Your 2014 Pizza Cup Champion: Gung Ho! Gourmet Pizza Kitchen

Michael Wester | Nov 24, 2014 3:10 pm | 9 comments | 8376 reads

It’s official: your 2014 Pizza Cup Champion is and favorite pizza in Beijing is Gung Ho! Gourmet Pizza Kitchen.

After a grueling month-long battle against 64 Beijing pizza parlors, Gung Ho! was elected the 'Jing’s Best Pizza in the Beijinger’s 2014 Pizza Cup, with a narrow victory over boozy pizza slinger The Tree, which had a respectable showing and ends the cup as the runner-up.

In the battle for third place, also decided in the last round of voting, Eatalia overcame a challenge from The Rug to secure the bronze.

All in all over 4,000 votes were cast, with nearly 25 percent of them tossed due to ineligibility or because they were ruled to be lame attempts at ballot stuffing.

This year's contest was our first to utilize weighted balloting, our attempt to level the playing field in matches that featured competitors of different sizes. In tabulating the winners, restaurants with multiple locations had to have won with a larger margin of victory if they faced off against smaller competitors.

It's been a long wait for their chance in the top slot for Gung Ho!, who was the runner-up in our only previous Pizza Cup, held three years ago. In that match Gung Ho! was in the finals but placed second to Kro's Nest.

Gung Ho! kicked off the Pizza Cup with participation in our first-ever Pizza Festival (photos here and here), impressing the crowd with their on-site acumen in serving up slices without delay to the hungry crowd.

They then went on to best some of the top names in Beijing's pizza scene on their way to the top: Domino's, Hutong Pizza, Pizza+, La Pizza, The Rug, and finally The Tree. Along the way they proved that their smooth decor, excellent delivery, and Chinese takes on the classics are a winning formula.

We hope you had a great time during the 2014 Pizza Cup, and that you didn't put on too many extra pounds, given the vast majority of you claim to have eaten more pizza and drank more beer than usual over the past month.

Stay tuned to our blog over the next few days as we bring details of any celebrations that may be planned by our new champions.

Finally, a salute to everyone plying the pizza trade in Beijing. We're spoiled for choice here, and what with the bad traffic, shitty air, inhospitably cruel winters and roasting hot summers, we owe a real debt of gratitude to those that deliver.

And if you just can't get enough, catch up with all our Pizza Cup content here, ranging from how to make your perfect Chinese-style pizza to where to get your next cheesy hit.

Our Final Rankings in the 2014 Pizza Cup:

Overall Champion: Gung Ho! Pizza

Champion, Bar/Café Pizza: The Tree
Champion, Mid-Range Restaurant Pizza: Eatalia
Champion, Fine Dining Pizza: The Rug
Champion, Pizza Specialists: Gung Ho! Pizza

2014 Rankings:

1. Gung Ho! Pizza
2. The Tree
3. Eatalia
4. The Rug
5. La Pizza
6. Alio Olio
7. Sugar Shack
8. Kitchen Igosso
9. Pizza Plus
10. Mao Mao Chong

11. Vineyard Café
12. La Dolce Vita
13. Annie's
14. Tube Station
15. Bang! Bang! Pizza
16. Mio, Four Seasons Hotel
17. The Kro's Nest
18. Pizza Express
19. Hutong Pizza
20. Sureño, The Opposite House

21. Tavola
22. Pie Squared
23. The Irish Volunteer
24. Stuff'd
25. Scott's Family Ristorante Italiano
26. Isola
27. Peter Pan
28. 1st Floor
29. Lily's American Diner
30. LMPlus

31. Luga's Little Italy
32. The Local
33. Papa John's Pizza
34. New York Pizza
35. Xian Bar
36. Domino's
37. The Den
38. Frost
39. Pizza Buona
40. Pizza Hut

41. The Veggie Table
42. Ramo
43. Twilight
44. Mrs. Shanen's
45. Yummy Box
46. Lakers
47. Charlie's
48. Grandma's Kitchen
49. Nanjie
50. Loft Eatalicious

51. Matta
52. Peter's Tex-Mex
53. FA Cafe
54. Time Cafe
55. Fratelli Fresh
56. Agrilandia
57. Flypizza & Hoodadak Chicken
58. Via Roma
59. Elisa's
60. Passby Bar

61. Abella
62. Bene
63. Prego
64. WhaleWell Pizzeria
65. Red House
66. (tie) Hercules
66. (tie) M+ Café
66. (tie) Nasca Cafe
67. Paddy O'Shea's
68. PBD Pizza Bar
69. Pizza Maru
70. Bella Vista

71. (tie) Alba
71. (tie) Parkside Bar & Grill
71. (tie) Windy City
71. (tie) The Yard
72. Amigo Pizza
73. Paro
74. Sarpino's Pizzeria
75. Fuel

Images: The Beijinger

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admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Sat, 11/29/2014 - 11:35

^ We do expert's panels as well as popular votes in our annual restaurant awards. The results might surprise you: iin more categories than not, the experts agree with the masses and vice-versa

The reason I think Xian bar is not more well-regarded is that still relatively few people have tried their pizza ... I've been the the bar several times and only later realized they even served pizza.

they could stand to promote their pizza a bit more

 

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Faychangbaoler's picture Faychangbaoler Submitted by Guest on Sat, 11/29/2014 - 10:50

These competitions always depress me, and remind me how low the general food quality is for western food in Beijing. Gung Ho won? Wow. But even besides gung ho, the list of top pizza places is dismal. If this is the best pizza we've got, we've got a long way to go. And for a tip, the best quality pizza that I've found so far in the city, is at Xian bar, East hotel next to Indigo Mall. Thin, crispy, good balance of flavours and good taste. How in God's name did Bang Bang beat Xian in the one on one, bang bang pizza is an embarrassment.

It seems like it's a competition of how many people can the managers and owners of the restaurants e-mail to ask if they can vote for a favour! Judging should be done by an unbiased panel next time, this system clearly isn't giving an accurate or fair result.

The Beijing Deva's picture The Beijing Deva Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/25/2014 - 17:43

Due to their origins Kros Nest and Tube Station offer pretty similar Pizza (Tube Station slightly better if anything imo) but the value for money at Tube Station leaves Kro's with a lot to be desired. For families especially there is no comparison. We went into Kro's one saturday night a few weeks back and it was dead so headed to Home Plate instead.

With the huge influx of places to eat pizza in Beijing over the last 5 years, Kro's has sort of been shown up for what it always was - pretty average pizza masked by gimmickly (?) big portions. Given the transient nature of its core market and the fact there is a lot of pretty average 15"+ pies flying around town nowadays it's lost its standing in the market and hard to see how it'll recover.

A bit miffed with Gung Ho also. No denying their service is brilliant on, but the pizza really is poor. For a fair assessment I should make an attempt to eat instore but at best it does not travel well (5 mins tops to my place). I think Hoyasnaxa sums the description up best - it does look like leftover pizza. cheese on toast.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/25/2014 - 17:27

^ Your story is for the most part correct, though it's hard to say which is the "original", as i think the way it worked was that the original Kro's nest was a partnership and the partners split.

Since that time Kro's has remained a great place ... while at the same time Tube Station went from originally not doing so well to now going great guns. They've upped their game and done a lot of publicity, and that's probably resulted in the lifting of their ranking.

I can tell you that at our Pizza Fest, which kicked off the Pizza Cup, Tube Station was easily the most popular pizza place in the whole event -- that seems to be an indication of their popularity/quality.

I was surprised to see the dip in the Kro's ranking this year, given it was #1 the last time we did this, in 2011.

 

 

 

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budika18's picture budika18 Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/25/2014 - 16:52

How can Tube Station be better than The Kro's Nest? I heard that in the past there was only The Kro's Nest, the owner were Western guy and Chinese. However, there was problem between them, they brought the case to the Chinese court, and (as we can guess) the Chinese won. The Chinese took over all their pizza store in Beijing, and the Western only got the brand. That's why all of The Kro's Nest store suddenly changed its name into Tube Station. Of course The Kro's Nest is better since it is the original one.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/25/2014 - 11:10

^ Actually I don't 100% agree with the rankings either (I would imagine if you asked 20 people, you'd get 20 different rankings), but I'd be hard pressed to say Gung Ho's pizza is horrible. It's creative, stylish and certainly trendy -- and I agree with the service -- and the variety certainly helps it rise above most offerings in this town.

I'd say that its fairly simple to conclude that Beijing is spoiled for choice. There's tons of great pizzas in town and don't let us tell you what's the best, try it for yourselves!

Here are some pizzas I tried for the first time during the Pizza Cup and genuinely enjoyed:

Eatalia
Pizza Plus
Pizza Express
Loft Eatalicious
Flypizza & Hoodadak Chicken
WhaleWell Pizzeria

I really want to try the deep dish pizza at Yummy Box but I just can't get my ass in gear to travel out to Wangjing to try it

 

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

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