KAUNEONGA LAKE, NY — Sometimes, you just want a quality pizza pie—and that’s what you’ll get from Benji and Jake’s. 

The establishment sits on the shore of Kauneonga Lake, with an outdoors porch that’s just about ready to see use as spring gains in confidence throughout the Upper Delaware. 

When your correspondent visited, he elected to try one of the house specialties marked with a single spice—indicating pepper: the Dolce Diavolo, the Sweet Devil. The heat absolutely came through in the dish, setting the tongue and the roof of the mouth tingling after just a few bites, but the rest of the flavors played their subtler parts to perfection, making for a well balanced blend of a meal. 

Overall, the pizza tasted of clean quality, with a bright, clear-tasting marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella and a crust that crisped at the edges and softened toward the center without ever losing its bite. All pizza is good pizza, and there are plenty of different ways to sling dough, sauce and cheese together into a compelling dish. Benji and Jake’s pizza isn’t grease-laden goodness but elegance on a plate, and it carves out its place as a shining example of that genre of pizza pie.