Gridskipper goes on a tear, looking at the NYC Dept. of Health website for violations in Park Slope (the writer of the piece lives there, hence the focus on that neighborhood). He finds that Pizza by the Park clocks in with a score of 111. For those of you who don't follow DOH tallies, they're like golf: the lower, the better. Anything from a 0 to a 28 passes, and 175 is the highest you can go on the scale.
The restaurant blog Eater has a great series called "The Gatekeepers," in which they interview the host or hosts at a given venue. Today they talk to Sarah Gaskins and Nekisia Davis of Franny's:
What's the most outrageous request from a customer you've had to accommodate? SG: We once sat 25 people who were on a New York pizza tour. They showed up in a school bus with a mega-phone. After ordering eight pizzas and taking over the whole restaurant, they moved on to the next stop.
Hmm ... I wonder what pizza tour they're talking about?
Address: 597 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11215 (b/n 17th and 18th streets, Park Slope; map)
Phone: 718-788-7333
Website: peppepizzapanini.com
Oven Type: Gas-fired, steel-deck oven
Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Payment: Cash and cards
Price: $16 for large plain pie (18 inches); $12 for small (12 inches)
Recommended Options: Order the plain pie and ask for a mixture of regular mozz, fresh mozz, and the imported Pecorino-Romano.
The Skinny: This newcomer to the Park Slope pizza scene is being compared to Di Fara, and while that side-by-side is a little premature, it offers a stand-up pie that's miles beyond that of any conventional-oven pizzeria currently operating in the neighborhood. If you live in the Slope, this is your new go-to delivery pizzeria.
A whole pie with fior di latte (fresh mozzarella). The lighting in my kitchen blows, so this doesn't look as good as it tastes.
When I founded Slice a little more than four years ago, the irony of ironies was that my own neighborhood, Park Slope, was a veritable wasteland of pizza goodness.
Over the years, some good, some very good, and some downright great options have emerged.
Even so, apart from visits to Franny's on special occasions or delivery orders placed solely to stave off hunger when all other late-night options are closed, I hardly look forward to eating pizza in the neighborhood.
Enter Peppe's Pizza & Panini, which actually has me excited again about Park Slope pies and slices.
What do you know about Pepe's in Park Slope?
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/462495
—Mark H.
From left: A Di Fara half-plain, half-artichoke pie; pizza-makers at Franny's; an Isabella's Oven Margherita D.O.C.; Una Pizza Napoletana's marinara pie.
Last year around this time Slice/Serious Eats contributed to Pim Techamuanvivit's Menu for Hope charity raffle. Our giveaway was a guided pizza tour for four. Well, the winners—Anthony Kinik and Michelle Marek of Montreal food blog An Endless Banquet—finally made us make good on our prize. (It took them almost a year because they live in Montreal and I secretly think they were waiting for the loonie to beat the dollar before making a trip to the U.S.)
Anyway, after much back-and-forth emailing, we settled on a proposed route: Di Fara, Franny's, Adrienne's Pizzabar, Isabella's Oven, Una Pizza Napoletana, Joe's Pizza, Bleecker Street Pizza.
After starting a six-pizzeria pizza crawl at Franny's, travelers board the" Pizza Express."
This afternoon I had the pleasure of riding aboard what I'll call the Scott Wiener Pizza Express.
Scott Wiener is a true pizza lover, one who keeps a pizza journal that's legendary among those who know him, and his love and enthusiasm for the pie is truly infectious. So much so that a little more than 20 people showed up for a tour that would take us from Prospect Heights to deep Brooklyn, up to East Harlem, and back again to Brooklyn (see map, after the jump).
Last week, New York Times food critic Frank Bruni was all about restaurant accessibility vis-à-vis wheelchairs. This week, Bruni shares some emails regarding the piece, including this snip on Franny's:
It’s understandable that cozy little NYC restaurants might not have enough of a turn radius to accommodate wheel chairs, frustrating though it may be. Having had a relative in a wheelchair I can sympathize with your dining companion. But not slicing a pizza for someone who had just undergone neurosurgery on her (writing) hand because “the chef doesn’t do that,” forcing her husband to slice it for her, is unconscionable. I’m talking about your beloved Franny’s . . . My friend, whose hand was encased in a shoebox-sized Styrofoam splint, was denied that simple request. Shame on them! What if she was alone or accompanied by a quadriplegic? Who’d have cut her pie then? Would she have had to take off her shoes and use her feet?
Oh. I forgot to blog about this yesterday. And many of you have probably seen it already, but Frank Bruni, food critic for the New York Times, reviewed Franny's in yesterday's paper. Here are the relevant pizza snips:
Artisanal pizza may be all the rage, but it’s the rare pizzaiolo who spreads dough thin enough and gets a brick oven hot enough to produce the gorgeous blisters like those on Franny’s best pies. And the restaurant’s soppressata has a suppleness that would make Armandino Batali blush.
And
A clam pizza at Franny’s isn’t one of those clumsy pies studded with shells that force you to embark on an odyssey of deconstruction and reconstruction.
The clams have already been liberated and placed on a thick amalgam of clam juice and cream — a doubly clammy whammy. If you ever loved a bivalve, you owe yourself this romance.
You can read the rest of the review at the link above, but really, who cares about the rest of the menu, right?
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 a fellow SU alum, I tried to get in touch with you when I first moved to New York, and I also furnished you with a copy of the Syracuse Pizza Manifesto, another masterwork I coauthored. But to no avail, I never really heard back from you other than a weak Orangeman shout out. We'll take you choads in a pie-off any day of the week! Now, without further ado....
With reports of homemade-mozzarella-topped pies and a pizza pedigree that comes in part from working with the Nick's empire, it's not surprising that Anthony's is turning out a great Neapolitan pie.
I went yesterday for a late lunch and opted for a margherita, a benchmark I use when trying a new place. With the exception of some tip sag, the pie was excellent. The remarkably light and airy crust exhibited a decent amount of charring and a very nice amount of oven spring, especially evident in the cornichone, the rim of the pizza (above left). It had some chewiness to it, but was softer and more forgiving on the jaw than many other Neapolitan pies I've had lately.
The sauce was noticeably fresh and mildly zesty and the mozzarella was creamy and pleasantly stringy. The overall cheese-sauce ratio was good, but there was some bunching of cheese on one of the slices (which sogged the crust and prevented a nice char on the underside) and only a couple bites' worth on another. But that's not a dealbreaker on the first visit.
Providing a nice finish to each slice was the cornichone, or "end crust," which had a dusting of Parmesan cheese baked into it. Not in a gimmicky way, though. Anthony's might take offense to this, but it tasted like a really good version of Pizza Pretz, a Japanese pizza-flavored snack.
A recent New York magazine blurb on Anthony's opening explains the origin of the name: "[Owner Sal Buglione built the kind of pizzeria he] always imagined surprising his dad with. “We’d pull up, I’d say, ‘Hey, look, Anthony’s, let’s get a pizza,’ then I’d say, ‘This is for you.’ ” ...
We think Anthony Buglione would have been proud of what his sons built.
ANTHONY'S
Location: 426A Seventh Ave. (Park Slope; b/n 14th and 15th), Brooklyn NY 11215
Phone: 718-369-8315
Cost: Plain margherita, $11; marinara, $10; white pie, $11
Payment: Paper and plastic
The Skinny: Light, airy crust with homemade mozzarella and a fresh, zesty sauce. The 10-inch Neapolitan-style pies taste like small versions of New York's coal-oven heavyweights.
From New York magazine, a report of a new pizzeria in Park Slope. My neighborhood. Looking forward to trying it.
Anthony’s has been Sal Buglione’s dream for years: a restaurant named for and dedicated to his father, a mason from outside Naples. But when Anthony Buglione passed away unexpectedly, his restaurateur son nearly abandoned the plan, focusing instead on his involvement in the burgeoning Nick’s Pizza chainlet. Buglione’s friends encouraged him to persevere, and together they built the sort of homey southern-Italian restaurant and pizzeria he’d always imagined surprising his dad with. “We’d pull up, I’d say, ‘Hey, look, Anthony’s, let’s get a pizza,’ then I’d say, ‘This is for you.’ ” ...
ANTHONY'S
Location: 426A Seventh Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn
Phone: 718-369-8315
UPDATE: Slice Visits Anthony's
Buzz & Openings: Anthony's [New York magazine]
New York Metro reports:
After opening what might be New York's most idiosyncratic wine bar—Prospect Heights' rustic Aliseo Osteria del Borgo—Albano Ballerini continues to remake burgeoning Vanderbilt Avenue in his own offbeat culinary image. Ballerini's family has been in the food business since his grandmother opened a café in the Marche region of Italy, and in her honor, he's transformed a Brooklyn slice joint into a boutique focacceria. Pizza chef Ruth Kaplan, an Aliseo customer and avid home cook whose puffy, free-form pies got her the Amorina gig, has a toppings repertoire that runs the gamut from classic (tomatoes and mozzarella) to creative (dried cherries, nutmeg, orange peel, and crème fraîche). Homey pastas like spaghetti and meatballs perfectly suit the cozy room, which has been outfitted with red-checked-cloth-covered tables, salvaged menu boards, and Ballerini's grandmother's yellowing invoices and receipts.
AMORINA
Location: 624 Vanderbilt Ave., Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Getting there: Q/B train to 7th Ave. or 2/3/4/5 to Grand Army Plaza
Phone: 718-230-3030
—photograph by Kenneth Chen for New York
Thanks to MVG for the heads-up on this item.
Dr. Pepper: Peperoncino ("little pepper") recently opened in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Saint Marks Place (above). Owner Nino Gagliardi (top right) makes Neapolitan-style pies in his beehive-shaped wood-fired oven (above left).
Shortly before 2 p.m. we entered the tasteful wood-clad dining room and easily grabbed a table for five. One bottle of San Pellegrino later, we had decided upon our menu for the afternoon. To start, two salads: the gran fiore rucola (arugola dressed with balsamic vinaigrette and peppered with goat-cheese-enclosed grapes rolled in chopped pistachios) and the insalata dello chef (fennel, corn, celery, tomatoes, and hearts of palm in a lemon dressing). In general, I like to cut to the chase, eschewing salads, soups, and starters in favor of pizza, but I can see one of these salads working its way onto my tab on all subsequent visits to Peperoncino—the gran fiore. Its sweet-and-savory cheese-and-pistachio-covered grapes were absolutely addictive.
For pizza, we decided the five of us could handle six pies. Chef-owner Nino Gagliardi, a native of Naples, produces, no surprise, Neapolitan-style pies. That means small, thin, 10-inch pizzas, which in turn means six of them were by no means in excess. Our pies (below, clockwise from upper left): the Napoletana (tomato sauce, capers, and anchovies), the Margherita (tomato sauce, fior di latte, and basil), the diavola (tomato sauce, fior di latte, and spicy sausage), la bella Italia (a sauceless pie topped with cherry tomatoes, fior di latte, and pesto), the a'ciorta (again, sauceless, topped with smoked fior di latte, eggplant, roasted red peppers, and onions), and the salsiccia e friarielli (fior di latte, sausage, and broccoli rabe).
The five of us were impressed with the crust. While a bit thicker than nearby Franny's, it's still thin by most standards, and our pies all exhibited a perfect crispness while remaining pliable. There were nicely charred bits here and there along the bottom, with little puffy bubbles here and there on top. It's clear that proprietor Nino Gagliardi, who trained in his family's restaurant back in Naples, knows his stuff. Consensus was that la bella Italia was our favorite, with its zippy pesto topping. The Napoletana, the cheeseless anchovy-and-caper pie was the least favorite, judging by the fact that, at meal's end, the only thing left on the table was one lonely slice of this pizza.
This trip was the second of three I've made to Peperoncino in the last two weeks, the latest being this past Friday. The diavola was my favorite on my first visit but was later eclipsed by la bella Italia, the quattro formaggi (four cheese: fior di latte, fontina, Gorgonzola, and Parmigiano), and the pizza do' mare (tomato sauce, calamari, mussels, clams, and shrimp) of subsequent visits. This was primarily because I found the diavola's spicy sausage a little too tame—nowhere near my idea of spicy. The quattro formaggi, on the other hand, uses high-grade cheeses, and the pungent Gorgonzola was creamy and savory. The pizza do' mare (from my Friday visit) was packed with seafood and flavor, with a nice brininess that made up for the mildness of the sauce.
Yes: the sauce was on the mild side. It's fresh, no doubt, but could stand some more seasoning, which might explain our love of the pesto-topped pie. The cheese, though, left me with nothing to complain about. Excellent fior di latte ("flower of the milk") starred on most of our pies, with a few exceptions.
While I thought there could be a few improvements made, Peperoncino's pizzas represent some of the best Neapolitan–style pies I've had lately.
After the meal, S.B., an Italian-speaking member of our lunch crew, stopped by the oven to let Mr. Gagliardi know how much we had liked the meal. During their conversation, S.B. learned the origin of Peperoncino's name. There's an old Neapolitan good luck charm shaped like a horn, Mr. Gagliardi said, while moving pies in and out of the oven or rotating them for even cooking. The horn is a talisman against malocchio, the evil eye, and it just so happens to look like the short, red peppers for which the restaurant is named. So, at once, Peperoncino references cooking and good luck, both of which Mr. Gagliardi hoped he'd have plenty of in his new Park Slope venture.
With the excellent crust and the interesting variety of pies he's serving, his good-luck charm must be working.
Dinage And Signage: The dining room (above left) at Peperoncino is woody and warm, almost like an old ship's captain's quarters or a mountain cabin. One member of our party, an art director by profession, pointed out that she liked the typeface chosen for the restaurant's signs, particularly the curves on the Z's. Oh, those art directors!
The New York Sun, which "shines for all," sheds some rays on the recent pizzification of Park Slope, a subject we examined not too long ago on Slice. Unfortunately, the Web version of the Sun shines only for those who have online subscriptions to read it. For the rest of you, Slice, like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, has scanned the article for your elucidation.
The fire analogy is particularly appropriate for this pizza story. That's because Sun writer Paul Lukas examines three wood-fired-oven pizzerias in the neighborhood: La Villa, Franny's, and Peperoncino. We first became aware of Mr. Lukas's work through his 'zine, Beer Frame, and have enjoyed reading his UniWatch column, first on Slate, then on ESPN. We think he did a fine job scoping out the Slope's pie scene.
Here's the part where I'd normally digest what was written in the review, but since I can't copy and paste from the print version and don't feel like taking the time to transcribe it (it's lunchtime and I'm starvin' like Marvin'), you're just going to have to A.) Click on the image above to enlarge it, and B.) Read it in scanned form.
Oh, yours truly is quoted in the story, so check it out.
I just hope I don't get chained to a rock for providing you, dear reader, with this scanned bit of pizza news you no doubt hunger for.
Enjoy.
Tomato & Basil, the soon-to-open pizzeria that Slice reported on a couple weeks ago, tells us that it will most likely open tomorrow. The brown paper lining the windows is down, and the neon sign is up. Click the photo to enlarge, and get a glimpse of what the interior looks like. Unfortunately, Slice will be out of town tomorrow, so we might not make it in. We'll try it Sunday, if T&B operates on the day of the Lord.
I was especially happy to see this pizzeria materialize because it's immediately in front of the subway station I emerge from after work. I'm hoping for good things from this place. Fingers crossed that it doesn't disappoint.
"Interesting," I immediately thought, "so the opening salvo in the gentrification of Fourth Avenue has been fired."
Along the Park Slope side of this busy thoroughfare, from roughly Park Place to 3rd Street farther south, there are at least seven condominium projects that are just finished, almost finished, or under way. Having watched the corresponding stretch of neighboring Fifth Avenue go from grime to prime and knowing that these new condo dwellers would want nearby amenities, I figured it wouldn't be long before hip little stores and restaurants started opening on Fourth.
It is not this website's place to debate the merits or miscalculations of gentrification. Convincing arguments can be made by either side. Slice is concerned instead with pizzification, and so my second thought was, "Wouldn't it be keen if that narrow little place was a pizzeria?!" Well, it wasn't more than a couple weeks after making that wish than a sign appeared over the now-papered-up windows: "Coming Soon: Tomato & Basil." Needless to say, this reporter is eagerly awaiting Tomato & Basil's opening day (which I would have inquired about had there been someone there). With a cute name, cute space, and unbeatable slice-on-the-way-home location, I'm hoping for good things. The pizzeria is on the southwest corner of Union Street and Fourth Avenue, just south of New College Restaurant.
The recent pizzification of Park Slope doesn't stop there, however. A couple days later, after waiting in vain to transfer to an R train at Pacific Street, I decided to hoof it home. (Heck, it's only 12 blocks.) There's more to look at on Fifth Avenue, so I took that route. Imagine my surprise when I saw a sign (top-left photo) on the corner of Saint Mark's Place that read, "Coming Soon: Peperoncino, Locanda et pizzeria Napoletana"!
Like Tomato & Basil's location, this corner (right) had been boarded up for a while. I've always liked its turretlike column of bay windows and corner entrance and distinctly remember imagining a pizzeria in this space, too. (I pretty much imagine pizzerias in any vacant location.) No word, either, on when "soon" is, but this place looks a lot more raw than Tomato & Basil.
A quick translation of the sign, using a combination of Babelfish and an Italian-speaking coworker, yielded a confusing result. Peperoncino is easy: spicy little pepper. But "locanda et pizzeria Napoletana"? Locanda = "inn." So maybe "pub and pizzeria," even though I thought that "e" was Italian for "and," not "et." Nevertheless, I won't fault the translation if the pizza's good.
Fingers are crossed at Slice HQ that these two places can carry the pizzification trend started by Franny's. Before that, it was darn near impossible to find a passable slice in the neighborhood.
Slice let its subscription to the New Yorker lapse. Between the piles of unread issues and the mountain of empty pizza boxes, the office was getting a bit out of hand. Considering that we couldn't give up pizza, the weekly reader had to go.
Still, with the help of eagle-eye readers, we remain aware of any pizza news that passes in the pages of that legendary magazine. Like this review of Franny's in the Tables for Two column:
A pizzeria may seem like an unlikely place to be schooled in socially responsible consumerism, but the menu at Franny’s offers a quick course in sustainable agriculture: milk (non-homogenized) from Evan’s Farmhouse Creamery upstate, tomatoes from Bill Maxwell’s Farm in New Jersey, pork from Iowa’s organic Niman Ranch. The offerings are ever-changing, according to what appears at the market; recently there were crostini with a smear of garlicky chicken liver or piles of roasted cherry tomatoes, and pumpkin fritters, lightly battered and supremely fresh. The eggplant salad with ricotta achieved a melting creaminess, and wood-roasted octopus curled out of a heap of piquant olive-and-pistachio salsa.“I’m just here for you, so take your time,” a waitress assured a diner lingering over the menu one early-autumn night. Later, she brought out a sparkling red wine for an undecided guest to taste, saying, “If you don’t like it, I won’t be offended.” The individually sized pizzas are cooked in a brick oven, hand-built by Gennaro Iadicicco, a third-generation oven artisan. When they arrived, flopping over the edges of the plates, the crust was thin and toothsome—as crisp as a cracker on the cheeseless clam-and-chili pizza, soft but still firm under the influence of the quattro formaggi. The chef has improved upon the traditional toppings, offering house-cured meats instead: guanciale, or pork cheek, is a thicker, richer cut of bacon, while pepperoni is easily trumped by the tender bite of fennel salami.
Franny’s, which opened in April, has quickly become a neighborhood favorite. On weekday nights, its closely spaced tables fill with professional couples carrying briefcases and gym bags and Park Slope families training the palates of their young. On the weekend, waiting parties take cocktails to the back garden. Despite the easygoing atmosphere, there’s no escaping the restaurant’s principles (it sells sweatshop-free, eco-friendly T-shirts, and its takeout pizza boxes are made from recycled fibres). And then there’s the aversion to waste. If you leave even a slender wedge of your salami pie, expect a waitress to ask, “You’re sure you don’t want to take that home?”
We're not surprised the New Yorker liked Franny's. It's been highly rated by almost every publication in town, including Slice. And we're glad to see that dandy Eustace Tilley take off his gloves and get his hands dirty with pizza grease.
The crust was crisp yet almost impossibly pliant and chewy. Paper thin in the center yet not at all soggy for it, and puffy and light at the edges. The bottom was charred nicely, like that you'd see coming from a coal-fired oven (not surprising given the fact that they have a well-designed wood-fired oven, one built from scratch as opposed to the pre-fab kind you see in wood-fired pizzerias of lesser distinction).
As always, the toppings were impeccable. We tried the tomato-and-mozzarella pie, which has a base price of $10, but we ordered ours topped with the house-made garlic sausage, which pushed the price to $14. The sausage was thick, velvety, spicy, and flavorful—a world away from the grisly fatty sausage found on run-of-the-mill pizzas.
Service was good, too. We were seated quickly, the waitress was attentive and displayed a thorough knowledge of the menu. We were disappointed, though, that the large yet charming garden space is only for cocktails and desserts. But Franny herself (at least I think it was Franny) said they plan on serving pizza out there next summer. Which gives us at Slice one more reason to look forward to nice weather once again (ain't this early fall a b***h?).
An interesting item recenly appeared in New York magazine calling Franny's the best pizza in New York:
What, exactly, is New York pizza?That's a charged question in a town where pizza partisans—and that means everyone—love nothing more than arguing the merits of this crust, that cheese, or a sauce that's seen livelier days. And there's no easy answer. The sad truth, although it mostly goes unsaid, is that New York pizza isn't what it used to be. The great dynastic names live on, some deservedly, some not, in the coal-fired collective memory, generating long, nostalgic lines and self-perpetuating word-of-mouth, even as inconsistency and clandestine changes in ownership leave an increasingly bad taste in the connoisseur's mouth.
Which is why, instead of just canonizing the old, we should gleefully welcome the estimable new. New York pizza has historically meant John's, Patsy's, Totonno's, and Lombardi's, and soon, we boldly decree, it will come to mean Franny's, a newfangled Park Slope pizzeria [technically, Franny's is in Prospect Heights -- Slice ed.] where, even in its earliest days, the Underground Gourmet has glimpsed pizza greatness. It came on our third visit, when the crust, which early on was a tad dry, a bit brittle, and almost too thin, had settled into a tender, pliable, yet snappy groove, and the high-grade toppings coalesced. It was delicious, resilient, and light, Neapolitan in its simplicity and balance, and it came as a surprise: At Franny's, a pizza isn't just a pizza--it's a political statement, the vehicle for expressing a worldview shared by husband-and-wife owners Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens, veterans of Savoy and as committed to the Chez Panissean tenets of local, sustainable agriculture as they are to the venerable tradition of artisanal pizza-making.
Hey, we're all for praising new pizza joints, too. But damn if New York magazine isn't beatifying them faster than Pope John Paul II names saints. While we enjoyed Franny's when we went, we think it's a little premature to start naming it the best pizza in the city. Clearly the owners are dedicated to their art and are using some of the finest ingredients available. They've made their bones at Savoy. They cure their own meats on premises. And they've brought good pizza to the Park Slope area (thank you!). But they've only been open since April 13. Let's not get carried away.
In today's edition of amNY, Josh Lichtman reviews Franny's, the new wine bar–pizzeria on Flatbush Avenue. Because of amNY's limited online presence, I can't link you to it, but here's a PDF of the page the review appears on. Some highlights:
With a long vibrant dining room, soft lighting and good jazz, Franny's is an ideal spot to unwind. Along with Manhattan style—more Madison Avenue than Flatbush Avenue—Franny's also has Manhattan prices....The main attraction is the individual pizza ($9-$14), cooked in an Italian wood-burning oven. While I love the fresh toppings, the crust is too soft and lacks the flavor and charred texture one expects from a brick oven. Crust aside, though, the pizzas are quite enjoyable....
The margarita pizzas are also a stellar choice; the tangy sauce made from sweet imported tomatoes is a good match for fresh mozzarella from the Lioni Latticini Mozzarella Co. in New Jersey.
But service is not quite ready for the big leagues. On a recent visit, my dining companion and I sat through a three-hour comedy of errors and waited more than an hour for food because our waitress forgot our order. She then proceeded to serve us the wrong food and we ended up eating separately. Adding insult to injury, the staff comped the bill $2.
While the service has some kinks to work out, the seasonal ingredient-driven menus refreshingly simple, utilizing quality ingredients and interesting flavors, which is the essence of Italian cooking.
We think Mr. Lichtman's review is accurate. Franny's is on the right track but does have some kinks to work out. (And we'd like a crisper crust!)
Clockwise from bottom left: A tomato, mozzarella, and fennel-sausage pie ($14); a tomato-and-mozzarella pie ($10); Franny's window signage; our friend "N" digs in. (These photos look like ass because the lighting was dim and I didn't want to arouse suspicion with flash photography.)
Last night was opening night at Franny's, the latest entity participating in the rapid gentrification of Flatbush Avenue from Saint Mark's Place to Sterling Place. While I have no opinion on the oft-touchy subject of affluent renewal-and-replacement, I do have a mad interest in pizza and so wasn't that upset to see a wood burning–oven shop open in a space once occupied by a rundown pet store that had offered a dolphin-themed 25-cent kiddie ride out front.
After rushing home from work, this pizza blogger met up with a fellow pizza enthusiast, and we eagerly braved the April showers to sample Franny's fare. We arrived to find a dining room ripe with the smell of fresh construction, one that was bustling with customers but which still had a few tables available (good, because we were worried about having to wait in the rain).
Franny's, a wood-fired-oven pizzeria and wine bar, will open at 5:30 p.m. today in Prospect Heights, just across Flatbush Avenue from Park Slope. The area suffers from a lack of good pizza, and, as one-third of Slice lives in the Slope, we hope Franny's changes that. From their website:
The two owners of franny's, Franny Stephens and Andrew Feinberg, have a strong commitment to sustainable agriculture. In the restaurant business, we define sustainable agriculture as purchasing locally grown foods and serving them in the seasons during which they are grown. Andrew's love of Italian cuisine is at the heart of franny's menu. franny's uses the highest quality ingredients and prepares them simply, to allow the beautiful flavors of the food to come through.We're not too keen on their lowercasing a proper noun, but the food sounds promising.Whenever possible, we purchase our vegetables, fruits, eggs, dairy, and fish from local sustainable sources, assuring the freshest and highest quality possible. All the meats at franny's are from sustainable sources, containing no hormones or antibiotics, allowing for the most delicious meat from healthy animals raised in harmony with the environment. All meats except Prosciutto di Parma are cured in house.
Franny's
Location: 295 Flatbush Avenue
Phone: 718-230-0221
Hours: 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
When we asked readers to name their favorite slice joint in Park Slope, we got some nice responses, among them a tip from Slopester blogger Astrid: "Did you know that Franny's, on the Prospect Heights side off Flatbush, is going to be a brick-oven place? Let's keep our fingers crossed for tasty pies."
Thanks, Astrid. My friend BZ, who lives a few doors down from Franny's, had mentioned something about it a couple weeks ago, but I wasn't paying attention and didn't catch that it was going to be a pizza place. Your comment helped me put two and two together. While visiting BZ last night, we walked up to Franny's and took some photos.
BZ knows someone who knows someone who's opening the place and said that the proprietors were converting the basement to some sort of meat- and cheese-curing room. That bodes well for the quality of food that will be served—we hope. You'd think that anyone willing to spend the time and money to cure meats and cheeses on premises would not take food lightly.
The brick oven, from what's visible from the sidewalk and in the photo above, looks like a cut above the usual ones you see springing up all over, too. As Seltzerboy once said, "Most of these cachet structures offer more promotion than promise." Let's hope Franny's manages to put their structure to proper use and coaxes some thin, crisp-crust pies out of it.
No, not this lil' shaver at left. We don't even know if he's from Brooklyn, much less Park Slope. And being childless, we'd have no clue how to help him. But a baby does have something to do with this entry, so let's cut to the chase. A reader in Park Slope writes:
"I just had a kid and my wife and I are mostly stuck in our neighborhood. Where's the best slice in Park Slope? I will walk to wherever but I live on the south side."
The best slice in Park Slope? Why that's in my kitchen! Ba da dum.
But seriously, folks ...
As a Slopester myself, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I don't have an answer for you on hand. I've lived on both Seventh and Fifth avenues, and have eaten a slice or two at most of the places along those strips—well, those between the Prospect and Flatbush, anyway. They all seem equally lackluster. Perhaps some were marginally better than others, but nothing overwhelmed me and so I never gave slices in the Slope a second thought.
Some friends of mine who have sinced moved out of the neighborhood liked Aniello's on Fifth, around 8th Street or thereabouts. And a young lady whose pizza opinion I hold in high esteem often used to grab slices there after long nights at work when nothing else was open. I'm paraphrasing here, but I think she described it as the least of all evils in that area.
You know, Mr. Greenberg, your query has inspired me. I'm going to systematically try all the pizzerias along Fifth and Seventh avenues in the coming weeks.
I'll report my findings then. For now, let's open this up to readers: Where can Mr. Greenberg find the best slice in Park Slope? Discuss in the Comments section.
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