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Almost every time I'm on Staten Island, I pop into Nunzio's for a slice. And while I wait for the quick reheat I always stare at the photo above. It's from when Nunzio's was in SI's South Beach neighborhood, before it moved to Grant City, along Hylan Boulevard.
[Photographs: David Kover]
6613 Hollis Street, Emeryville, CA 94608 (map); 510-655-CITY; rottencitypizza.com
Pizza style: New York
Oven type: Gas
The skinny: These pies have potential, but were undone on our visit by a crust that went soggy
Price: Pies, $22-$27
For most San Franciscans, Emeryville is known as the local home of IKEA, or possibly as the headquarters of Pixar. Well, purchasers of laminate furniture—and probably Buzz Lightyear too—need sustenance. While IKEA does serve pizza, we found ourselves more motivated to check out the offerings at Rotten City Pizza. Not just because it seemed a more likely option for a slice that would satisfy, but also because local mobile pizza entrepreneur Casey Crynes credits Rotten City as playing a small role in the development of his pizza skills.
Rotten City Pizza actually sits a couple miles away from IKEA and the mallscape that surrounds it, in a rather quieter part of town. As the traditional gas deck ovens behind the counter and the Times Square subway sign above the entrance indicate, they specialize in slices of New York-style pizza. You can get a whole pie, but plan to take it out. The restaurant has no tables, only a narrow counter along the wall that's too shallow to comfortably support a whole pizza box (we tried). The kitchen space, where Crynes worked a few shifts in order to refine his dough-stretching technique, takes up more than half the restaurant space.
[Photographs: Michael Berman]
691 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (map); 718-499-5052
Pizza Style: Charred, thin crust New York pizza, whole pies only, top shelf ingredients.
The Skinny: Like his brother Mark (owner of Lucali), Chris Iacono uses a gas- and wood-fired oven to produce thin crust New York-style pizzas with a Di Fara-inspired blend of three cheeses and impeccable toppings, all in a warm and romantic ambiance.
Price: Plain pie, $22; toppings $3 each except artichoke topping is $8; garlic and basil, free.
Notes: Dinner only. Closed Tuesdays. Beer and wine. Cash only.
I knew Chris Iacono could make good pizza. Before opening his own place last year, he made pies for about three years at his brother Mark's excellent pizza restaurant, Lucali. But as I headed for the first time to Giuseppina's, the place he opened last year at the corner of 20th Street and 6th Avenue in Brooklyn, I wondered how Giuseppina's would compare. Specifically, would Chris's dough and brick oven achieve the same level of thin, chewy-crunchy brilliance? (Yes.) Would the sauce be the same? (Yes.) Would Giussepina's, like Lucali, provide a candlelit experience worthy of date night?(Yes.)
With Lucali as small and busy as it usually is, Giuseppina's presents an excellent option for easier access to this brick-oven buffalo mozz version of New York pie—especially if you live in Park Slope or Sunset Park. Giuseppina's, in fact, (sort of) takes reservations. They suggest calling the same day, at 5 pm. When I called prior to going, they happily offered to hold a table for eight at 6 pm on a Saturday.
[Photographs: Adam Kuban]
Via Trenta, on 30th Avenue in Astoria, is yet another wood-fired-oven pizzeria in the neighborhood. Like Basil Brick Oven a little farther north, Via Trenta is Neapolitan in style—small pizzas, minimally topped, attention to ingredients, etc.
[Photographs: Andrew Janjigian]
500 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139 (map); 617-758-4444; areafour.com
Pizza Style: Upscale New York-Neapolitan
The Skinny: The toppings and the presentation are the highlights here. The bones are far too wide, but the crust is otherwise nice, making for an enjoyable pie.
Price: 10" pies, $10.50-16.50; 14" pies $17-24
I first tried the pizza at Area Four a few months back, and was a bit disappointed, which was one reason I sat on my write-up for so long. But the delay was all to the good, because Area Four has tweaked their formula slightly in the interim, and our return visits have been far more positive. Back when they first opened, they only offered a 12-inch pie, which, given the width of the back edge, seemed too small to me. Since then, presumably to accommodate solitary diners or non-sharers (don't these people know about leftovers?) they've added a 10-inch size, and upgraded the large pie to 14-inches. If the 12-incher was a little cramped, the 10-inch is all the more so, so my first piece of advice is that you should ignore that column on the menu. The end crust takes up far too much of the limited square-footage of the pie, leaving hardly any room for toppings.
[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]
3656 N Central Ave, Chicago, IL 60634 (map); 773-736-1429; trattoriaporretta.com
Pizza Style: Midwestern thin crust, pan, and stuffed
The Skinny: Solid stuffed pizza but thin crust falls short
Price: Medium thin crust with three toppings is $15.62; 12 inch stuffed pizza with one topping is $17.60
Notes: Stuffed pizza is carry-out only
When I reviewed Suparossa's last year, dedicated Slice reader and pizza fiend Alberto (forzapizza) chimed in to bemoan the fact that my voyage to Portage Park was limited to a review of a pizzeria not owned by his family. It took about a year, but I made it back to the neighborhood to visit Trattorria Porretta & Pizza. Alberto, who built an oven in his backyard, makes gorgeous pies of a Neapolitan bent, but his family, which entered the pizza business long before the quest for "authenticity" became a culinary trend, turns out decidedly American pies.
Over the years, Poretta's has grown from a tiny pizzeria to a successful business that includes a full-service Italian restaurant and a large banquet hall across the street. The restaurant offers thin crust pizza and pan pizza if you dine in, but also sells stuffed pizza to go. Much as I would have loved to take in the ambience of the restaurant, I wasn't going to pass up the chance to try a new stuffed pizza, so I picked mine up, took some quick pictures in the car, and ate pizza for a good portion of the 20-minute drive home.
The Cauliflower Pizza at Oven & Shaker. [Photographs: Derek Arent]
1134 NW Everett St, Portland OR 97209 (map); 503-241-1600
Pizza Type: Cali-meets-NW-meets-Neapolitan
Oven Type: Wood-fired
Price: $12-15 for 12-inch pizzas
Just like the bistro-style burger at Le Pigeon and the Fish Sauce Wings at Pok Pok, the pizza at Nostrana was a menu item deemed worthy of forming the foundation for a whole new restaurant. This formula is an apparent trend in the current Portland culinary scene, and the genesis of Oven and Shaker relied heavily on the weight of chef Cathy Whims' wood-fired pies. With the exception of cutting the pies before they arrive at your table (a Nostrana no-no), O&S's pizza style mirrors the mix of Italian tradition, Pacific Northwest seasonality, and farm-to-table sensibility that made Nostrana so popular.
[Photographs: David Kover]
4293 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA 94611 (map); 510-652-3676; dopoadesso.com
Pizza style: Upscale New York with California toppings
The skinny: These pies have flaws, but they taste good, and that should be the bottom line
Price: Pies, $12-17
I have no bells and whistles to report here. No imported Italian pizzaiolo suckled from birth on milk from the water buffalo he now uses to make his mozzarella. No fancy oven lit with a flame preserved from when Mt. Vesuvius buried Pompeii. Rather, with Dopo, I offer you a little Italian restaurant in Oakland that cooks a few pies daily in their gas-fired deck oven. If Dopo leaves me a bit short on pizza-geek back story and buzz words, the pizza offers some satisfaction, so let me tell you about that.
Neapolitan-inspired pizza tends to be the touchstone for most fancy-ish Italian restaurants in the Bay Area, but Dopo leans more towards New York in its inspirations. Maybe it's because they preceded the Neapolitan-stye craze, or maybe it's just how they roll. Either way, their crust bakes up light and airy inside—almost too airy—while the blond-brown exterior has a pronounced crispness.
2723 Wilshire Blvd Santa Monica, CA 90403 (map)
310-453-6776; miloandolive.com
Pizza style: Artisan bakery
Oven type: Wood Fire
The skinny: A hardy baker's crust of mixed flour, baked at 600-700°F for 10 minutes. Incredibly bold toppings. Open for two months, but already a landmark pizzeria in Los Angeles.
Price: Pizzas range from $14-$20; the single garlic knot is $6.50 (totally worth it)
The official Slice Regional Pizza Styles list has a glaring hole. Everyone in Los Angeles knows what I'm talking about. Until this point, it has never seemed right to give a single restaurant (ahem, Mozza) its own classification. But when the brilliant baker Zoe Nathan and husband Josh Lobe, of Huckelberry fame, fired up a Mugnaini oven and began serving pizza at Milo and Olive, the artisan bakery style proved it is here to stay.
The Butternut Squash pizza with fresh mozzarella, thick hunks of roasted squash, and knots of deeply caramelized onion ($18) is the crowd favorite. It's finished with sage, brown butter, and an egg, those these elements are difficult to discern through the mega bold presence of the squash and onions. Personally, I found this pizza's oily sweetness overbearing, but I've yet to find a single person who agrees with me. Interestingly, all Milo and Olive egg-topped pizzas are "party cut" to avoid breaking the yolk. This leaves an egg laden, crustless square in the middle of the plate to fight over—a good or bad thing depending on the taste of the company you keep.
The problem with dollar slices is that you almost always get what you pay for. Sometimes not even that. Of those I've eaten around the city, the most complimentary thing I could say about the best of them was that they were cheap—and probably good for after-bar scarfing.
But Percy's Pizza, a newish dollar slice joint on Bleecker amid all the bars and jazz clubs, might be the best dollar slice I've had—even good as judged by the standards of a regular New York slice.
[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]
980 N. Michigan Avenue, 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60611 (map); 312-280-2750; spiaggiarestaurant.com
Pizza Style: Thin crust pizza doesn't fit comfortably into any category
The Skinny: Toppings range from very good to outstanding, but balance and execution issues keep these pizzas out of the top tier.
Price: Pizzas range from $14 to $19, but can go up to $60 during black truffle season
Notes: Pizzas only available during lunch
When the name Tony Mantuano is mentioned, I suppose most people don't immediately think of pizza. After all, this is the culinary mastermind behind Spiaggia, James Beard award winner for Best Midwest Chef in 2005, author of multiple cookbooks, Top Chef Master contestant, and the favorite chef of the President of the United States. But a closer inspection of Chef Mantuano's work reveals this is a man who is serious about his pizza.
The Michelin-starred Spiaggia might not have pizza on the menu, but Mantuano's four other restaurants are not similarly flawed. Terzo Piano (reviewed here) makes a pizza worthy of one of the most impressive physical restaurant spaces in Chicago; Bar Toma (introduced here, review coming in a couple of months) stars an excellent array of pizzas on a crust previously unseen in Chicago; Mangia, Mantuano's restaurant in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin serves pies from a wood-burning oven; and, of course Cafe Spiaggia, the subject of this review, offers pizza on its lunch menu.
Pete Zaaz is a bold, quirky pizzeria in Crown Heights. [Photos: Adam Kuban]
Pete Zaaz, a four-week-old sliver of a pizzeria in Crown Heights, stands at the confluence of a number of different currents in Brooklyn dining and pizzadom. As one of my tablemates put it, "It's like the Do or Dine of pizza." To borrow some words from SENY editor Carey Jones's review of Do or Dine, Pete Zaaz is, "intentionally oddball, intentionally free-form." So there's that, and the fact that it's a basic slice joint that's doing the new old-school thing -- all with a focus on inventive, sometimes outlandish toppings.
This is a place, after all, whose most popular pizza so far, the owners say, is the Baked Potato (above), with crème fraîche, white cheddar, bacon, green onion, and purple potatoes au gratin. As an explosion of comforting flavor, it's pretty spectacular. As someone in the joint put it, this is pizza for "stoners, thugs, and hipsters."
Oh, and did I mention the Cold Fried Chicken pizza?
[Photographs: David Kover]
1910 West El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA 94040; (map); 650-969-4884; napoletanapizzeria.com
Pizza style: Neapolitan-style
Oven type: Wood-fired
The skinny: Solid renditions of Neapolitan-style pizza with the added twist of an upscale version stuffed crust pie
Price: Pies, $12 to $17
Costas Eleftheriadis, the owner and pizzaiolo at Napoletana, says he got a taste for pizza when visiting family in Naples. Eleftheriadis is half-Italian and half-Greek, if the name didn't tip you off already. The former commercial pilot and flight instructor gained some pizza bona fides beyond his heritage when he earned his VPN certification in May of 2010. He doesn't trumpet these credentials though—a small certificate hangs over his workspace towards the back of the restaurant—but instead lets the pies that come out of the oven advertise his allegiances.
[Photographs: Michael Berman]
Several years ago during my neighborhood's more "charming" days, I witnessed on many days men urinating on the corner building, along Sackett Street near the busy thoroughfare, Court Street. The OTB did not have a bathroom. It closed, thankfully (though I miss the convenient betting on Triple Crown days), in December 2004. The old OTB space, in the building's ground floor, remained unoccupied until just a few months ago when the owners of South Brooklyn Pizza opened a German restaurant that—besides fondue and plenty of tempting meat stuff—also has pizza.
Buschenschank, as it is called, has two entrances—both a little hard to find due to a lack of signage. The main entrance on Court Street leads into a bar area and then further through to a dining room with long communal tables. It's indoor beer-gardeny with salvaged tin ceilings and red brick walls.
Editor's Note: Welcome our newest contributor Kenny Dunn! Kenny is a Philly native who traded away the cheesesteak for suppli' when he moved to Rome where he runs Eating Italy Food Tours in Rome.
In Rome pizza is never more than a couple blocks away. One of the most popular styles is pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice) and while it is certainly worth writing home about, it's a different slice than what exists in most places in the US. In Rome you will find long (usually 3 feet), oval-shaped pies that are baked in electric ovens and feature an airy crust topped with all kinds of vegetable and cured pork combinations. Pizza al taglio is almost always priced by weight and can be found mostly at small takeaway pizza slice shops (the shop is also referred to as a pizza al taglio) and bakeries.
Two of Rome's pizza pioneers are Stefano Callegari and Gabriele Gatti, who own several outstanding pizzerias and one pizza al taglio shop called 00100 PIZZA. The name refers to both the grade of flour, "00," used to make the dough and the postal code for Rome, 00100. This tiny place does several things differently than the competition. For starters, their slices are not sold by weight, but rather they are pre-cut and pre-priced. The crust is airier and lighter than most, due to the slow rise time of the dough. Innovative, unusual combinations top their smallish selection of pies, and every single slice is partially cooked-to-order.
[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]
3028 W Armitage Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647 (map); 773- 342-0002; no website
Pizza Style: New Yorkish
The Skinny: Certainly edible but disappointing all the way around
Price: 20 inch pizzas start at $18 with specialty pies ranging from $23 to $26; slices start at $3.50
When stories began trickling in about the pending opening of Dante's Pizzeria in the southern end of Logan Square a few months ago, all signs pointed to it being a successful venture. Georg Simos, owner of area establishments The Rocking Horse and High Dive certainly knows the neighborhood. And by bringing on former employees of Piece (reviewed here) and Santullo's (reviewed here) to run the show, expectations for Dante's were understandably somewhat high.
If the Yelpers, who have collectively given Dante's four stars, are to be believed, then the place is a success. And it's possible that the pizzas I had on my visit were anomalies (someone from the Reader certainly liked it when he checked it out). But there was so much fundamentally wrong with both pizzas I tried on my visit that I have a hard time believing that that's the case. From the crust, to the sauce, to the toppings, to the prices, to the Ms. Pac Man arcade game that operates at absurdly high speeds, this was a deeply flawed dining experience.
There's apparently always a wait for the 18 seats at Polpettina in Eastchester, New York. [Photo: Dave Sanders/New York Times]
Wow. A resounding recommendation from the New York Times for Polpettina, a small pizzeria just north of NYC in Eastchester, New York. Says the paper's Alice Gabriel:
From a seasonal roster of "signature" pizzas, we loved the Neapolitan, decked out with sharp brussels sprout leaves, smoky Tamworth bacon and fruity taleggio. A straightforward pie with sausage and onions had the same beautiful, thin crust. We probably wouldn't again try a nightly special: a thick-crusted rectangular pizza weighted down with pancetta, figs, goat cheese and honey, finished with pesto and parmesan.
I get the sense that Gabriel likes the nonpizza food more than the pies (or is maybe just pleasantly surprised at it), but the pizza there sounds promising.
I've been following Polpettina for a while on Twitter (@PolpettinaPizza) so it's been on my radar, but this stellar review has painted it a little brighter on my screen.
102 Fisher Avenue, Eastchester NY 10709 (map)
914-961-0061; polpettina.com
Stonewall Inn Pizza is part of a two-building compound of restaurants in Lenexa, Kansas, just off Pflumm and 103rd streets — the other being Stonewall Inn Restaurant. [Photos: Adam Kuban]
Captain Ahab had Moby Dick, giving birth to the notion of "the white whale" as a goal to be chased to the ends of the earth, self-destruction be damned. Herman Melville was able to spin one version of the Great American Novel out of that tale. My white whale, over the course of several Christmases in the Kansas City area, has been Stonewall Inn Pizza. Kansas City is land-locked, of course, which makes this tale less tragic, thank goodness, and unlike Melville, I'm only able to spin a short blog post out of it.
[Photos: Andrew Janjigian]
267 Thayer St., Providence, RI (map); 401-453-6423; niceslice.com
Pizza style: Thin crust
Oven type: Electric
Notes: Open 11:00 am — 2 am
Price: 18" pizzas, $18.00-$19.00. Slices, $2.25-$3.25
Recently, I found myself in Providence with an empty stomach and an hour to spare on a sunny Saturday afternoon, so naturally I decided to see what I could find in the way of a good slice. I made my way up and over College Hill to Thayer Street, the main shopping-and-eating-drag on the far side of RISD and Brown, to check out Nice Slice Pizzeria.
Nice Slice is a hipster-slash-hippie slice joint, with RISD-alum Shepard Fairey's Andre the Giant posters plastered on its walls and a substantial portion of their menu friendly to a vegan clientele.
[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]
3601 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, CO 80303 (map); 303-997-8775; pizzeriabasta.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitanish, but with a sturdier crust
Oven Type: Wood-burning
The Skinny: The pizzas here are extremely well thought out and well executed
Price: Range from $10 (Marinara) to $16 (Daily Special)
Since opening its doors less than two years ago on December 31, 2009, Boulder's Pizzeria Basta has been the subject of glowing reports from local and national press, and has gotten special attention from pizza and bread guru Peter Reinhart, whose Pizza Quest has prominently featured Basta. Based on my visit, it's clear that all of the praise is deserved.
Chef/co-owner Kelly Whitaker spent a year in Naples developing his pizza-making skills and even brought home a fifty-year-old starter; the soul of each pizza that comes out of his wood-burning oven. But Whitaker's skills don't stop at pizza. Basta is the rare pizzeria where the rest of the menu is far more than an afterthought. Even with the variety, the menu is actually quite small. Basta means enough, and as Whitaker explains in this video, that principle, a small menu done well, is what his restaurant is all about.
