I FKING LOVE THIS RESTAURANT

A Pizzeria Beloved for Its Dumplings and Merguez

Philadelphia’s Stina Pizzeria is a peculiar place

Stina Pizzeria photo

A typical dinner spread at Philadelphia’s Stina Pizzeria might include a pepperoni pizza, an Italian hoagie, a plate of spaghetti with mussels, and maybe a kale salad. But if I were you, I’d ignore the pizzas entirely. Not because they’re bad, of course — the kitchen’s beating heart is a wood-fired oven, so the Neapolitan-style pies are blistered to the nines.

I just don’t go to Stina for pizzas and sandwiches. No, I go for the manti dumplings sweating chile oil; for Turkish pide stuffed with merguez; for the charred octopus tentacle curled on a plate with edible flowers and swipes of black garlic. All funny things to order at a pizzeria, I know.

From upper left: pide, upper right: manti, bottom right: spanikopita. All photos from Stina Pizzeria

Funny like owner Bobby Saritsoglou’s mutton chops. Like the clown art and old marionettes that hang from the walls. Like the overt meta-ness of the old picture frames framed inside…