Slice: Archives for January 4, 2009

January 4, 2009 - January 10, 2009

Josh Ozersky on 'Nightline': 'Fancy Burgers Are Cheaper Than Pizza'

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 10, 2009 at 1:15 AM

Josh "Mister Cutlets" Ozersky, editor of The-Feedbag was on Nightline Thursday night talking about burgers.

What's this got to do with pizza? Well, at one point in his segment he makes the claim that a fancy $10.95 hamburger, made with La Frieda Black Label beef is "cheaper than a pizza."

"If you get a pizza in New York now it's like $20!"

Taking off the burger hat I wear while blogging on A Hamburger Today and putting on my pizza cap, I have to rise to pizza's defense. I don't know about Ozersky, but I can make do with a couple slices for lunch or dinner. Even at the super-premium end ($4 Di Fara slices), that meal comes to $8, almost $3 less than a Black Label burger at City Burger, the venue where Ozersky makes the claim. On average, a large plain pie from a decent pizzeria runs about $14—and you can get 3 or 4 meals out of that, depending on your appetite.

To be fair, Ozersky's words hold true at someplace like Una Pizza Napoletana, where a $21 pie is large enough only for one, but it is an invalid claim at most of the city's less highfalutin' outlets.

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Tags: Josh Ozersky, the economy, videos

DUMBO Worst Neighborhood for Slice Pizza? Discuss

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 9, 2009 at 2:45 PM

Are there any good slice joints in DUMBO?

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Tags: Brooklyn, DUMBO, NYC, Twitter

Eater on the Co. Shitstorm

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 9, 2009 at 1:35 PM

Anyone not following the insanity in the comments of this post on Slice would do well to check them out. Here's Eater's take on the "Co.ntroversy":

It's a week old. A restaurant that opened over a year late after incredible build up on the blogs and the papers, with an owner and an investor who are much revered and well known in the food industry, was bound to be under siege upon opening. Wait it out, and eventually, the crowds will settle, the bad service staff will be culled, and the dough will be made in the right quantities. Hopefully. And if we were Jim Lahey, we'd be saving a pie for JGV too.

And, thanks, Eater, for recognizing the inanity of one of the most egregious claims in that thread.

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Tags: Co., Company, Eater

The Year in Pizza at Adult Education

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 7, 2009 at 5:55 PM

Thanks to everyone out there who showed up to hear about "The Year in Pizza" at Adult Ed last night. My talk kind of got off to a rocky start (I'm not much of a public speaker), but thanks to your early laughs (either sincere or politely feigned), I soon found my bearings and delivered a not-horrible speech.

Thanks, too, to Carrie McLaren and Stay Free! for presenting the series; Charles Star for emceeing; Jim Hanas for asking me to speak; and fellow speakers Patrick Di Justo, Joe Garden, and Marian Salzman; and, of course, Union Hall for providing the venue.

It was fun. I hope you got your five bucks' worth.

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Tags: Brooklyn, NYC, Park Slope, Paulie Gee, Slice events, Union Hall

Paper Comes Down from Ignazio's Windows in DUMBO

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 5, 2009 at 7:10 PM

"The window paper is finally down (after what seems like years) at Ignazio's under the Brooklyn Bridge: http://twitpic.com/zw25." So sayeth Savory Cities' Chris McBride in a tweet sent to the Eater blog.

Not years per se. But the place was first reported on by the Brooklyn Eagle August 2007.

I had thought it just ran into money troubles and halted its opening. But it does look like there are tables set up in there. We'll see.

Ignazio's Pizza

4 Water Street, Brooklyn NY 11201 (under the Brooklyn Bridge; map)

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Tags: Brooklyn, DUMBO, Ignazio's Pizza, NYC, openings

Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani to Open NYC Restaurant, Pizza School

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 5, 2009 at 6:25 PM

The Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani, the Italian "pizza police" (they certify pizzerias as being authentically Neapolitan), is opening a restaurant and pizza school. It will be called Kesté Pizza e Vino and hopes to be open by the end of February, according to the New York Times.

And then, according to an email I just got from Roberto Caporusico at the Associazione itself, "Down the road we also expect to have classes for nonprofessional 'pizza lovers.'"

That would mean you and me, folks.

What up with the name? Caporusico explains: "Kesté (spelled 'cheste é') means 'This is it!' in the Neapolitan dialect."

271 Bleecker Street, New York NY 10014 (between Jones and Cornelia streets; map)

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Tags: Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani, Greenwich Village, Kesté Pizza and Vino, Manhattan, NYC, openings, pizza classes

Dear Slice: Boston May Have Had the First Pizza in the U.S.

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 5, 2009 at 3:30 PM

Clicking in to the Slice inbox today, we've got ...

GenealogyBank.com (a subscription service) has been adding the Boston Journal. I went through it and found the following long, interesting article [subscription required] on pizza, from 1903. This is two years before Lombardi's establishment opened on Spring Street in New York City, the so-called first pizzeria in America.

A similar, 1905 article from the New York Sun about pizza on Spring Street is on the Library of Congress website, FYI. Both articles spell it pizze.

--Barry Popik

P. S.: I just added a post on Pizza Margherita.

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Tags: Boston, Dear Slice, Massachusetts, pizza history