No pepperonis here: This NC pizza ranks among the nation’s most ‘unique.’ Here’s why

Move over, pepperoni. A pizza served in North Carolina has been praised for its creativity — and seafood lovers can’t get enough.

The NC Clams pizza — served at Pizzeria Toro in Durham — made it onto a list of “20 Most Unique Pizzas Across the Nation,” according to results published Wednesday, Feb. 1.

The winning pizza is wood-fired, loaded with chiles and pecorino cheese. Oh, and it’s topped with whole clams, photos show.

“Clams in the shell on a pizza might be my idea of heaven, now that I’ve tasted it,” one customer wrote on the restaurant review website Yelp.

To create the list of most unique slices, Yelp said it studied pizza-related businesses across the country. It then “ranked those spots using a number of factors, including the total volume and ratings of reviews mentioning ‘unique pizza’” over time.

Pizzeria Toro — located on East Chapel Hill Street in downtown Durham — was the only place in North Carolina to earn a spot on the list. On Yelp, some customers were fans of clams they said were served on a thin crust, helping the restaurant earn more than four out of five stars.

“Toro has been around for nearly a decade yet always feels fresh,” The News & Observer reported in March, adding that offerings range from the clam pizza to the more traditional margarita.

If you want a slice of the seafood creation, plan for a sit-down meal. That’s because the menu item “does not carry well” and isn’t available for to-go orders.

“It is a delicious pizza, but it is definitely best eaten within minutes of coming out of our oven as the clams contain a lot of moisture,” Pizzeria Toro told McClatchy News in a Feb. 2 email.

The restaurant earned recognition about a year after it made it into the N&O’s top Triangle pizza bracket. But more recently, it missed out on another Yelp ranking.

Instead, three other shops in North Carolina earned spots on a list of the nation’s best places to grab a slice. The winning restaurants — in Asheville, Charlotte and Nags Head — received the honor after Yelp studied their ratings and reviews.

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