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.
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.
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Along the northern border of Chicago, Jerry Freeman and Burt Katz opened Gulliver's Pizzeria in 1965. Not long after opening, the two split and Katz went on to start a few other pizzerias, including Pequod's (reviewed here on Slice) and Burt's Place (reviewed here). Freeman gave up his day job as an insurance adjuster and devoted himself Gulliver's, where he would remain for more than 40 years until his death in 2006.
Over time, Gulliver's changed a bit. Freeman developed an interest in antiques, particularly lighting fixtures and sconces. Over time, he became a man obsessed, scouring not only antiques stores and shows but going around to old buildings slated for demolition and buying up things to take back to his store. Eventually, he amassed what the restaurant claims is the world's largest collection of its kind in the United States, that "kind" defined as American and European antiques from the Victorian and Art Nouveau eras (1860 to 1915). And today, every wall, nook, and most of the ceiling are covered in Freeman's collection.
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.
"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)
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)
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.
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Along the northern border of Chicago, Jerry Freeman and Burt Katz opened Gulliver's Pizzeria in 1965. Not long after opening, the two split and Katz went on to start a few other pizzerias, including Pequod's (
