Posted by Adam Kuban, August 10, 2005 at 6:00 PM
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 she rated a chain Patsy's on the Upper West Side instead of the original in East Harlem. What's nice here is that they've really done a comprehensive roundup of the best places in each borough instead of picking, say, a top-five or top-ten list. It's a nice piece that's actually useful to anyone in any of the five boroughs.
You really should click through to the article and have a look at Ms. Sax's quick rundowns. For as long as we've been publishing Slice (and probably long before), Sax has been the News's pizza expert.
Here, we'll list Sax's picks and link to our reviews, when possible. When not possible, I, uh, well, I just offer up comments and such willy-nilly. Read on after the jump....
Upper Crust [New York Daily News]
The Boroughs' Best Pizza [Eater]
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 23, 2005 at 2:00 PM
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).
PEPERONCINO Location: 72 Fifth Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn, 11217 Getting There: 2/3/4/5/B/D/M/N/Q/R to Atlantic Ave.-Pacific Street complex; walk east to Fifth Ave., then south to Saint Marks Place
Phone: 718-638-4760
Hours: Dinner, daily, from 5 p.m.; brunch, weekends, 12-3 p.m.
Payment: Cash only
THE SKINNY Nicely charred, thin, crisp, chewy Neapolitan-style (about 10-inch) pies. Wood-fired oven.
The Village Voice on Peperoncino: "From the oven proceed some of the best Neapolitan-revival pizzas in town, giving Franny's on nearby Flatbush Avenue a run for its money.... If you're in a festive mood, get the signature L'Oro di Napoli ($16), named after
a 1954 Vittorio de Sica film in which Sophia Loren plays a two-timing pizza maker. This garlic-strewn and tomato-free pie features two buttery cheeses, with fragments of gold leaf arrayed across the top, which glint in the firelight. The foil is flavorless and chemically inert, so it goes through your digestive system untarnished—look for it the next day before you flush."
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY ADAM K. .::. A recent Sunday found your author on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Saint Marks Place, waiting on some friends for "brunch" at Peperoncino, the latest wood-oven pizzeria to open in
Park Slope. Through a series of unfortunate events, said friends were late. No worries: It gave me time to grab a cup of coffee and the Post to peruse all the
Gates news that was fit to print.
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!
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 1, 2004 at 1:10 PM
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.
