Keste Pizzeria

For Sara’s last day in the office, Abby, Soren, and I took her out for lunch. One of the luxuries of working in the west village is being so close to great options for lunch (The Spotted Pig, Mexicana Mama, Energy Kitchen, Baoguette, Employees Only, San Panino, and John’s Pizzeria…just to name a FEW). We decided to check out Keste because we were all in the mood for pizza and the last time I went, I was really happy with everything.

The four of us decided to order four different pizzas; Keste cuts the pieces into quarters, so it was perfect for us to share. Sara ordered the margherita:

The pizza comes with tomato sauce, olive oil, and fresh mozzarella. As you can tell, the pizza isn’t a perfect circle; that’s because Keste is part of the Association of Neapolitan Pizza, which requires that dough must be kneaded by hand or mixers which do not cause the dough to overheat, and the dough must be punched down and shaped by hand. The pizza is absolutely amazing; tangy tomato sauce with rich and creamy mozzarella. The dough is also pretty much perfect.

Abby ordered the funghi pizza:

Mushrooms, zucchini, tomato sauce, and olive oil. Abby wanted to get the veggie pizza because the last time she was at Keste, she ordered one with cream and thought it was too heavy. The funghi pizza was good, but was too healthy for a pizza and didn’t have any cheese (practically the best part of a pizza!!!)

Soren ordered the prosciutto and arugula pizza:

This was probably my least favorite pizza; the pizza had arugula (good), olive oil (good), mozzarella (really good), and prosciutto (bad). I’m not a huge fan of prosciutto and ate the meat on the pizza, which made it a lot better.

I ordered the pizza del re:

Yes, I realize it has prosciutto on it and I just claimed that I didn’t like it, but I picked off the prosciutto and it was a mighty tasty pizza. The pizza was topped with mushrooms, fresh mozzarella, truffle oil, and extra virgin olive oil. I was actually glad I only had one piece because it was really heavy and I probably couldn’t have eaten the entire thing.

I really enjoyed lunch at Keste and would go back just for the margherita pizza. If you get it to go, it’s half off ($6 instead of $12). The lines are ridiculously long in the evenings, so lunch is probably a better time to visit.