Wood-fired pizza has become more popular in recent years, providing a more high-end and authentic alternative to fast food pizza. Known for their fresh ingredients and thin crust, Punch Pizza was created in 1996. After opening their first location in St. Paul, they have expanded to 12 locations across the metro. Punch specializes in authentic Neapolitan pizza cooked in a 900 degree wood-fired oven. The pizzas are portioned for one person with a variety of fresh toppings to choose from. Punch has won several awards for their food and service, and Meryl Streep called it her favorite pizza place when she was filming “A Prairie Home Companion” in 2006.
Comparatively, OG ZAZA is the newcomer, opening their first location in the Rosedale food court in 2024. They have two other locations in Saint Paul and Shakopee, as well as a mobile pizza trailer in Minneapolis. They make New Haven style pizza, a style of Neapolitan pizza with a thinner, more charred and crunchy crust. The chef behind the restaurant is Joshua Hedquist, who has been featured on several Food Network shows, including Chopped and Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. He also owns another Italian restaurant called Joey’s Meatballs.
Both of the restaurants are located less than one mile from each other in Roseville, and both sell similar style pizzas. I ordered a margherita pizza for direct comparison between the two, as well as a specialty pizza. At Punch, I chose the Toto, which came with prosciutto, arugula, goat cheese and red pepper. At OG ZAZA I ordered the Sicilian, which had mozzarella, sausage and shishito peppers. I ate a slice of both of the pizzas fresh out of the oven and brought the rest home for my family to review.
The most obvious difference between the two was price. One margherita pizza from Punch is only around $9.55, whereas OG ZAZA is priced at $17 per pie. Though Punch has smaller portions sizes (Punch Pizza serves 10.5 inch pizzas while OG ZAZA competes at 12), the price at OG ZAZA is almost double.
Another noticeable difference between the pizzas was the crust. OG ZAZA boasts a five day fermentation process for their dough, which contributes to its chewy crust. Punch Pizza had a saltier and softer crust, but in the 10 minutes it took for the pizza to get back to my home, the crust became incredibly soggy, losing the crunch it had before. Punch does acknowledge this on their website, stating that Neapolitan pizza tends to be wetter than the average pizza, and is meant to be eaten with a fork and knife. They offer a version with less sauce called “Punch Dry” to solve this.
Speaking of sauce, the Punch pizzas both had very simple sauces, with just sweet crushed tomatoes, giving the pizzas a much lighter taste. OG ZAZA had a different but equally delicious sauce, and it did not compromise the crunchiness of the crust. The OG ZAZA specialty pizza was lacking slightly on toppings flavor, however, with the shishito pepper varying greatly in taste between bites and being few and far between on the pizza.
Overall, I would give Punch Pizza a 4/5, with its sweeter sauce and lighter ingredients. However, Punch is not the pizza I would choose for a sharing pizza, given the soggy tendencies of the crust. I believe that OG ZAZA was also a 4/5. This one I would much prefer if I were looking to eat this pizza with others, but beware that the toppings are not as high quality as Punch’s.
