CLEVELAND, Ohio -- OK, my bosses have held my feet to the fire. It's time for me to make the call. So here goes ... The best pizza I tasted among the 15 finalists in the "NEO's Best: Pizza" competition came from Noce Gourmet Pizzeria, 125 Main St., Chardon.

Hey! Stop bellowing. I can hear you from here. Yeah, yeah, I know: "It should have been (one of the other 14 finalists in the competition)." Or words to that effect. Just, without all the curse words I'm sure are being uttered.

Frankly, it could have been one of the others. Honest. For the longest time my vote kept going back-and-forth between Noce and (in no particular order):

-- Samosky's HomeStyle Pizzeria, Valley City.

-- Angelo's, Lakewood.

-- Guiseppe's, Green.

-- Pizza Roma, Mayfield Village.

And, depending upon the individual pie, it might have been one of the others. Or even a couple of others, still.

I visited 15 pizza shops in 14 days, mostly in the company of Northeast Ohio Media Group entertainment reporter Kristel Hartshorn and videographer David Petkiewicz.

Almost every shop featured at least one pizza that was excellent, or at least showed great promise. And we sampled some flat-out FINE pizzas.

A brief digression. Some wags who have read our previous pizza posts have commented that I've had too much good to say about the many pizzas we tasted, that it sounds like I've loved every place.

Nuh-uh.

First, the places our team visited were finalists selected by many individuals who cast of thousands of votes. The pizzerias that made it to the final cut are among the very best in the region -- by popular acclaim.

Second, there was no way was I going to tip my hand in the midst of making all those visits. My colleagues and I left a few places undazzled.

So, I focused on my most positive experiences at each restaurant for those visit posts, and shared the stories they shared with me. Then, over the course of those visits I gradually narrowed down the list to roughly eight of my personal finalists. (Those are the places I returned to, for a second anonymous purchase and sampling.)

One other thing: To the trolls out there who insist that Cleveland cannot produce a pie anywhere nearly as good as they make in XYZ city. Seriously? Save the trash talk.

(And yeah, I know: New York and Chicago rule. Got it. So get out your credit card and order a pizza from Ray's or Giordano's. Let me know if they'll deliver here...)

SO WHY NOCE...?

Anyway, before I start splitting any other hairs, let me tell you how Noce landed in my top spot.

In going over my notes, I realized that Noce was the only spot where I'd put a "star" alongside the notes I jotted as I tasted each of three pizzas.

(Quick recap: each shop was asked to produce three large pies: one, a basic cheese pizza, a second that they considered their ultimate or "supreme" pie, and a third "wild card" selection that best reflected their creativity, a customer favorite, etc.)

Here are my tasting notes on Noce:

Traditional Cheese: Excellent crust; very light, crispy, a bit flaky. Nice veneer of well-balanced sauce, topped with very buttery cheese. Really good.

Rustic Roma: Wonderful aroma. Roma tomato slices, artichoke hearts, pitted kalamata olives, garlic and olive oil, with feta and mozzarella (anchovies optional). Crust is great. Wonderfully lively flavors, yet harmonious.

Thai Chicken: Good, fiery spice, but not gratuitous - it works well with the other flavors (soy, crunchy black sesame seeds, chicken). A lot of umami going on - very, very tasty. Definitely salty - want a beer.

But first and last, it was that crust. John Tomlinson, father of owner Jay Tomlinson, explained that his son's aim was to make a crust with an almost baguette quality: a light and chewy crumb yet airy within, producing an outer crust that's almost flaky.

Mission accomplished. On each set of tasting notes I found myself remarking on how much I enjoyed the crust.

THE ELEMENTS OF (PIZZA) STYLE...

Now let's stop right there. I need to say that I discovered good crust at several of the places we visited. And now I better understand why so many people either love or loathe the dough at certain places. It's very much a matter of personal taste.

For example, I've read all sort of reader comments about how little they think of the crust at Angelo's Pizza. When I reported on our visit there (Monday, Aug. 11), the anti-Angelo's crowd had a field day in the comments section of my story. ("It's not an opinion ... it's a fact, Angelo's pizza is a carbon copy of Pizza Hut," wrote one commenter. Whew.)

Except, I really liked the crust at Angelo's. For the record, I recently ordered a pie from Pizza Hut. Sorry, but their crust has been pretty much reduced to Wonder Bread. Seriously sad. No comparison.

Anyway, Angelo's crust is diametrically opposite the version at Noce. Angelo's dough has a nice, light, puffy loft that, when baked deep-dish style in an oiled pan at high heat, rises high and bakes wonderfully crisp on the outside, with a meltingly tender "bite" within. Beautiful color, too.

Angelo's crust was the perfect counterpoint to their plain cheese pie. The cheese just melted and oozed into each bite. And it was even better with their Pizza Margherita pie, loaded with mellow buffalo mozzarella cheese, thick slices of roma tomato and fresh basil.

Not better, or worse. Different.

One of the many, many things I've learned over the endless procession of pizzas I've sampled is that there are lots of different kinds of pizza dough.

The delectable Sicilian Square pizza at Antonio's features a crust very much like the one at Angelo's. There are also the puffy-chewy kind (Guiseppe's in Green; Sirna's in Auburn Township); somewhat dense yet chewy varieties (Athens Pizzeria, Cleveland West; Angelina's, Elyria); moist and elastic (Antonio's, Broadview Heights); chewy-crisp (Pizza Roma, Mayfield Village); chewy-elastic-yeasty (Geraci's, University Heights); even imaginatively seasoned (the herb-laced foccaccio crust at Scotti's, Cleveland East)...

But see, that's just one example of all the hair-splitting you can get caught up in, where something as supposedly mundane as pizza is concerned.

As I traveled, and tasted, and wrote, and then read reader comments, I gradually became more and more aware of just how detailed - often, picayune - the criticism can become. And how much those seemingly minor issues weigh heavily in any one critic's assessment of why they do, or don't, dote on a particular pizza, or pizzeria.

Sauces, too, differ. Sweetness is such a thing in modern American taste, I noted that at least half of the sauces used on pizzas I tried had a noticeably sweet aspect. In retrospect, I realized that I should have asked to sample just the sauce at every stop. Its flavor is easily lost, or hidden, in a landslide of piquant and/or assertive toppings.

For that matter, toppings differ too. Especially the cheese.

Like so many fellow Clevelanders, I grew up thinking that mozzarella-equals-pizza cheese. But the more you ask, and dig around, the more types, varieties and brands seem to land in that bubbling sea of melty-chewy goodness.

For mellow creaminess, mozzarella works fine. Depending upon the quality chosen, it can be a one-note flavor: creamy and mild. Nothing wrong with that. Provolone, on the other hand, provides a more engaging, nutty-sweet aroma and flavor. But some provolones are high in protein and lower in fat, producing a chewier cheese that doesn't necessarily afford that gooey stringiness so many of us enjoy. Thus, provolone blends - or provolone-mozzarella blends.

And if you're going Old School, harder Italian cheeses such as romano, parmesan or asiago are included to amp up the flavor - or hew to true Old World tradition.

(Head spinning yet?)

ALL A MATTER OF TASTE...

The same goes with pepperoni (machine-cut or sliced by hand?); sausage (housemade? pork, or beef, or both?); vegetables (Farinacci Pizza in Hudson offered a choice of fried bell peppers or fresh-cut chunks, just in case one has a preference; Sirna's Pizza in Auburn Township grows most of the vegetables that land on its pies).

So it goes. From artichoke hearts to pickled pepperoncini, from black olives to oil-cured kalamatas, the debate is endless. (And let's sidestep altogether the 20-megaton issue of anchovies - a no-win in the pizza wars, if there ever was one.)

And by the way: how do you bake your pie? Brick oven, wood-fire or coal-burning? How thick is the crust? Pan or sheet or directly on the oven floor?

All those not-so-little things add up to a distinctive flavor. And a pizza some fans will proclaim, to their dying day, is the best. Or worst.

Sorry. After 14 days of tasting, digesting, and even being driven to distraction by pizza, I've come to at least one solid conclusion. It's not so much a case of being "right" or "wrong." The "best" pizza is a matter of personal preference. And familiarity. And often, simply, convenience and economy.

We tend to like what we know. And what's handy. And what we can afford.

And chances are, creatures of habit that so many of us are, we'll go back for more.

NEO'S BEST PIZZA: FINALIST VISITS