By Paul Reidinger

PIZZA IS, for most of us, I suspect, as charged with memory as any Proustian madeleine. It is the great food of the college years – that brief season of epic emotional turmoil – and also of travel, at least if one has traveled to Italy. For the truth is that, despite Domino's and Pizza Hut and other such apparatuses of American culinary imperialism, pizza remains a dish beloved of the Italians. They eat it in Rome, they eat it in Florence and Naples; they eat it for lunch and dinner. And – no coincidence – they make it right.

I ate little else in Rome last spring. No need for anything else, except of course another beer to keep things moisturized. Roman pizzas – Italian pizzas – are models of balance: toppings are simple, bright sauce prevents drying without causing sogginess, crust is thin and beautifully crisp, though not crunchy, except at the blistered edges.

It must be harder to make such pizzas than it looks, because when you come back here, you find spongy, bready crusts that resemble packing foam, too much sauce, too much of too many kinds of toppings, and melted cheese sticking to the top of the take-out box. Maybe the box explains much of the deplorability of local pizza; it's meant to be take-out food, and take-out food is almost always eaten in front of the television, which powerfully distracts attention from what otherwise might be seen as serious flaws in what you're putting in your mouth.

You'll know you're in take-out country and far, far from Rome when you find yourself at Arinell Pizza – as I did recently, as part of one of my periodic reconnoiterings of our fair city's pizza scene. Although there are counters in the front windows, on either side of the door, for those single-slice-buyer, lone-gunman types who enjoy listening to the blare of Led Zeppelin while they dig in or who just like the low-ceilinged dim dinginess – somehow quite collegiate and at the same time very Errol Morris – of the place, you'll almost certainly want to take out. Arinell gets mentioned often by the chowhounds of chowhound.com, the food-nut message board, and, at least with respect to the crust, their enthusiasm is justified. It's thin yet sturdy, with just the right degree of crispiness. But somehow the sauce is meager (and undersalted) and the toppings flat. Pepperoni was good, but sausage and mushroom, generally a match made in heaven, were estranged here. Arinell is also not cheap; a big pie (with sauce and cheese) costs $16, and additional toppings are $2 each.

The deal is better at All You Knead, a yeast palace with a definite Big 10 aura in the heart of the Haight Street strip. A large pizza with three toppings there runs to just $14.35. But you're better off forgoing the big pie in favor of a couple of demis – individual pizzas (of four hefty slices each, starting at $5.35, with the first topping $1, additional toppings successively less) that open broad possibilities for mixing and sharing. Pesto and anchovies? Why not? Sausage and feta? Better. The crust is a bit thicker than at Arinell but still OK; the atmosphere, on the other hand – the space is a big, high-ceilinged, comfortably shabby box with loud, up-to-date rock – will have you thinking that autumn leaves are whirling along the sidewalk and the Ohio State-Michigan game starts in half an hour.

I am happy to report that, in this necessarily spotty sampling of city pizza, there is a place that's clearly better than the others. That place is La Focaccia, which opened a few months ago in the second-floor Castro space that was for a time last year a Cuban restaurant, and before that many other restaurants. Moral of this revolving-door story: Restaurants need their feet on the ground. Yet La Focaccia, with its wealth of terra-cotta tiles, is handsome, and it features a nice open-air balcony from which to gaze on the always festive proceedings along 18th Street.

Even without those assets, the pizza would be splendid – as near to genuine Italianness as I've ever found here. Crust: flawless. Price: reasonable (large, or 16-inch pies, costing from $10.50 for a simple margherita to $15.50 for the fanciest editions). Toppings: artfully juxtaposed. The Inferno, for instance, brings together mozzarella, Gorgonzola, hot salami, and arugula in a balance of spicy richness. And Quattro Stagioni (mozzarella, mushrooms, artichokes, olives) will have you thinking of winter, summer, spring, and fall all at the same time. Truly a pie for all seasons, except football season, unless football to you means Italian men playing soccer. In which case you must be a Raiuno junkie.