Local pizzerias duke it out for Worcester's Best Pizza. Voting ends noon Monday

WORCESTER - When it comes to tasty pizza in the region, many neighborhoods have a go-to place, one worth boasting about.

With this mind, the nonscientific Worcester’s Best Pizza contest was created.

Modeled after the NCAA's March Madness basketball tournament, we came up with our own bracket featuring 16 pizza places in the region. We came up with the list after soliciting nominations. We received 50 and took the 16 that got the most nods.

The contest, dating to March 1, is in its fourth round, with readers first narrowing the field from 16 to eight, then to four, and now to two: I Love Frankie's and Peppercorn's.

The voting ends at noon Monday.

More: Pizza Madness: Search for Worcester's Best Pizza sliced to 2

As of midmorning Thursday, with 133,600 votes recorded, I Love Frankie's was in the lead, capturing 56% of the vote. But there is a long way to go. Voting ends at noon Monday.

Despite being the “No. 1 seed” (based on the number of reader nominations solicited prior to the first round), I Love Frankie’s at 90 Providence St. is considered the pizza rookie, while Peppercorn’s Grille & Tavern at 455 Park Ave., which ranked No. 2, is the well-established restaurant dynasty that happens to sell out of this world pizza.

So will it be the Pizza Prince of Providence Street or the Pizza Potentate of Park Avenue that wins the distinction of pizza-maker supreme in Worcester?

Without further ado (or oregano), let’s meet our premium pizzaiolos.

I Love Frankie's

In a very short time, the social media-savvy Frank Abbatecola has seen his I Love Frankie’s become a star among pizzerias.

With his biggest pie a whopping 24 inches in diameter, Abbatecola specializes in hand-tossed New York-style pizza.

“Chicago has the deep dish. Detroit has the pan style. And New York is hand-stretched with a thinner crust with a little bit of crisp,” Abbatecola said. “I believe most pizzerias in Worcester specialize in Greek style, which is baked in a pan. So the dough will never touch the bottom of the oven where mine’s does.”

Abbatecola, a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist for the short-lived band Monroe Monroe, once built runways for the Air Force in Antarctica before owning his first pizzeria in Denver.

“I grew up in a restaurant family. My parents had two fine-dining Italian restaurants on Long Island, plus they had a pizzeria,” Abbatecola said. “A good pizza-maker is hard to find, one that can go traditional, old-school off the wooden peel into the oven on the stones.”

With a dozen years of pizza oven experience under his apron, Abbatecola opened his Vernon Hill pizza parlor on Jan. 29, 2021, in the middle of the pandemic.

“We opened 4 o’clock on the last Friday of 2021,” Abbatecola recalled. “By that coming Wednesday, five days later, we had a two-hour wait and a line out the door.”

Besides making great pizza, Abbatecola credits his success with offering Worcester something different.

“There’s not a lot of pizzerias in Worcester that do what I do. I think we have Pepe’s and Wonder Bar,” Abbatecola said. “Before I opened, I had (pizza from) Pepe’s and I had Wonder Bar and I thought they were both fantastic. They were great pizzas.”

Every night, Abbatecola is rolling in the dough.

“I’m making my own dough, three or four batches a day,” Abbatecola said. “We make 30 to 40 trays of dough every day and each tray of dough is five or eight pieces of dough depending on what size tray it is. We crank out 200-plus pizzas a day.”

Another key ingredient to Abbatecola’s oven-cooked creations is all the ingredients are fresh and homemade.

“We make our sauce every day. We go through 35 gallons, 40 gallons of pizza sauce every day, five-gallon buckets, just cranking through them every day,” Abbatecola continued. “I use a different kind of flour than the standard pizzerias and I have a secret weapon that I add to the recipe that makes it what it is.”

Peppercorn's Grille & Tavern

Started by Tom Oliveri Sr. and his sons, Tom Jr. and Jon M. Oliveri, Peppercorn's has been a Park Avenue dining destiny for approaching a quarter of a century.

In many ways, the Oliveri family has been a fine dining dynasty for close to four decades. Some of the Oliveris' business ventures in the past include Elsa's Bushel 'N Peck, Wormtown Brewing Company and The Ice Cream Factory at Peppercorn's, all in Worcester; Elsa's Eatery in Shrewsbury; Prezo Grille and Bar in Milford; and Oli's Italian Eatery in West Boylston.

While Peppercorn’s is known for much more than just pizza, General Manager Cathleen Gunnerson and executive chef Marcos Ferreira are quite thrilled that the establishment is in the running for supreme pizza parlor of Central Massachusetts.

“The response, like the amount of votes and everything, has been so overwhelming,” Gunnerson said. “People have been calling up and ordering pizza because of the competition. And the people who have come out on Worcester Eats (on social media) and chatted it up has been so great.”

Pizza was added onto the Peppercorn’s menu in 2006, said Gunnerson, who's a little surprised that her establishment made it in the running against mostly traditional, neighborhood pizza parlors.

“There was a lot of research done. We did a lot of taste-testing. We bought pizza from every place in the city. They had been to Italy,” Gunnerson said about the foundations of brining pizza to the Peppercorn’s menu. “There were a lot of versions of the dough and if it should have the cornstarch or whether it should be rolled. Every little piece of how it was made, thought was put into it.”

If Peppercorn’s has a signature pizza, it would be the Park Avenue, a piping hot pie with sausage, meatball, pepperoni, red bell pepper, caramelized onions and four-cheese blend, Gunnerson said.

“That pizza that has been on the menu forever,” Gunnerson said. “We named it for the street we’re on for a reason and people love it.”

Known for changing their menus every six months, seasonally for spring and fall, Gunnerson said they try to offer “one kind of funky pizza that changes every time.

“The one that was the biggest was the fig and butternut pizza. That was huge. People loved that,” Gunnerson said. “It was roasted butternut squash, diced, and it was fig balsamic glazed, prosciutto, smoked gouda. It’s amazing.”

Although their large is 6 inches smaller than the main dish offered at I Love Frankie’s, what Peppercorn’s pizzas lack in size, they make up in crowd-pleasing taste.

Peppercorn’s also cuts their pies differently than the rival No. 1 seed, favoring squares that usually end up with 12 slices.

But the two pizza places do have one thing in common. They don’t sell pizza by the slice. You have to buy the whole pizza with the options to eat the leftovers for breakfast and/or lunch or dinner.

Originally from Brazil, Ferreira has been working in Peppercorn’s kitchen for 15 years. In a kitchen that is 20-members strong, he is one of five who makes pizzas there.

“We use great ingredients and everything is fresh,” Ferreira said.

Duking it out for bragging rights and the unofficial title of pizza baron of the Blodgett deck oven, Abbatecola of I Love Frankie’s and Ferreira of Peppercorn’s Grille & Tavern will keep cooking tasty pies no matter the outcome, an outcome decided by you.

In Final 4 voting, I Love Frankie's defeated Ciao Bella, capturing 56.84% of the 109,253 votes. And Peppercorn's topped Antonio's, capturing 53.23% of the 227,811 votes.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Local pizzerias duke it out for Worcester's Best Pizza bragging rights