Michael Bauer, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, continues his Pizza Friday series on his blog Between Meals with a trip to A16 in San Francisco. A16 makes a Neapolitan-style pizza that's been verfied as authentically Neapolitan by the "pizza police," aka the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. Bauer reports that the pizza went downhill after the original pizzaiolo, Christophe Hille, left two years ago. But, he says, the staff there, led by chef and co-owner Nate Appleman, has once again brought the product up to snuff.
Crust: This classic crust uses double zero (00) flour and takes two days to proof. It has a soft bread-like texture, with blackened bubbles around the edges and sometimes on the bottom.
Pizza tried: The Bianca, an enticing blend of mozzarella, nutty grana padano, green olives, basil, olive oil and the back-of-the throat zing of chiles. The salsiccia is fennel sausage, red onions, chiles, mozzarella, grana padano and rapini nicely charred in the hot wood oven.
A16
Address: 2355 Chestnut Street, San Francisco CA (near Divisadero; map) Phone: 415-771-2216 Website:a16sf.com Hours: Wednesday to Friday, lunch; dinner nightly
are these related to the increase in the price of wheat flour? i've heard that food prices are going up pretty much all across the board. i was in ithaca, ny last week and the ithaca bakery posted a notice about additional fees for baked goods due to the price of flour increasing over the past few months. i think it was like an extra 9 cents per bagel...
egadman: I think you meant to comment on another post, but, yeah, price increases are related to price of wheat. There have been several news stories about rising grain prices and a handful of stories about pizza prices taking a hit.
A 16 looks like the real deal. When I'm fortunate enough to hit the Bay area again, I'm gonna make it my first stop. In the meantime I'll just have to keep eating my own. I'm refining my dough recipe and my oven's shaping up:
I'm waiting for you to come out and check out Paulie Gee's Pizzeria Napoletana. It won't be long before you'll haqve to pay for my pizza so you should take me up on my offer ASAP. And don't forget your camera.
So I just ate at A16 for the first time the other day. We had two pizzas and both tasted very good. However, I was not impressed with the crust. It had a nice char and blistering and looked like it would be excellent. But I felt it was too soft. Even the charred and blistered spots had no real crispness to them. There was no crunch to the dough at all, though it was clearly cooked through. We're lucky here in Portland to have four terrific hot oven pizzerias that are as good as any I've had in the US, and all get at least some crispness to the edge of their crusts. I've never been to Italy or Naples, however. My guess was the oven was too hot. Talking with the guys on the line, it sounded like, though, that the pizza station was the low-man on the totem pole, the spot to move up from on the line, which seems odd to me.
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5 Comments:
re: di fara and l&b price hikes.
are these related to the increase in the price of wheat flour? i've heard that food prices are going up pretty much all across the board. i was in ithaca, ny last week and the ithaca bakery posted a notice about additional fees for baked goods due to the price of flour increasing over the past few months. i think it was like an extra 9 cents per bagel...
egadman at 12:43AM on 04/20/08
egadman: I think you meant to comment on another post, but, yeah, price increases are related to price of wheat. There have been several news stories about rising grain prices and a handful of stories about pizza prices taking a hit.
Adam Kuban at 12:06PM on 04/20/08
A 16 looks like the real deal. When I'm fortunate enough to hit the Bay area again, I'm gonna make it my first stop. In the meantime I'll just have to keep eating my own. I'm refining my dough recipe and my oven's shaping up:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauliegee/sets/72157603296443911/
I'm waiting for you to come out and check out Paulie Gee's Pizzeria Napoletana. It won't be long before you'll haqve to pay for my pizza so you should take me up on my offer ASAP. And don't forget your camera.
Ciao,
Paulie Gee
pauliegee at 11:09AM on 04/22/08
I just watched that clip and I agree with Paulie, that looks like some damn fine pizza. I'll have to pick one up if I'm ever in SF.
sloppy at 4:29PM on 04/22/08
So I just ate at A16 for the first time the other day. We had two pizzas and both tasted very good. However, I was not impressed with the crust. It had a nice char and blistering and looked like it would be excellent. But I felt it was too soft. Even the charred and blistered spots had no real crispness to them. There was no crunch to the dough at all, though it was clearly cooked through. We're lucky here in Portland to have four terrific hot oven pizzerias that are as good as any I've had in the US, and all get at least some crispness to the edge of their crusts. I've never been to Italy or Naples, however. My guess was the oven was too hot. Talking with the guys on the line, it sounded like, though, that the pizza station was the low-man on the totem pole, the spot to move up from on the line, which seems odd to me.
extramsg at 2:55PM on 06/06/08