You may be thinking to yourself that garlic knots don’t make a very exciting featured dish. To some extent, they’re pretty dime a dozen in the Capital District, popping up in every pizza and fast food Italian joint. But I’m here to tell you that the sinfully delicious, perfect creations of butter and cheese and carbs at Prima Pizza just outside the Schenectady border are worthy of a special mention.

The garlic knots at Prima are served in an order of 12 for around five dollars, and they’re freshly made to order for each customer. The fifteen to twenty minute wait is well worth it for the golden brown morsels of heaven that are served piping hot right out of the oven. The tops are browned and crispy, the inside is soft and doughy, and there is a ridiculous amount of butter and cheese poured over it all (you can see the pool forming in the bottom left corner of the below picture).

Ok, so these garlic knots are definitely not a healthy snack. But for an occasional indulgence, I can happily look past whatever amount of calories they’ve got. The quality of ingredients is evident in the dough itself and the showering of fresh parm. And compared to most other places in the area where garlic knots are dry, tiny, knotted pieces of bland bread with a light dusting of salt and garlic powder (or worse yet, intensely sharp chunks of overcooked garlic), they can’t be beat. I would even dare to argue that these are the best garlic knots in the Capital District, although I haven’t done a real survey.

Pro tips: get a side of marinara sauce for dipping, and definitely don’t order these to go. The experience is best right out of the oven while they’re still hot and crispy, and I think a to-go container tends to steam away some of the perfection. They’ll also come loaded up with all of the buttery sauce in the container, and, speaking from unfortunate experience, that sauce is no match for your common styrofoam. Your car will spend weeks smelling like a garlic knot after the inevitable spill. Just don’t do it.

For what it’s worth, Prima is also one of my favorite pizza places in the region for a classic, NY-style thin crust pizza. Just in case you needed another reason besides garlic knot perfection to stop in for a visit.