Sciortino's Harbor Lights

I’ve been here before and thought it was great, but recently got stuck at S. Amboy Train Station & remembered, AWESOME. Had a pizza & a glass of wine (with 1/2 boxed to go ) in & out 20 min . Cheers! I’ll take a forced pizza layover anytime Sauce is on the sweeter side just fyi… Sweet sauce haters should opt for something other than red sauce here.

Sciortino’s is a tri-state area legend. Originally founded in Perth Amboy in 1934 before being forced to move to South Amboy over a land dispute with the local government in the early 2000s (they lost their original coal fired brick oven during this process, but eventually opened a second location back in Perth Amboy many years later), it is debatably the second oldest pizzeria in the state of New Jersey, and one of the 10 oldest in the United States, depending on your sources (Delucia’s in Raritan and Santillo’s in Elizabeth were both founded over 10 years before Sciortino’s as bakeries but all 3 started making pizza around the same time in between the early 30s and early 40s, while Papa’s in Robbinsville is undisputedly NJ’s oldest, founded in 1912). My expectations were high, and to an extent they were delivered. I’m definitely not a thin crust bar pie guy, but if you are, you’d probably consider the pies at Sciortino’s to be some of the best in New Jersey, as the crust is paper thin. The pies come out well done, with the crust and rear end of the undercarriage having excellent char, which I always like. I got a half regular half supreme and a margarita, and in both cases, the sauce and cheese quality were on point. I like how they sprinkle the parmesan on top of the pizza, and the Wisconsin dairy mozzarella on the regular pie definitely had a pleasant tang to it. The sauce in my opinion is the best aspect of this pizza, you get plenty of it on the margarita and it is deliciously sweet, but not in a heavily processed and mass produced sense, but just good quality tomatoes and herbs. The mushrooms and peppers on the supreme looked and tasted jarred, a minor gripe perhaps but I definitely prefer more fresh toppings on my pizza. The homemade sausage, however, was pretty good, and if I come back in the future, I might try a pie with just the sausage. I will say for a bar style pie this thing was on the heavier and hardier side and the supreme slices had significant flop. I noticed they also do Sicilian pies which they call half trays. Perhaps that’s more up my alley compared to their thin crust round pies and I do look forward to potentially trying them in the future. The fried calamari in lemon sauce I got as an appetizer was really good. Their menu as a whole, which I took home, looks to be full of interesting stuff to try, including a Philadelphia style Italian roast pork sandwich, which is not something you see every day in North and Central Jersey. Being not far from the ocean, I’m sure they do a good zuppa di pesce fra diavolo among other great Italian seafood dishes. Outside of the food itself, the atmosphere was great. It definitely has that old school Italian restaurant feel to it. The service was pretty good, as the waiter treated me like any regular customer and made me feel at home. Overall, I’d give the pizza a 7 out of 10, it’s definitely a unique pizza with its own character per. say, though not my personal preferred style as I prefer a more prototypical NYC/North Jersey neo-Neapolitan style airy crust as opposed to that of a more American style bar pie, but the quality of the cheese and especially the sauce are worthy of a pizzeria of this prestige and history. I feel like that original coal fired brick oven that they had at their first location in Perth Amboy is the missing ingredient that took this pizza to another level and made it genuinely one of the best in New Jersey during its time.

They've been around for a long time I love their pizza