Review: At Jay’s Artisan Pizzeria, world-class pies feed Buffalo pizza culture

Neapolitan or Detroit style, Joe Powers’ work is destination pizza drawing hungry to Kenmore

From top left: pesto and semi-dried tomato, margherita, ramp and sausage, ndjua, marinara, quatro formaggio, butternut squash, ramp ricotta and Italian porcini, funghi, at Jay’s Artisan Pizzeria.

Waxlight Bar a Vin and Southern Junction have finally put Buffalo’s restaurants on the national stage, literally. On June 10, when America’s top restaurant honors are announced at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Buffalonians responsible for those restaurants will step into the spotlight.

Whatever happens in Chicago, their James Beard Awards finalist achievements have put Buffalo on traveler itineraries. As one of five selected from 25 semi-finalists in each category, they have already raised the city’s profile on a list that’s essentially Michelin stars for all the places Michelin doesn’t go. Which is most of the United States.

Can Buffalo become a destination for more than wings?

Hope is the thing with feathers, Emily Dickinson wrote. What makes my hopes soar is Buffalo restaurateurs like Joe Powers, chef-owner of Jay’s Artisan Pizzeria.

Joe Powers bought Jay’s Artisan Pizzeria three years after becoming its first employee.

His Neapolitan-style pizza with the spreadable Calabrian salami called nduja, shaved red onion, fontal cheese, garlic, and chile honey ($19) works the smoky-sweet-spicy chord. Foraged wild alliums show up as a ramp ricotta pie with Italian porcini mushrooms ($20) in a seasonal special.

Nduja Neapolitan style, fontal cheese, shaved red onion

Then, a second strength: Detroit style, rectangular pan-cooked pizza with overflowing cheese lining the perimeter with lacy bronzed cheese crisp. (Jay’s even offers a gluten free Detroit style version.) Spicy red top ($18), with cup-n-char pepperoni, cheese blend, pickled peppers, tomato sauce, garlic, and parmesan is my go-to.

Spicy red top Detroit style, cup and char pepperoni, tomato, pickled peppers

In 2019, after graduating from Lancaster High School, Joe Powers flew to Naples to study Neapolitan pizza. Three years later, Powers bought the restaurant from founder Jay Langfelder.

Langfelder started restaurant life as a Bocce dough boy before following his own pizza vision quest, with the O.G. Wood Fire truck, then opening Jay’s in 2017. Langfelder made Powers his first hire. By the time Powers bought the restaurant, his hands shaped the vast majority of pies.

Last year, Powers flew back to Naples to see his work named 28th best Neapolitan pizza in the world by 50 Top Pizza, a Neapolitan-focused group.

Langfelder went on to open pizzerias and consult on pizzerias in several cities. In Savannah, Ga., Langfelder and partner Amanda Jones decided to roll up their operation and come home. Because Buffalo’s pizza culture, from the weekly ritual pie to slice chasers driving across town to the new place, can support a proliferation of pizzerias and pizza styles.

In, Amanda Jones launched Pizzeria Florian in East Aurora, with Langfelder as partner. Florian is aiming for a fifth style, with influences of New York, New Haven, and bar-style pies.

This is the state of modern Buffalo pizza culture: picking pies has never been harder, and pizza explorers have never been happier. For in Erie County there exists schools of no fewer than four distinct varieties – Buffalo style, New York, Detroit, and Neapolitan.

Today, you can walk into Jay’s Artisan Pizzeria, order and get drinks, sit down at a table, and get a pie in half an hour. You might and find Powers right between the counter and oven, stretching dough.

Go to Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, No. 21 on the list, and wait times start at 90 minutes.

Powers is 26. Who knows what he’ll come up with next?

Revel in today, when you only have to drive to Kenmore to eat world-class pizza. People from Tokyo and Tonawanda come to eat pizza, and sigh in satisfied relief. Its fire-blossomed dough arriving faintly crisp and leopard-spotted with char, Neapolitan-style pizza takes two minutes to cook, and not much longer to wilt.

Funghi Neapolitan style, Flat 12 mushrooms, confit garlic, fontal cheese

It can be resuscitated with refiring, and Jay’s Artisan does a robust takeout business with easy online ordering. But like chicken wings, Neapolitan pizza should be enjoyed where it’s made. If you order takeout, eat at least once slice in your car, before you buckle your seatbelt. Time’s a-wasting.

At the helm, Powers expanded Jay’s original menu by adding a few standards. From time to time, he’s let the Buffalo boy come through the dusting of 00 flour.

Buffalo chicken Detroit style, with chopped chicken tenders, blue cheese, and pickled celery has made a cameo appearance. French onion soup Neapolitan style, all too briefly stopped by. Pear mostarda with prosciutto Detroit style was on repeat until it disappeared.

Gyro Detroit style, special with shaved gyro, onion, tomato, yogurt, dill

Better to have loved and lost. That’s the lasting blessing of seasonal pizza: years hence, via memory or Facebook time capsule, remembering the hit of the summer and getting hungry all over again.

Basil pesto with semi-dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and parmesan ($17) is a perennial. The Detroit style rebel of the moment is made with jerk chicken, mango, pickled red onions, and red peppers ($20).

A bottled wine and beer selection, and salads like Belgian endive ($13) with blood oranges, toasted pistachios, pickled radish, Parmigiano Reggiano, and black lime round out the brief menu.

With Joe Powers and many more Buffalo master makers working to feed us our daily bread, perhaps the 2024 Beard breakthrough will help Buffalo become America’s next food destination.

We have the ingredients. Veteran operators staying the course with menus that have pleased generations. Locals who returned to build dream restaurants after making their bones elsewhere. A proliferation of world cuisine, thanks to immigrant restaurateurs investing their fortunes in their new neighborhoods.

All aided and abetted by customers spending money and time at places that make them want to shout.

Plenty other cities are aiming to become the next Portland or Charleston. I like Buffalo’s chances.

Lots of places have cooks with skills. Buffalo has Powers.