If there's one thing any home pizza maker can tell you, it's that its nearly impossible to get the same bubbly, crisp, charring that you get from a real-deal wood fired Neapolitan pizza oven. Check out this video where Jim Lahey shows us that not only is it possible, it's actually pretty damn easy to do. More
The Shiitake Pie at Co. (bread man Jim Lahey's Chelsea pizzeria) is an unusual little number, with a walnut and caramelized onion spread forming the base for shiitake mushrooms. But one bite and you'll find that the tastes and textures of this cheeseless pie are supremely harmonious. The sweet onions and rich, nutty walnuts come together to form something similar in texture to ricotta. Top that with rosemary, bold, smokey shiitake mushrooms (or try it with Hen of the Woods), and herbaceous branch lettuce and you've got yourself one make-at-home-worthy pizza. Just click through the slideshow to find out how! More
The parent blog Babble visits noted baker and pizzamaker Jim Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery for a lesson on making a Roman-style pizza pomodoro. He also makes a good-looking zucchini pizza. More
Because these pizzas are so thin, it's possible to overcome the limitations of a home oven and generate extreme heat long enough to bake the pie to blistery perfection. I find that the easiest and safest way to achieve this level of heat is Heston Blumenthal's broiler method. Blumenthal superheats a cast iron skillet, inverts it, places the pie on the underside of the skillet, and slides it under the broiler to cook the pizza with bidirectional heat. More
The best and worst thing about this dough is that it's wet and sticky: Water develops the gluten proteins in the flour, causing the dough to stretch beautifully when the yeast produces a high volume of gas in the heat of the oven. It's undeniably hard to roll out, but considering that rolling out the dough is the only difficult step in the entire process, this strikes me as an eminently fair trade-off. More
Today on Slice, the debut of a new column ... Top This, in which we focus on a pizza topping you might not have thought of or have wondered how to work onto your pies. The first installment, shaved asparagus, as found on the Bird's Nest pizza at Jim Lahey's pizzeria, Co. More
Josh "Mister Cutlets" Ozersky brings a Domino's new-recipe pizza to noted baker and pizza-maker Jim Lahey (of no-knead bread fame) for a review at Lahey's pizzeria, Company. "There is no improvement whatsoever," Lahey says. "Give me back the old Domino's any effing day." More
[Photograph: Adam Kuban] Noted no-knead breadman and Co. Company founder Jim Lahey discourses on pizza as he sees it (even lapsing into the third person) on The Atlantic Food Channel: I sought to open Co., to create this organic place. What I mean is, I don't ask my kitchen staff to manipulate ingredients to fit some pre-exisiting ideal of how a pizza should look. We don't place each piece of cheese perfectly on a pie--where it lands, it lands. Our menu tells guests: "Our Pies are Not Always Round." It's a joke but it isn't. People expect pies to... More
First some backstory here, in case you don't follow the ins and outs of the NYC food media scene. A few months ago, it appeared that New York Daily News food critic Danyelle "Restaurant Girl" Freeman had started tweeting. Then it came out that someone was faking it. Then the faker revealed himself to be Adam Robb of The Life Vicarious. (That's a sample of his handiwork above.) Lawyers were eventually called in, but through it all, Robb has continued his parody tweets (now with disclaimer!) along with a blog written by Fake Restaurant Girl called The Gourmet Glossary.... More
Per the Eater blog: A trusted tipster tells us that a friend was approached last week for a position at a new branch of Jim Lahey's fanatically adored Chelsea pizza place Co.. She tells us it's "somewhere downtown" but can't provide further intel. Related Co. Company Pizza Soft Opening Photo Gallery First Taste: A Preview of Jim Lahey's Co. Company Pizza... More
