Fightin' Words from Tonda's Bob Giraldi

Posted by Adam Kuban, May 13, 2009 at 9:00 AM

In an interview in Blackbook, former director and current restaurateur Bob Giraldi issues a strong statement:

In Italy a pizzeria is a casual restaurant where you can have other foods, but they take their pizza very seriously in Italy. We eat a lot of pizza in New York, but it’s made all over by a lot of different people, and it’s not made properly—in my own and in an Italian’s opinion. We brought in a chef from Naples, and his approach is world-class Neapolitan, which is where pizza is generally regarded as the best in the world. We’re going to try and give people in the East Village a really superior product. Let’s face it—you can go anywhere on a street corner and order pizza in New York City, but it’s usually made by many cultures, and it’s not made the way you make it in Italy.

OK. Being generous, I'll assume that Giraldi means the average New York slice, which, let's face it, is nothing special. But, please, the East Village already has some great and amazing pizza, so it's not like Tonda is "giving the people in the East Village" something they don't already have. Please see: Una Pizza Napoletana, Luzzo's, and Vinny Vincenz for starters.

4 Comments

Tags: East Village, Manhattan, NYC, Tonda

4 Comments:

Its rediucluous to think that great pizza can't be made by anyone, from any culture, in any city or town.

Also, its starting to seem like in the last year or so, a lot of NY pizza places are trying to out-do eachother with claims that their pizza is prepared the most authentic, exact, precise, and only true way that Neopolitan pizza is supposed to be prepared. I've never been to Naples, never had their pizza, so I don't know what that is. I'll judge a pizza on its own terms. But, in general, just because something is sceintifically authentic doesn't make it better than something that is not.

JudgeFudge at 9:43AM on 05/13/09

@ JudgeFudge I think your opinion is strongly supported by Lucali's crispy pies and their top of the heap NYC Zagat rating.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee

pauliegee at 11:13AM on 05/13/09

It would help if Tonda's dough actually had some flavor and decent hole structure instead of being bland, soggy, and flabby.

Having eaten at Tonda and finding it not as good as Co., Una Pizza Napoletana, Franny's, Di Fara, Totonno's Coney Island, Patsy's East Harlem, I think the owners of Tonda perhaps have an inflated sense of superiority....

kathryn at 4:01PM on 05/13/09

The more "authentic" a place is, the less need there is for me to try it. I've already had the real deal. I thought this response was kind of ironic:

"So Tonda’s unique factor is that it will be truly authentic Italian pizza?
Yes, truly Italian. ...We’ve got ourselves a wonderful new technology—a pizza oven which rotates"

And, speaking of an authentic Italian experience:

"We will serve 12-inch pies, nothing bigger, nothing smaller, and no slices. It will be whole, thin-crusted pies. In Italy, the way they eat them is two and three at a time."

How about charging 4 Euros then?

pizzalogist at 4:25PM on 05/13/09

Add a comment:

Previewing your comment:

HTML Hints

Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>

Comment Guidelines

Post whatever you want, just keep it pleasant. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.

If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.

Pizza by Location

Browse the Archives

Slice - slice.seriouseats.com