As far as I’m concerned, the Bay Area’s current pizza MVPs are Jules in San Francisco and June’s Pizza in Oakland. While their names are easy to confuse, they’re almost mirror opposites. Jules makes small pizzas; June’s puts out large pies. Jules employs a mix of breadmaking styles, using sourdough, commercial yeast and more; the dough at June’s is strictly sourdough. Jules fires pizzas in an electric oven; June’s prefers a wood-burning one. But the biggest differences are in the breadth of options. Whereas Jules has a half dozen pies on its menu, June’s emphatically only offers two or three pizzas at a time. Up until recently, that included a special and the beloved margherita.
Now the margherita, the default, the standard bearer, the anchor, is 86’d, out of stock, Xs over its eyes, gone.
A few weeks ago, owner Craig Murli announced that “the margherita as you know it no longer exists.” In its place is the “June’s red pie,” which riffs on a New Haven style of pizza. The pizza enters the 600-degree wood-fired oven dressed only in tomato sauce — though more of it than before — and a coating of garlic oil on the crust. After baking, staff finish it off by applying another coat of garlic oil, dollops of burrata, a scrunch of an oregano bundle and a snowfall of shaved Pecorino, the pizzeria’s trademark…