It seems like every third person in Charlotte recently moved here from New York. If that is you, I’m imaging the trouble you are currently going through to find a New York slice. You’re basically a modern day Lewis and Clark, except the Pacific Ocean is a large, thin crusted piece of pie. Well Lewis and Clark, allow me to be your Sacagawea.

The Ambiance

It feels weird to describe a late night joint that sells pizza by the slice this way, but Zambies is a vibe. The open air windows. The subtle, yet elegant decor. The extremely welcoming staff bumping some tasty tropical house music while they prepare the pizza. All of it is a vibe. This atmosphere will make you want to change your order from to-go to eating it there. And this staff will make you feel like a local. It’s hard to beat.

The show “The Bear” on FX is about a Michelin Star chef coming back to Chicago to take over his brothers Italian Beef restaurant. The restaurant, before the acclaimed chef arrives serves greasy food that tastes good, but makes you feel like you are doing something you shouldn’t. You know, the kind of food that puts you into a food induced nap where your night sweats are converted into grease. After the chef takes over, the beefs are transformed with top of the line ingredients. The reason I bring this up is because Zambies is exactly like The Bear taking over a pizza by the slice joint and transforming it into something amazing. Unlike most places that serve pizza by the slice, you don’t need to be 16 lite beers deep to be blown away by the taste of Zambies pies. So lets get into what you should order from them.

What to Order

The slices here are huge. You probably only need one, but they have two slices that are such bangers and juxtapose one another so well, you should pop the button on your pants, get comfy and go for both. The two slices I recommend are The Sleeping Beauty and The Steph Infection (not the most appetizing name, but trust me).

The Sleeping Beauty– this is one of the more unique slices of pizza I’ve had in a while. I can’t think of the last time I ate a piece of pizza that didn’t have some sort of meat topping on it, but when the owner was describing this slice to me, I was sold. In fact, this slice started off as a monthly special, but it got such rave reviews it earned a permanent spot on the rotation.

It has a super unique white sauce that packs so much flavor, while feeling so light, you start to trick yourself into thinking this slice is actually health food. This slice has a beautiful contrast between a savory garlic flavor within the sauce and the sweetness of the toppings: balsamic glaze, caramelized onions, and peppers.

The Steph Infection– this slice is my personal favorite. As I mentioned before, I gravitate towards meat toppings on my pizza, so you’ll understand why I love The Steph Infection (seriously, we need to workshop a new name). This slice has a classic red sauce base and is topped with banana peppers, pepperoni cups, and sausage. As if that wasn’t good enough as is, they also add on a Srirachi aioli on top that provides it with the perfect kick. If you don’t want the aioli on top, you can ask for them to not add it, or to substitute in one of their other delicious house made sauces. If you are like me and think that ranch goes with pizza like peanut butter and jelly, I recommend keeping the aioli on, it goes with this slice even better than ranch.

What I love about their pizza is not only the creativeness in their specialty pies, but the quality of ingredients that they use. You can tell that every ingredient is thoughtfully sourced to be of the highest quality; especially the pepperonis. They use the little cup pepperonis made famous by Prince St. Pizza in New York City that are just *chef’s kiss*. Additionally the dough is beautiful. It is light and crispy. I don’t typically love crust, but Zambies crust is like a post meal treat. It has butter and garlic brush on top, so it tastes like a nice crispy garlic bread stick. If eating the crust first wouldn’t alert the authorities to put me in a penitentiary I’d probably do it with a Zambies slice.

Wrap Up

NoDa has some of the best pizza in Charlotte. It has Bird Pizzeria on the edge of downtown, Salud in an incredible space on the corner of downtown, and even Benny’s to service the late night bar crowd. So when I saw Zambies opening up, I was skeptical. It seemed similar to when I show up to the Dowd Y basketball courts, competition is already too steep buddy, don’t even bother lacing them up, but little did I realize Zambies would be like Nikola Jokic in his prime. Like Jokic being able to pass like Stockton, shoot like Ray, and play down low like Shaq. Zambies can go head to head with Salud on the specialty pizza, beat out Benny’s for the late night slice, or use the best ingredients (especially the roni cups) like Bird Pizzeria. Long winded, hazy analogy way of saying that no matter what kind of pizza you are craving, Zambies will knock it out of the park for you.

-Zanzibar