Photograph from JordanaZ, from the Serious Eats Photo Pool on Flickr I've only ever been in the late evening. This is pizza insanity.... More

More Artichoke for you: New York magazine interviews Francis Garcia, one of the cousins behind the new joint in the East Village. This bit of owner-operated goodness sounds right up our alley: Do you live in Manhattan now or do you commute? We’re commuting now. When we make a couple bucks back, we’re definitely going to get a place over here so we can start getting open earlier. You know the BQE — the traffic is horrible — and I’m someone’s who’s crazy: If I can’t get there to make the pizza, I don’t want somebody else doing it. It’s... More

Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite visit Artichoke, give it 3 of 5 stars: This is not dainty stuff. Portions are huge, even sloppy. Grated cheese is strewn with abandon, and tomato sauce liberally applied. The pizza is lumpy, a little heavy-handed with the muzz, occasionally burnt, and undeniably delicious. Of the three varieties usually on hand, the square Sicilian (made with a combination of fresh mozzarella, Polly-O, and a sprinkling of pecorino and Parmigiano-Reggiano) is our favorite, a hungry-man study in contrasting sharp, salty, sweet, and creamy flavors. The round “Neapolitan” is nearly as good, though you might fault its... More

On Friday I posted an entry with the emailed text of two tipsters eager to hip Slice to Artichoke, a new pizzeria in the East Village. Later, in the comments of that post and on Eater, people raised concerns that we had guerrilla marketers in our midst. I'd like to address that. Are They Shills? Are they? I don't think so. In email exchanges I've had with both guys since publication of that post, they've seemed aboveboard. If I'm being fooled, however, then I will admit that in my rush to "break news" about a potentially hot new pizzeria, I... More

Because the name David Chang causes some foodies in this town to wet their pants, I wanted to highlight this comment that just came in on last Friday's Artichoke entry: When I stopped in yesterday afternoon, the fellow ahead of me was telling the pizza makers, "My sous chef says the cauliflower fritters are amazing." This fellow recently opened his third restaurant, and he wanted to extend good wishes to a new business in his neighborhood. The guys at Artichoke -- Francis, Sal, and Carl -- hadn't heard the name "Momofuku," but they were glad that this fellow, David, stopped... More