This Serious Eats stuff I've gotten myself into is a weird business. Blogging about pizza, burgers, and other food is now part of my job, so it wasn't out of the realm of the ordinary to take part of the day to go out to Di Fara Pizza. The joint had just reopened after having a nasty run-in with the New York City Department of Health. As many of you know, the DOH smackdown wasn't pretty. Along with minor violations like failure to wear a hat and gloves, references to mouse poop and unsanitary conditions peppered the report. But,...
An awesome email from the Slice inbox today: Dear Slice folks, My name's James, and I'm a fan of your site. Waaaaay back around 2001 or 2002, I wrote and recorded a song. It's called "Dom," and it is about a certain pizzaman in Brooklyn, about whom you know a little something. It's a little out of date now. Listen to "Dom": Dom I know the guy that makes the bestest pie in town His ass is not under the bridge You will not find him in Coney Island You will not find him in Bay Ridge...
I just got off the phone with Dom DeMarco, proprietor of Di Fara. He says the joint's reopening tomorrow. And that when it was reinspected, it received a "0," which actually is good—as in zero violations....
Oh, my. If you haven't seen it elsewhere, Gawker has dug up the NYC Dept. of Health inspector's report that closed Di Fara temporarily. If you know us, you know we don't like having to report this news. Source Di Fara Pizza: One Slice, Free Droppings! [Gawker] Further Reading All Slice entries on Di Fara [The Slice Archives]...
This morning at the Serious Eats office Ed came in talking about how he had dinner with someone last night who had spent two hours in line at Di Fara earlier this week. I was like, "TWO HOURS?!?! At Di Fara? Surely that's an exaggeration! Maybe two hours' total time there, but not solely in waiting." Funny then that I should get a copy of David Rosengarten's Tastings newsletter in my inbox soon after. In it, Mr. Rosengarten recounts his very long wait, after which, he and his friend employ a novel tactic for getting their fix: Mama mia....
Photograph courtesy Dalton Rooney The above photo appeared on Dalton Rooney's photoblog Seriously Excited! Says Mr. Rooney, "I'm working on a series of similarly themed Brooklyn photos: http://www.seriouslyexcited.net/category/hello-my-name-is/"...
Today we've got a super-duper Di Fara duo for all you fans of Dom and his art. (Slice counts itself among your number.) Exhibit A is the photo at left here. Reader Jason T., who's also the winner of our sister site's most recent contest, sent this to us after he had won the contest (no quid pro quo, yo): "One of my good friends, Jake, lives in Santa Cruz, California, and loves Dom's pizza so much that he had an artist paint an image of Dom on his surfboard." Exhibit B is a wonderful anecdote from FOS Norman H....
"I don't particularly care to walk in to a place and watch a guy past his prime "whip" up pizza and (what seemed like the case the last time I was there) who looks bored and careless as to what he was doing. As I mentioned earlier, consistency is something I look for, and the only thing I find consistent about his pizza is that he doesn't make them all the same. ;) " —Nicky M., on Di Fara How's it going, Slice? I will give you a little history on myself, and offer up my recommendation. My grandfather had two...
Pity poor Ed Levine. When his workday doesn't involve ordering one of each doughnut at a well-regarded New York City doughnuttery, he gets to eat pizza from some of the country's best pizzerias and write about it for Details magazine. His findings cover some familiar ground to readers of Slice and of Mr. Levine's 2005 book PIzza: A Slice of Heaven, but there are some new entries to be savored. Pizzeria Bianco [623 East Adams Street, Phoenix AZ 85004; map] "The sauce tastes like a distillation of the ripest tomatoes."Di Fara[1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn NY 11230; map] "... a Di...
An interesting item hit the Slice inbox yesterday. OK guys, put this in your pie and smoke it! A couple of caveats: The list isn't quite as definitive as it claims to be, as it is missing any critical analysis of Staten Island, Queens, and Bronx joints. When you guys post this on the site (front page, please), perhaps you may want to refer to it as "The Definitive Manhattan and Brooklyn Top 10 List." We've all been to these places enough times to know what's going on and who's coming with their A game and who isn't. Seltzerboy, as...
