In May of 2014 V Pizza launched in San Marco to much hype. We dropped in a couple weeks later the 1st week of June and quite frankly we thought it sucked. It was a bland tasteless pizza. Our headline read “V Pizza- Put it back in the oven it’s not ready yet.” You can read that article here. Now 9 months later we got an invite from Paul Scott, one of the owners of V pizza asking us to come back and give it another shot. The difference in taste from our first visit to now blew us away. V Pizza always had great ingredients. They fly in all of their ingredients fresh from organic farms in Italy. This gives them higher quality ingredients with no preservatives or chemicals. They also always had great ovens. They had craftsman in Italy build them three custom-made 900-plus degree wood-burning ovens and shipped them to Jacksonville so they’d have the best ovens possible to crank out authentic Napolitano pizzas. What they lacked was the knowledge to create amazing pizza.
V Pizza – Pizza
After a couple of bad reviews and their own concerns about the product led to some soul searching; the owners embarked on a trip around the country to successful pizza shops offering authentic Napolitano pizza to see what they were missing. One thing they quickly found out was that they were actually using 1/15th of the amount of salt they need in their dough. Whoa! That’s a lot of missing salt. Clearly it was a big reason their dough was lacking flavor. As they travelled they continued to learn. When they returned to Jacksonville with their new found knowledge they quickly made a change in chefs and began changing their products top to bottom. They kept the things they had right like great high end ingredients imported from Italy and changed the things that weren’t working.
V Pizza – Meatball Sandwich
Let’s talk food! We got a chance to sample a number of the tasty options now on offer at V Pizza. Let’s start with one thing we always heard was good from day one, wood fire oven baked wings. These had plenty of flavor and are a really nice slightly sweet variation from the typical buffalo wings. A great choice at V Pizza. Definitely give them a try. Next up is the meatball sandwich. Chain meatball sandwiches almost always have plenty of fillers. At V Pizza they have none. You want pure meat? You got it. These were really, really good. If we’re not ordering pizza we’ll probably be going for the meatball sub. So what about the pizza? Can you go from worst to first in less than a year? I’d have told you there’s no chance a restaurant could pull that off. V Pizza has proven it’s doable. Are they the best pizza in Jax? That’s a tall order to judge. Are they one of the best? Without question we can say that they are one of the best. We’ve gone from being an anti-fan(okay we were haters….but for good reason.) to some of V pizza’s biggest fans. We’ll take our friends there, we’ll take our family there, we encourage you to do the same. The new V pizza in San Marco makes the grade. We love it! It’s a great premium pizza that Jacksonville diners will appreciate.
V Pizza – Wings
A good story of redemption…I think V’s pizza is better than most in JAX. The distinctive Euro touch to their food is refreshing. It also has a fun little bar next door, known as Sidecar where I have been a few times, when I am not at Aardwolf across the tracks.
As someone who’s spent a lot of time in many places in Italy, I find it kinda funny that so many American restaurants go to such lengths to be authentic to the old country. The land there is often horrible for growing many crops, and most Italian food is the way it is out of necessity rather than flavor. If given access to better ingredients, most chefs there would rather buy those.
Bruce, I totally get what you are saying but where I do disagree is that some of the ingredients in Italy are far superior to anything we can get anywhere else. The San Marzano tomatoes, the buffula Di mozzarella cheese, the prociutto Di Parma, pancetta, and Calabria peppers are all things that can only be gotten in certain regions of Italy and to me at least, are incomparable. I am not sure if you have been to one of our locations yet but invite you to try it and please tell me if our pizza doesn’t get you to agree with me, at least a little. Either way, I understand and respect your opinion and would love to hear your feedback if you go!
I think your comments we’re off base!
My wife and I moved to Atlantic Beach in 2004. We are from Chicago and have a tiny idea of what good pizza is. We gave up on pizza in this town for many years. Sure, we had a few drinks and ate Meza Luna but that’s not pizza. Tried all the ” OMG You have to try this place”, they all tasted like wet cardboard, no sauce, so cheese that melted and stretched 12″ when you bit into it, and most importantly….sliced sausage? That should be a felony to claim it’s pizza with sliced sausage. I heard about V Pizza when they opened in Jax Beach and thought UGH, here we go again. Although it is not as good as we enjoyed for so many years up north, it is by far..the best, hands down, best pizza in North Florida I have ever had. I hppe that everyone gives them a try, it’s worth it.
Really, fresh ingredients from organic farms in Italy? I seriously doubt it.
Yes. They are flown from Italy, and that is the main reason that their food is so expensive. It isn’t cheap to get tomatoes, peppers, cheeses, etc. to the states, especially by air.
You people are clueless. It was perfect when it started and became Americanized. You have NO idea what real Italian pizza is. I am from Sicilia.
They went to Italy to find out what they were missing at first. They learned how to fix it. If anything, they made it better. Also, they had a head chef at the time from Sicilly, eho monitored everything quite closely. I’d say they made it more authentic
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I support the proposal to put a V pizza in pal valley!’