New Jersey’s Oldest Pizza Joint Has This One Of A Kind Pizza
Pizza is a very sacred thing here in the Garden State. It’s not just a hunk of dough with tomato sauce and cheese thrown on it, it’s an art form. It’s the type of food you savor and enjoy bite after bite.
You can’t just scarf down a slice, you must focus on the taste, the texture, and the delightful aroma of this fantastic creation.
We are a state obsessed with pizza! New Jersey folks fight over who has the best pizza. There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to who has the best pizza. We all believe our favorite is the best.
Like your favorite music selections, pizza tastes are subjective.
I still, to this day, comb the web for people’s opinions on where they go for their favorite pizza pie.
You consider your favorite the best, right?
When I cast my wide net, I get hundreds of suggestions.
I usually take the top 10 or 20 suggestions and share my findings with the masses in the form of a listicle.
Now there is one place in New Jersey that has this unusual signature pie. The Mustard Pie.
The mustard pie belongs to New Jersey’s oldest pizza restaurant, Papa’s Tomato Pies, located at 19 Main St, Robbinsville Township, NJ 08691.
According to a 2017 article in the Asbury Park Press,” In 1912, Giuseppe and Adalene Papa emigrated to New Jersey from Naples, Italy. They opened a restaurant in Trenton that, more than a century later, is the oldest family-owned and continually operating pizzeria in the country.”
“The Papas’ daughter, Theresa, and her husband, Dominick, took over in 1963. Their son, Nick Azzaro, who learned to work pizza dough at the age of 2, began running the restaurant in 1987. In 2013, Papa’s moved to Robbinsville.”
The location may have changed, but the recipes are still the same ones Nick’s grandfather came up with well over 100 years ago.
There’s a sign next to the front door that reads: “Home Of The Mustard Pie.” My first thought was, “That’s weird, what does it taste like?”
The Papa’s pizza makers apply a thin layer of spicy brown mustard between the crust and the cheese and people go nuts over it.
It wasn’t Papa’s original idea though.
The original mustard pie was born at a place called Schuster’s in Trenton where the Schuster family’s German heritage was represented by a mustard pie of its own. According to an article in the online publication, Jersey Bites, “When Schuster’s closed in the mid-1980s, a former Shuster’s employee started working at Papa’s and brought the recipe with him. To this day, Papa’s proudly claims its role as the “Home of Mustard Pie,” complete with a loyal following.”
Now that I’ve given this some thought, I would love to try a mustard pie with sausage, my favorite topping.
Mustard and sausage were born to go together.
Next time I take my cat to the vet in Robbinsville, I’m getting a mustard pie with extra sausage.
