Dragon Pizza
Pizza restaurant · Somerville
233 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144
Highlights
NY-style pizza, inventive flavors, homemade gelato, and craft cocktails
NY-style pizza, inventive flavors, homemade gelato, and craft cocktails
"It’s inevitable that you’ll get hungry while running errands around the neighborhood, and for a quick, cheap bite, you can’t do much better than Dragon Pizza. We can’t get over the maple bacon cheddar slice with its sweet and spicy maple sauce drizzle, the simple and fresh margherita, and their classic pepperoni. The pizzas here are thin crust, enormous, and an exceptionally great value ($5 per slice) for their quality. We can’t promise that the pizza will heal your ego after Buffalo Exchange rejects all the clothes you tried to sell that day, but hey, at least you won’t be hungry." - lala thaddeus
"After a brief renovation and the addition of a liquor license, this pizza parlor reopened with some flair. In addition to local beer on tap and a small selection of wine, it now serves refreshing, simple cocktails, such as a blueberry shandy and a rose gimlet, which seem to pair well with its famous pies that went viral in 2023, like the classic margherita and the kung pao chicken pizza." - Valerie Li Stack
"Dragon Pizza has gotten some buzz lately, but all you need to know is the pizza is excellent and the vibes are great. The counter-service spot has murals of cassettes and a framed photo of John Dalton (that’s Patrick Swayze’s bouncer character in Roadhouse) on the walls. They don’t serve booze, just New York-style pizza by the slice. The cheese and pepperoni are solid, and they also do stuff like nacho slices that NYC places wouldn’t be caught dead serving. Definitely save space for whatever homemade gelato they’re serving that day—the dark chocolate is rich in all the right ways and the Gucci vanilla delivers on the designer name." - tanya edwards
"A Boston pizzeria that became the focus of a very public confrontation after the festival organizer called it the “worst pizza place in America”; the owner, Charlie Redd, criticized the one-bite review style, sparking a heated exchange that led to waves of online harassment and death threats, while paradoxically also producing a surge of in-person business afterward." - Jaya Saxena
"Opened in 2018 with a mission to make pizza using local ingredients and craftsmanship, this Somerville pizzeria was thrust into a national media firestorm after a viral, profanity-laced confrontation with a prominent online pizza reviewer who gave one bite of a slice a 6.4/10. The exchange — captured on video, reposted widely, and amplified by the reviewer’s subsequent appearances and merchandise — triggered waves of 1-star Yelp reviews that forced the page into moderation, a flood of fake prepaid orders, threats that required new security measures, and a paper plate taped to the window reading “We are not talking about it. Orders only.” The owner has publicly defended the idea that one-bite, sensationalized reviews are unfair and unprofessional, while emphasizing that he values traditional critics and aims to give every customer the same experience; he says the shop supports five adults, their partners, and 12 children and that the controversy has been frightening but also met with strong local support from customers who praise the food. " - BySam Stone
