Thanks to Friday night traffic, it took me nearly 90 minutes to get there, but get there I did. I’d heard rumblings of an incredible pizzeria waaay down Mississippi Avenue in Lakewood. I’d seen the charred, bubbly crusted pictures popping up on Instagram. As a Neapolitan-style pizza enthusiast, I had to taste what the Pizzeria Lui chatter was all about, even if it meant raising my blood pressure and shortening my life span dealing with our maddening traffic.

Pizzeria Lui opened in July. Its 900-degree, Italian wood-burning oven almost instantly lured both locals and pizza commuters into its small space. I’d heard from those pizza commuters that Lui’s pizza wasn’t just good but great, potentially the best in the state. Naturally, my expectations were sky-high. For me, hearing that there’s a new pizza to rival my beloved Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza is akin to a normal person learning that they’ve just become 20 percent more attractive/thin/rich/fill-in-the-what-society-values-blank. It’s pretty freaking exciting.