicilian and a steak and cheese sub.
Pilgrimage-worthy?: No, but it’s a Cambridge landmark.
Rating: Mmmm (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)
Price: $ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)
Details: 74 Winthrop Street, Cambridge; 617-876-4897; pinocchiospizza.net
Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy.