DON'T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT...  Magpies Gourmet Pizza has won rave reviews time and again.  In fact, we have the honor of winning Tucson's Best Pizza award every year for the past eleven years.  But because we don't want to blow our own horn too loud, we invite you to read about it for yourself!
 
 
Tucson Citizen December 6, 2006
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Ute U. Gascho, Magpies Gourmet Pizza
By C.J. KARAMARGIN

Meet Ute U. Gascho, the president and operating partner of Magpies Gourmet Pizza. Born in Germany and raised in Lancaster, Pa., Gascho worked for the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington D.C., Orlando and Berlin before coming to Tucson.

Now 40, she oversees Magpies’ six restaurants in Tucson and about 150 employees.

What's your favorite restaurant in the Tucson area and why?

I really like J Bar. I love Janos. Cafe Poca Cosa is one of my favorite places to take my German relatives. Beyond Bread for lunch, and also B Line. And the best seafood in town is at Mariscos Chihuahua on Grande (Avenue).

What's your favorite dish to prepare and why?

Calabacitas. My kids love it and it always comes out good.

What's your favorite dish to eat?

Something German, like sauerbraten.

What's unique about the Tucson restaurant scene compared to other cities?

The restaurant scene here is wonderfully connected. We’re all close. Everybody does a really good job of maintaining seasonal menus.

What's your favorite or most-used kitchen utensil or gadget?

A pizza peel, since I use it all the time.

What do you always have in your refrigerator?

Premium butter. I really like sweet cream butter. If it’s not from Germany, it’s from Ireland.

Why are you a chef?

I consider myself a restaurateur. I love the industry. My favorite quote is, "It's the food, stupid."

When I moved to Tucson and learned that there was a set of pizza joints named Magpies, I wasn't too impressed. This is because I find magpies, as in the birds, to be highly annoying creatures.

They're loud and aggressive. Heck, if you look up magpie in the American Heritage College Dictionary (a copy happens to reside on my desk), the third definition is: "a person who chatters." That says something.

Thus, I had a highly irrational bias against Magpies when I first walked in to the Broadway Boulevard and Houghton Road location--the nearest of the five Magpies to my humble abode--and ordered a large chicken picante pizza ($16.95, although you can find it and many other Magpies pizzas on special often; the normal prices for all of Magpies' "Family Favorites" range from $9.95 for a small to $22.95 for a jumbo). My mission was to order three different pizzas on three separate occasions to review what The Weekly's readers seemingly always deem as the best pizza in town (a fact that Magpies not-so-subtly boasts in a large neon sign at the restaurant).

Located along the side of a shopping center, this Magpies is not very big, obviously built for more takeout and delivery business than dine-in customers, although a handful of tables are present. Thus, I ordered my pizza--featuring spicy tomato-pesto sauce, mozzarella, feta cheese, chicken breast chunks, cilantro and tomatoes--and wandered across the street to Starbucks.

About 25 minutes later, I returned, got my piping hot pizza and started the short drive home. The damn pizza smelled so good that I was tempted to pull over and snork down a slice or two at one point, but decorum and manners won out over slobhood and gluttony.

Photo By Francis Wick

Mmmm. Sauce!
The pizza's taste was almost as good as the smell, I was glad to discover when I arrived home. It was delicious--the chicken was plentiful and moist, and the ingredients complemented each other well. The regular crust (sourdough and whole wheat are also available) was perfect--not to thick, not too thin, and cooked to a golden brown. My only complaint was that the sauce was not "spicy" at all as advertised. If anything, it was a bit bland; thankfully, the cheeses, chicken and cilantro made up for it in the taste category.

About a week later, I returned to get another pizza. I ordered a pie oddly named "The Giant." (Question: If you order a small "The Giant," isn't that something of a conundrum?) I ordered a large (same price as the chicken picante) and headed to the supermarket to do a little shopping.

After picking up the pizza this time, I wasn't tempted to eat and drive at the same time. While it smelled good, it didn't tickle the olfactory nerves like the chicken cilantro did. Fortunately, it was as yummy as the chicken cilantro.

Featuring mozzarella, Italian sausage, pepperoni, onions, green peppers, black olives and mushrooms and the house red tomato sauce, "The Giant" is basically Magpies' combo pizza. I ordered mine with extra sauce and no bell peppers, and it was a treat. The ingredients were all abundant, and the sauce had a peppery flavor--it seemed spicier than the "spicy tomato-pesto sauce," go figure. It made my Top 10 Combo Pizza list--it was good with no surprises.

For my third pizza, I decided to take a different approach and have one delivered. This time, I decided on the Pueblo, featuring spiced chile sauce, mozzarella, cheddar, ground beef, scallions, roasted green chiles, tomatoes and black olives. I got a large ($14.95; it and the rest of the "Tastes of Tucson" pizzas range from $7.95 to $20.95). I also decided to try an order of sweet stix ($2.95) for dessert. The friendly woman told me it would arrive in 45 minutes to an hour.

Almost exactly 45 minutes later, the delivery man showed up gave me my dinner. Like the chicken picante, the Pueblo had an aroma that made my mouth water instantly.

Too bad it didn't hold up in the taste department.

The Pueblo wasn't a bad pizza; it was just disappointing. The delicious chicken picante and "The Giant" pies set the expectations bar rather high. All the ingredients were abundant and fresh on the Pueblo, but it suffered from blandness. The "spiced chile sauce" was not spicy at all--the person who named these sauces should be disciplined--and the roasted green chiles were almost flavorless. The ground beef was dry and tasteless. While the cheeses and the other tasty ingredients made the pizza more than edible, it was a letdown overall. The sweet stix--dough with a cinnamon sauce--were exactly what they were advertised to be.

Best Pizza of Tucson, Tucson Weekly '98 

READERS' PICK: It's the year 2150, and Magpies has been named Tucson's Best Pizza for the 162nd consecutive time. This amazing streak continues with no signs of ending. (There have only been two interruptions in the streak, once when the U.S. economy crashed after they took Seinfeld reruns off the air, and the other when those madcap Magpies employees tried to stuff the ballot box with the name of a fictitious pizza place "just for fun.") Otherwise, it's business as usual. Oh yeah, Magpies announced they've opened a teleport take-out station to serve the colonists on Rigel-3, their restaurant on Ganymede had a banner year, and they're still open on Fourth Avenue. 

READERS' PICK: What can be said about this perennial favorite that hasn't been blathered a bazillion times before? Sure, the pizza is stupendous with lots of thick, gooey cheese, a staggering choice of traditional white, whole-wheat, cheese or herbed crust, and a smorgasbord of ingredients ranging from the pervasive pepperoni to the chichi sun-dried tomato. If a Magpies pie can't win 'em over, recycle 'em along with the empty box. The reader's choice for 11 years running, this love affair was made to last. 

READERS' PICK: Once again, the Old Pueblo's perennial favorite clinches our readers' poll. 

READERS' PICK: It's not the cheapest pizza in town, but then again, that's not why we order from Magpies. Their delicious Build-Your-Own New York Pizza category offers four types of crust with a tempting selection of 14 regular and 16 premium toppings, including fresh spinach and piñons. Some of the combinations are Mag-nificent: the Tori Special, with mozzarella, roasted eggplant, piñon nuts and tomato; the Juan Carlos Pesto, with a blend of basil, cilantro, spinach, piñon nuts, garlic and romano cheese, topped with mozzarella; and the Seven Cheese, with mozzarella, romano, feta, provalone, Swiss, cheddar and ricotta. Someone call Jack Copeland! We wish we could tell you exactly what they put in their sauce, but our centrifuge is on the blink so you'll just have to taste for yourself. It's an extraordinary sauce, teeming with savory herbs. The menu offers everything from "Lite" Pizza to 13 choices of specialty pizzas, including The Pueblo, a combo probably not found in New York City.