The exterior of Off-Track Pizza on a mid-December afternoon. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

On my first day of my first restaurant job, I pulled a red Pizza Inn apron over my neck, tied it in the back and asked what my first task was. Would I be shredding cheese, slicing bell peppers on a mandolin or rolling dough? Maybe something necessary but less exciting, like mopping a walk-in refrigerator? None of these, it emerged.

“I want you to watch the pizzas bake,” my manager said, chuckling at my eagerness and positioning me at the end of a languid conveyor belt oven. Some pies were laden like burros with piles of ground beef and cheese, then sent along the “slow channel,” while others were barely topped and shunted to the “fast channel.”

After I spent a sweaty hour observing puffing crusts and melting mozzarella, my manager sat me in a booth and asked me to name the best pizza I had seen. But before I could answer, he stopped me. “It’s a trick question. Everybody has an opinion about pizza, and none of them is right. Pizza is personal.”

Since 2019, I think about this exchange at least once a month as I cover what has become Maine’s own long-overdue pizza boom. I love writing about pizza. But I know: No matter what I say, I’m bound to offend.

Gird yourself.

Customers look over the selection of slices at Off-Track Pizza. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

I have tasted my way through nearly every pie and every salad on the menu at Portland’s Off-Track Pizza, a casual, New York-style pizzeria specializing in thin-crust, large-format pies and individual slices. Without any doubt, this is one of the best pizza restaurants in the state. You may disagree. That’s OK. But because it’s my job, I’ve got ample evidence to back up my not-so-preposterous assertion.

Let’s start with salads – sneaky little dishes that many restaurants bungle through a combination of wilted greens and sub-par dressings. At Off-Track, chef/co-owner Mitchell Ryan takes no chances. He and his tiny back-of-house team concoct an appealing sextet of house-made dressings ($2 each if ordered a la carte). They range from classic formulations like garlicky ranch, creamy Caesar and balsamic vinaigrette to slightly tweaked riffs on traditional pizzeria classics like a red wine vinaigrette spiked with oregano and aromatic preserved lemon. Ryan bundles this particular tangy dressing with his terrific chopped salad ($10), a romaine lettuce-based dish loaded with cubes of Genoa salami, roasted red peppers, marinated green olives and shreds of Asiago cheese.

For the more adventurous, Off-Track offers “Dirty Ranch,” a complex, super-savory dressing amped up by pepperoni scraps that are cooked down and folded into ranch dressing. It’s a knockout that matches up well with one of the Blyth & Burrows-inspired bottled cocktails, The Belmont ($9) a fizzy, budget-friendly macerated pineapple, lime and gin cocktail. My favorite dressing of the bunch though is Ryan’s tart, slightly fiery creamy pepperoncini that he prepares with funky Pecorino Romano and blitzed, preserved peppers. I’ve swapped it as the dressing in the classic Caesar salad ($8) and have also discovered the joys of using it to dunk slices of Off-Track’s airy homemade focaccia ($6 half-loaf, $12 whole).

Off-Track’s California Chrome sandwich. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

That same bread forms the foundation of the restaurant’s generous sandwiches (for now, only available until 5 p.m.). On a recent visit, my guests and I split the California Chrome ($12.50) four ways as an appetizer and were wowed by its balanced flavors: no easy feat considering the sandwich contained layers of smoky Alto Adige speck, onion jam, porcini mushrooms and a garden’s worth of balsamic-tossed baby arugula.

Off-Track’s approach to waste is a mixed bag, however. Co-owners Mark Hibbard and Josh Miranda (both of whom collaborated with Ryan at Via Vecchia) should get credit for their use of excess focaccia as croutons for the pizzeria’s salads. And when there’s still some left over beyond that, those crunchy cubes travel down the road to liven up salads at Via Vecchia. Smart.

Yet the restaurant’s use of disposable cutlery and dishes is a concern, especially in an era when businesses are (rightly) expected to be good stewards of our rapidly changing climate. The only upside is that paper plates add to the restaurant’s flashback-inducing atmosphere – to a time when single-use dinnerware and endless wads of napkins were common.

It’s hard not to feel transported back in time at Off-Track Pizza, especially when you climb the stairs into the bar and dining space. Walk past the Jaws-themed pinball machine and refurbished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game cabinet, into an ochre-walled room covered in on-theme photos of New York pizzerias and race horses. Miranda told me he and his partners intended the space to be a tribute to 1960s pizzerias, and while it succeeds, there’s a broader span of nostalgia evoked here, one that could be from the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s. No matter which decade comes to mind, diners of a certain age will pick up on plenty of callbacks.

That goes double for the pizza. Sold in wagon-wheel-scale 18-inch pies or (still gigantic) slices, Off-Track’s pizzas showcase classic Italian-American flavors. And apart from the slightly too salty, white-sauced and sesame-seed sprinkled “The Mooz” ($5.50/slice), they are all winners.

Off-Track’s vodka burrata pizza. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

From delightfully over-the-top-garlicky salami garlic ($5.50 slice/$31 pie) and its cousin in cured meat, the pepperoni ($5.50/$31) dotted with dozens of convex, heat-singed pepperoni “crispy cups”; to sausage and zesty cherry-bomb-pepper-topped pie ($6.50/$37) that plays spectacularly against a white-sauce base of garlic cream and confit garlic; to a meatball-and-caramelized-onion pie ($6.50/$37) that conjures taste memories of submarine sandwiches of bygone days. Yes, even the somewhat non-traditional vodka burrata pizza ($6.50/$37), with its rose-tinted tomato sauce base and torn balls of cream-filled fresh mozzarella, is both enjoyable and evocative.

But wait, what about the most essential of all American pizzeria standards? Ryan and his team have you covered there, too. Off-Track’s cheese pie clocks in at $4.50 per mammoth slice, which makes for a bargain lunch in a rather pricey part of Portland. This is precisely what Miranda had in mind when helping sketch out the restaurant’s menu. “There’s not a lot of money in pizza. Margins are incredibly slim, and we’re making pennies on that,” he said. “But we wanted to make an affordable slice and a whole pie you could get for $25.”

How is it, you ask? I would tell you that this simple, well-equilibrated pie is my favorite new snack in the Old Port, but I also know that when it comes to pizza, that’s a trick question.

Off-Track’s meatball and caramelized onion pizza. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

RATING: ****

WHERE: 15 Exchange St., Portland, 207-808-8007, offtrackpizza.com

SERVING: 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. – 2 a.m. Friday & Saturday, 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday

PRICE RANGE: Salads and slices: $4.50-$10, Sandwiches and whole pizzas: $12.50-$37

NOISE LEVEL: Hooves at a full gallop

VEGETARIAN: Some dishes

RESERVATIONS: No

BAR: Beer, wine and cocktails

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes

BOTTOM LINE: Spend enough time in Portland and you’ll inevitably meet a transplant who just can’t believe there’s no New York-style pizza in town. Those days are over, and we’ve got Off-Track Pizza to thank for it. Operated by a trio of Via Vecchia veterans – Mark Hibbard, Josh Miranda and chef Mitchell Ryan – this casual, retro-inspired restaurant serves exceedingly tasty, supersized 18-inch pies and individual slices with flavor profiles that range from classics like sausage and fiery cherry bomb peppers, pepperoni topped with oven-singed “crispy cups” that pool with spicy oil as the pizza bakes, and the Ur-pie: a classic red-sauced cheese pizza that’s not only fantastic tasting, it’s affordable ($4.50/slice and $25 for an enormous pie). Sandwiches and bottled cocktails are just as terrific, as are salads that come with Ryan’s top-notch dressings (especially his tart and whisperingly spicy creamy pepperoncini dressing). Desserts are a work in progress, as is the upstairs bar, but don’t let that dissuade you. If you’re still on the fence, stop by after a night of bar-hopping: Off-Track is open until a locally unheard-of 10 p.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends.