Amici's Pizza of Berkley

Molly Abraham: It's in Berkley - but it could be in Berkeley, Cal;, with its non-smoking policy, its fresh ingredients, herbs and cheeses, housemade dressings and from-scratch cooking. When a lease loss forced proprietor George Stark to move from his original location in Royal Oak, he found a building in downtown Berkley and opened his pizza emporium, and a short while later, added the Living Room, an adjoining bar, doing much of the work himself. It's an unpretentious charmer, with excellent gourmet pizzas, typified by blackened chicken, scallions, Monterey Jack and fresh herb tomato sauce atop no. 2 pizza, and three vegan pizzas featuring, in the case of no. 8, artichokes, plum tomatoes, spinach, walnuts and the house herb tomato sauce on whole wheat crust. Every neighborhood should have a pizza spot like this one. Friendly, certainly informal, yet focused on quality. One drawback: because there is no space for a dishwasher, everything comes on disposables.