Lilja's Premiere Pizza - January 6, 2023

Chip is in California for his brother's birthday, but Avery and I decided to forge ahead with trying another pizza place last night. 

Lilja's Premiere Pizza (known as simply Premiere Pizza) has a primary location in Greensburg but a carryout location in our town of Delmont. We decided on delivery, knowing full well that it would be a long wait on a Friday night. When I ordered they told me it would be "a little more than an hour." Um, make that 1 hour 50 minutes. It was ridiculous. Thankfully, the pizza was hot when it arrived, which means they are short-staffed in the kitchen rather than lacking in delivery drivers. Major points deducted, though.

Premiere has a pretty extensive menu, including specialty pizzas, calzones, hoagies, wings, and appetizers. They note on the menu that you can select "sweet sauce" rather than their regular sauce. Since I don't really like sweet sauce, I was happy that it wasn't standard.

Avery wanted to try the BBQ chicken pizza, with the optional onions and peppers. I ordered my standard sausage and mushroom, but also a small pierogi pizza. Pierogi pizza is a Western PA specialty. It's typically prepared with a garlic butter sauce on the crust, then a layer of mashed potatoes, with sauteed onions and cheddar and other cheeses.

The small pizzas were 4-cut, 10-inch pizzas, and the BBQ chicken one was an 8-cut, 12-inch pie. The price was VERY reasonable - only $32 for all three.

The BBQ chicken pizza and the pierogi pizza looked fantastic. 

I could tell immediately though that the sausage and mushroom was waaaaay too saucy. When sauce oozes out onto the top crust, that's a bad sign.

I love to see big sausage chunks. I tried a couple before biting into a slice, and they were a tiny bit spicy, but less so than the sausage at Pizza Marsala. The mushrooms were fresh, not canned.

Avery had already eaten a slice by the time I got done examining the pizzas and taking pics, so I asked for his assessment of the BBQ chicken option. He said the flavor was incredible, and he liked the hand-tossed crust. However, he hated that the green peppers were in strips rather than diced. He said that when you bit into one it was hard to bite through and so the entire pepper strip would slide off into your mouth. He also thought that it was a bit cheese heavy.

NOTE: Avery made and delivered pizzas for 3.5 years, so he has a bit more expertise in their construction than the average pizza lover.

Like him, I was really happy with the crust. The dough was slightly sweet and very soft, and the top crust was chewy but not crunchy. The sauce had a good flavor, and I thought the toppings-to-cheese ratio was good. But - and that's a BIG but - as I noted at first sight, there was just way too much sauce. I ate two small slices but did not eat much of the top crust, as it was coated in sauce.

I also had a slice of the pierogi pizza. The cheese was beautifully browned, and it seemed to be a mixture of cheddar and provolone and was very tasty.

But the onions were a big disappointment. A pierogi pizza is meant to mimic pierogis, which are typically simmered in onions and butter until the onions are soft and sweet and they flavor the pierogis beautifully. These onions were NOT cooked first, in butter or anything else; they were plopped on the pizza raw. They were also in large chunks rather than diced small, so they "interrupted" the smooth texture of the mashed potatoes and cheese.

The pizza wasn't terrible. We'll eat the leftovers. Avery said he would give it a second chance (but he'd definitely pick up the pizza rather than request delivery). The whole delivery experience left a bad taste in my mouth, which was exacerbated by the goopy sauce and onion chunks. I think I can cross Premiere Pizza off my list.