Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on July 13, 2020.
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Whenever we share our Pittsburgh pizza roundup post, we often receive a ton of recommendations of where to go next. This is not surprising as Pittsburgh has one of the highest concentrations of pizza shops per capita of any metro area in the country. Naturally, this means our to-do list is quite large on the pizza front.
One shop that came up time and time again was Shelly Pie in Turtle Creek (just east of the city) and we decided to visit as quickly as possible to see why this one is so popular.
Large Pizzas at Shelly Pie
The first thing you'll notice when ordering from Shelly Pie is that their pizza options are quite large. The smallest traditional pie clocks in at 13″ and the smallest Sicilian is an eight-cut beast as well. Naturally, we opted for one of each. For the traditional white we opted for a white pizza with tomato and spinach and for the Sicilian we went with a build-your-own with tomato sauce, bacon, roasted red peppers, and pepperoni.
On the Sicilian front, we were a bit let down as crust was quite doughy- a bit more so than we would like for a Sicilian pizza. This was offset by a copious amount of toppings which made for a hearty cut overall.
The traditional pie was more to our speed here as the herb-forward white sauce worked really well with the flavorful, albeit not terribly crispy, crust. The edges of the pie were a bit on the doughy side like the Sicilian, but overall was not as overwhelming as other pizza shops such that it didn't take away from the pizza at all.
Likewise, while I would say the toppings on this one were also generous, the cheese was the star here which held its own against the white sauce. Toss in the spinach and tomato to round out every bite and you get a combination we'd definitely order again.
Overall, apart from the doughier Sicilian we were quite pleased with the pizzas from Shelly Pie and were excited to have a number of leftovers for later.
A Reuben on the Side
Beyond pizzas, Shelly Pie has a rather robust menu of sides, sandwiches, entrees, and more. So many, in fact, that it made it hard to determine what else to add on to our order beyond pizza. As we are suckers for Reubens and trying to enjoy all of the iterations in the city, we opted to add this sandwich on to finish out the meal.
The Reuben here is served traditional style with corned beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing on grilled bread and had a rather nice flavor from the corned beef. The sandwich itself was fairly light on the cheese, sauerkraut, and dressing, and the bread was not noticeably grilled to a high degree, so overall felt like a bit of a letdown compared to other sandwich options in the city.
Still, you do not go to Shelly Pie to order a Reuben, and the fact that this the only real letdown of our order does not take away from the pizza here in the slightest.
Overall, Shelly Pie in Turtle Creek serves up some fairly delicious pizzas- specifically their traditional pies. I may not necessarily want to drive across the city during rush hour to pick up an order, but if I happened to be in the area and was looking for a good pizza option, I'd definitely detour to make a stop here all the same.
Shelly Pie is located at 912 Penn Avenue Ext in Turtle Creek, PA.
Looking for more pizza options to try? Check out Iron Born, Driftwood Oven, Mineo's, or Beto's Pizza!
