Ya Habibi on the Southside is one of Jacksonville's global pizza kings, but what you want there is a calzone, Hanna Raskin writes. | Hanna Raskin
Published on March 2, 2026 at 10:11 am
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Food snobs like to knock American eaters for their lack of connoisseurship, but that’s mostly because self-appointed epicures don’t appreciate pizza.
Choose anyone who has a pizza chain ordering app on his or her phone, or just someone who went to elementary school. You’re bound to be astonished by their fluency in U.S. pizza types. Even the most disinterested diner can typically size up a domestic pie at a dozen paces, ruling whether its crust width means it originated in New York City or Detroit.
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But there’s a whole other world of pizza. Literally.
Right now, the international pizza style getting the most attention is Tokyo-Neapolitan, a genre which surfaced in Japan roughly a generation ago but is only now popping up stateside. Tokyo pizza is largely faithful to Italian standards, except that its practitioners treat flour, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese with the same seriousness that sake brewers and sushi chefs apply to their raw materials. What emerges from their ovens amounts to the carb equivalent of a clarification statement (“Sure, that’s what they make in Naples, but let me show you what they meant.”)
Still, that’s just one entry in the global pizza canon. Outside of Japan, regional pizzas worldwide tend to fall into two categories. There are the hallowed flatbreads that predate modern slices by millennia but are sometimes passed off as pizza because pizza is irresistible—especially to tourists with money to spend. According to The Harris Poll, 21% of Americans say pizza is their hands-down favorite food.
Then there are the latter-day pizzas which borrow construction elements from traditional pizza but aim to improve upon each element or at least bring them in line with local tastes. Tomato sauce is fine, but why not paint the crust with sour cream? OK, banana peppers, but how about bananas?
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In Jacksonville, there are excellent examples of both varieties.
The Dough Show | 12681 Bartram Park Blvd. | thedoughshowfl.com
Perhaps the most prominent global pie shop in town right now is The Dough Show, an Orlando-based chain, which this past November opened its third location in the one-time Moe’s Southwest Grill on Bartram Park Boulevard on the city’s Southside.
The Dough Show doesn’t exclusively serve feteer, invariably shorthanded as “Egyptian pizza” by the influencers showcased on its social media feeds. In interviews, the men behind The Dough Show make it sound as though they envision becoming the Panda Express of Middle Eastern cuisine with their menu of kofta, shawarma, and falafel. Yet feteer’s a compelling reason to check out the new restaurant.
Unlike manaeesh (“Lebanese pizza”) and lahmacun (“Turkish pizza”), which are crispy canvases for Levantine spices, feteer is defined by layers of impossibly thin dough spackled with ghee. That’s the flaky framework for a torrent of what could be called toppings, except the ingredients are worked in at every step. Consequently, each square cut from the whole is a strata of meat, cheese, and vegetables, a jumble as substantial as the dough is delicate.
Eaters of Egyptian descent will have a wealth of memories to call upon when they try The Dough Show’s version of feteer, but those new to the preparation might think of an entirely different dish. Maybe it’s the black olives or crackly edges. Less charitably, perhaps it’s the subdued spicing or ingredients that taste as though they were bought in bulk. Either way, the signature savory feteer is powerfully reminiscent of Chi-Chi’s Mexican pizza—and it’s just as fun and festive to eat.
Yet even if your nostalgic feelings about Chi-Chi’s are warm enough to melt Monterey Jack, The Dough Show’s feteer has a clear edge over its distant tortilla cousin. There’s nothing wrong with salsa, but it’s a little redundant to drag a tomato-topped slice through it. By contrast, forthright garlic sauce is the ideal counterfoil to rich dough and salty beef. The Dough Show sells 10-ounce cups of its magical stuff for $5.99, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people order one and ask for a spoon.
Ya Habibi | 6271 St. Augustine Road, #28 | yahabibislicenspice.com
Say, though, you’re after an overseas pizza experience that’s more personal than party. In that case, your destination ought to be Ya Habibi Slice & Spice, which Kamal Fakhouri opened last summer.
Ya Habibi serves a full lineup of manaeesh—as well as homemade desserts deserving of a separate visit—but what you want is a calzone. Specifically, the exceptional musakhan chicken calzone, bronzed in a brick oven.
The calzone is hefty enough to share but best approached as a solo project because it’s so ripe for contemplation. The crescent contains a complete Middle Eastern history, with sumac-scented meat and onions bound together by strands of melty mozzarella in a marinade of lemon zest and olive oil.
Waah Indian Bistro | 9551 Baymeadows Road, Suite 20 | waah.us
Ya Habibi’s predecessor was a specialist in Indian pizza, among the most dynamic international interpretations of cheese on circular crust. While Indian pizza isn’t a rarity, restaurants that make it as well as the energetic Waah Indian Bistro are scarce.
There are more than two dozen pizzas on Waah’s menu, ranging from Chettinad Veg, finished with curry leaves and grated coconut, to Malai Chicken with cashew gravy. But the tripartite secret to all of them is the same. One: an extraordinary crust, courtesy of the top-shelf wood-fired oven that Waah installed before it opened last summer. Two: gorgeously harmonized spices which showcase the subtle nuances of heat.
Three: and this is no small thing — the team behind Waah gets that pizza makes the world go round.
