Every city needs at least one older-than-old restaurant with a certain kind of cultivated rakishness — hard, straight-back wood booths that don't encourage lingering; graffiti-carved walls that conjure visions of 1950s hooliganism; grumpy signage.
Yes, @alexandrak, such a post does exist, and if your boyfriend finds what I'm about to write all TL;DR, he can check it out: The 10 Best Pizzas in NYC » That's a solid list, no doubt. And if his NYC pizza research stops there, I'm sure he'd be happy. But I think simply dropping a best-of list on a New York newbie does him a bit of a disservice. After all, he's moving to a pizza mecca. I think a little context is in order.
John's of Jersey City 87 Sussex Street, Jersey City NJ 07302 (near Washington Street; map); 201-433-4411; johnspizzerianyc.com Pizza Style: New York–Neapolitan Oven Type: Coal-fired Strangers are astounded when I say I live in Jersey City. "Really? Isn't that far from Manhattan?" It's 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the time of day, which most people aren't aware of. Because of this, there's a rumor going around town that Jersey City-ites are living in the boondocks, and just as far away from New York as the rest of New Jersey. So when I tell people that there is a John's...
Homeslice Paulie Gee commented this morning on my John's Pizzeria post of last week, tipping me to something I was unaware of until now. I figured I'd bust it out into its own post just to alert folks: Are you aware the John's has opened a new location just west of the Exchange Place Financial District in Jersey City? I happened upon it yesterday. It's not listed on their website, but it's definitely them. They have the same "No Slices" logo on the sign hanging outside, a coal oven, and the menu looks like the Times Square location's menu....
Every so often, I like to hit the old coal-oven giants in the city to see if they're up or down. For the most part, the old boys do killer pizza, the kind of pies serious sliceheads would be perfectly happy with if they weren't so spoiled by the amazing cornucopia of pizza our town has to offer. But I've found over the years that the consistency and quality of the coal-oven venues varies. So I thought I'd give John's Pizzeria on Bleecker Street a try. John's often gets slagged off in the comments on Slice and by various...
In mid June, Slice reader Lance Roberts emailed me, asking if I'd help him complete his pizza itinerary. He was visiting New York City from Los Angeles, and he wanted to pack in as much pizza as he could--but only the best. I gave him some recs. He came, he ate, and then he wrote. What follows is a wonderful tale of 2.5 days of pizza mania. Buon appetito! --The Mgmt. An NYC Pizza Tour from an LA Perspective As a Los Angeleno who grew up in Detroit, it's a little odd that I love pizza so much. Neither city...
Yeah, you already know that you can use an iPhone to look up all manner of stuff via the Google Maps feature, but with the new 3G iPhone coming out July 11, GPS is added into the mix. I was poking around on the Apple site last week and noticed that the GPS feature page featured an iPhone trained on the location of John's Pizzeria in Times Square. And in the latest video tour, the gesticulating iPhone Guy looks up P-I-Z-Z-A in Manhattan and clicks on John's. (Video, after the jump.)...
And they are: Zachary's Chicago Pizza: Berkeley, California PIzzeria Regina: Boston Patsy Grimaldi's Pizzeria: Scottsdale, Arizona Vic's Bar & Restaurant: Bradley Beach, New Jersey Tacconelli's: Philadelphia John's: New York City Star Pizza: Houston Imo's Pizza: Saint Louis Home Run Inn: Chicago Mellow Mushroom: Atlanta Windy City PIzza: Tampa, Florida Anthony's Pizza and Pasta: Denver Papreza's Pizza: Henderson, Nevada Well, they say 13 is an unlucky number, right? I mean, only one New York City pizzeria on this list? And it's John's? John's is good, sure, but not the best in NYC. And maybe we should hold our tongue until we've...
Here's the American Pizzeria Timeline, which includes only two non–Pizza Belt entries, Tommaso's and Uno's: 1905: Lombardi's, on Spring Street in New York City, is granted the nation's first license to sell pizza. 1910: Joe's Tomato Pies opens in the Trenton, New Jersey, Chambersburg neighborhood. 1912: Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton opened by Papa, who learned his trade at Joe's. 1924: Anthony (Totonno) Pero leaves Lombardi's and opens Totonno's in Coney Island, New York. 1925: Frank Pepe opens on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut....
This is another week-old one that we neglected to post about during our renovation. The Daily News did a roundup of New York City's best pizzerias last week. As we told Eater, the new foodblog from the folks who brought you Curbed: A nice roundup, I think. A lot of it is old hat to me, but there were some nice surprises in there, particularly a couple Brooklyn places (Graziella's, Laura's) that have been lurking one or two neighborhoods over from Slice HQ.Irene Sax knows her stuff, and I agree with most of her assessments, although I don't know why...
