From: Porta Pizza in Jersey City, NJ
You want to try an awesome spot in Jersey City? Check out Porta located near the Grove Street Path. The restaurant first opened up in Asbury Park back in 2011, where it’s not only a hit for its delicious food but for its nightlife. I went there one summer, enjoying the Jersey Shore as usual, and was blown away with how delicious the Neapolitan-style brick oven pizza was. Conveniently,  I was able to burn the calories off after since they have a great and spacious dance floor. It was truly the best of both worlds under one roof. Then I heard they opened one up in Jersey City so I had to try it out and it did not disappoint.

The restaurant itself is HUGE and that’s such a great thing to see and be a part of when normally all of the places in the surrounding area are smaller inside. Let’s put it this way, there’s one entrance on one street and the restaurant extends to the entrance on the next street. If they didn’t already have a ginormous space, they also have two separate floors. What I adore is the ambiance; it has a rustic feel, warm lighting, and varying types of tables to sit at including biergarten-like wooden tables. The staff we interacted with were extremely friendly and they didn’t rush us at all, they even made sure to take a quality table shot for us (since we were failing epically at the group selfie.)

Now onto the part you’ve been waiting for, the FOOD! The first picture I decided to post was their salad. It isn’t often that I go crazy for greens, I know they are necessary and I like to get them over with first, but this salad, was just phenomenal. It was called Cavolo Nero, which consisted of Tuscan kale, shaved sunchoke and watermelon radish, chile-garlic crostini, parmigiano reggiano, and a lemon-garlic dressing. The kale with the cheese, garlic, and lemon dressing was just making me so happy. Plus for $14, you get a huge portion. There were four of us females and we each had a generous serving of the shared dish. Next time, I would even order one just for myself.

However, there are still other things on the menu that need to be devoured. The dough for their pizza is just delightful and yummy. I meant to skip to the part about the type of pizza we tried, but I just had to throw that out as a disclaimer to how good it was. Therefore, any pie that you try will be the right choice. What we did try was the “Arugula” pie and the “14 1/2.” The 14 1/2 came with San Marzano tomatoes, homemade mozzarella, homemade ricotta, hot soppressata, Calarbian chiles, and extra virgin olive oil. This is what you see pictured above. The Arugula came with San Marzano tomatoes, homemade mozzarella, garlic, arugula, and truffle oil. You can clearly see that they use quality ingredients in everything they make.

I can’t believe I have written this much and haven’t even started talking about the nutella pie. Basically, you are taking the same type of dough with a denser consistency, smothering on a layer of nutella, sandwiching that with another piece of dough, then generously pouring it with powdered sugar. AMEN!