Beautiful piece on Di Fara's Dom DeMarco in the Times today. In the first person, as told to Jeff VanDam.
Choice quotes:
When I opened the store, my partner's name was Farina. My name is DeMarco. So when the lawyer made the paper, he put the two names together. Di Fara. Di for me, and Fara for him. I bought my partner out in 1978, I think. I kept the same name; I didn't bother changing it.
It was all Jewish then, but they weren't that religious. Then, little by little, it became very Orthodox. People, they got scared, and they all sold out their restaurants. I was left alone. And it was the best thing that could have happened.
Nobody taught me to make the pizza. You gotta pick it up for yourself. All of these 40 years, I keep experimenting. My pizza is good, because I use fresh tomatoes. They come from Italy, from Salerno. Then I started to get mozzarella from Italy, from my hometown in the province of Caserta. It's $8 a pound, and this parmesan, it's $12. It comes twice a week. This might have been made two days ago, or three days ago.
I do this as an art. I don't look to make big money. If somebody comes over here and offers me a price for the store, there's no price. There's no money in the world they could pay me for it. I'm very proud of what I do. I don't have any employees; I use my kids.
Other revelations: That David Blaine is a frequent Di Fara patron, that Mr. DeMarco once had a gun pointed at him, that Mr. De Marco eats exactly one slice a day (quality control), that Dom doesn't take the shortcuts: "Pizza has become considered a fast food. This one is slow food. Anything you do, when you do it too fast, it's no good. The way I make a pizza takes a lot of work. And I don't mind work."
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