A Pizza Legend Returns With Wild New Slices

Once upon a time, there was a museum in Philadelphia that contained the world’s largest collection of pizza-related memorabilia. It was called Pizza Brain, and it was a labor of love (and madness) created by a gang of Philly-based pizza fanatics who created a surrealist shrine that served genre-defying pies. (We called them “inventive and frequently terrific” back in 2013, when the place debuted.)

In 2024, Pizza Brain closed. The gang scattered.

But Joe Hunter, the man behind the pizza production side of the business, endured. He found a space on Spring Garden Street in Callowhill and decorated it in a similar style (with bright colors; freaked-up, pizza-adjacent murals; and support pillars painted like lava lamps), and, almost a year and a half after Pizza Brain’s untimely end, Hunter unlocked the doors.

He even named the place Cerveau, which is French for brain. While not a direct descendant of the original Pizza Brain, it is absolutely a spiritual offspring.

And again, the pizzas are really good. The Plain Jane is solid, with its sweet sauce and mozzarella-provolone mix to give it a little depth. Hunter’s version of pepperoni leans heavily on the heat thanks to a dealer’s choice of chilis (depending on the season).

The fig and prosciutto is good hot but better cold as leftovers, which mellows the serious funk of the gorgonzola — though the fig jam smeared across the slices adds a nice balance at either temperature. And while the idea of a crab rangoon pizza sounds ridiculous, in practice, it is remarkable.

It combines cream cheese, shaved green onion, lump crab, and a sprinkle of crisp wonton skins on a cheese pizza laced with a rendition of the kind of sweet-spicy chili sauce you get at Chinese takeout joints. The first bite is shocking.

There’s a moment of dissonance as your brain reconciles the flavors of deep-fried, late-night Chinese food binges with the physical familiarity of biting into a slice of hot pizza. But that passes.

And what remains is the memory of every rangoon you’ve ever eaten in a single, perfect bite. There are other things on the menu (giant logs of fried mozzarella, baskets of garlic-parmesan fries, a couple of pastas and weekly hot dog specials), plus a bar pouring High Life and Old Grand-Dad Citywides for $8, but the pizzas are where Cerveau shines brightest. Those Citywides are great with a couple of slices of Pep Pep Pepperoni.

The fries work well on the side of a crab rangoon pie. And taken all together, this big, bright, absurdist space with its painted mannequins, long bar, big tables, and phantasmagoric lava-lamp energy is the ideal spot for whatever kind of grown-up pizza party you need to soothe the hungry child inside you.

0 stars: stay far away

★: come if there are no other options ★★: come if you’re in the neighborhood

★★★: come from anywhere in Philly ★★★★: come from anywhere in America

Published as “A Pizza Legend Returns” in the September 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.