At Denino's, the pizza box says it all: "In Crust We Trust." They should trust their crust, because it is light and crisp and pliant. Denino's is a classic red-brick tavern pizzeria (with a separate dining room), but it is just as welcoming to kids after a little league game as it is to middle-aged softball players coming in for a pie and a brew after a game. I'm crazy about Denino's sausage pie, which features fine sweet Italian sausage made fresh every day by a local butcher. If you want to go vegetarian, try the white pie, made... More

Giuseppe Pappalardo, an owner of Joe & Pat's in Castleton Corners, Staten Island, mastered his craft at three legendary Staten Island slice establishments: Nunzio's, Ciro's, and Tokie's. His slices are distinguished by a superbly thin, crisp crust. "They're easier to digest," he says, "so you can eat a lot of them." And believe me, I do. Giuseppe's son Angelo has now joined him at the pizzeria. He's a serious chef whose last stop was at Esca in Manhattan. I'm sure he'll do wonders for all the other food at Joe & Pat's. The only way he could improve the... More

Salvatore Pollito is a pie man, no two ways about it. Ten years ago he opened a solid slice joint in Queens. Then, when he felt he had mastered the art of the slice, he decided to tackle coal-fired, brick-oven pizza, inspired by his many ttips to Totonno's and Patsy's. He has done that successfully at Bella Via, which, with its brick walls and big windows, is one of the more cheerful pizzerias I have come across. Pollito had a local guy build the oven at Bella Via, and tucked it into the back of the place in full... More

A slice from Nunzio's is a pristine exercise in elegant pizza minimalism. It's not very big, so pizza-by-the-ton Ray's fans should go elsewhere. Yet everything about it is right: the ratio of sauce to cheese, the crisp yet pliant crust, and the tangy sauce enlivened by fresh basil. I love the sausage Nunzio's puts on its slices. It's nubby, loaded with flavor, and has plenty of fennel in it. Nunzio's even looks the way a pizzeria should: It is a white stucco shack with a tiny dining room brightened by black-and-white photos of the original Nunzio's in South Beach, Sraten... More

Update (1/28/2009): Isabella's Oven Closed Until Further Notice Ladies and gents, the always opinionated DJ Bubbles has checked in once again. Because I never know when he's going to strike, I'd been unofficially calling his stunning dispatches "drive-bys." Now I'm formalizing it. Here's the DJ Bubbles Drive-By on Isabella's Oven. It's a must-read, so do click through the jump. —Adam Words by DJ Bubbles | It has been said before that having a great meal can be a transcendent experience. When someone has poured all his soul, energy, and being into something so divine, you can taste it in every... More

Wassup, Homeslices? Adam here. I arrived at at Serious Eats–Slice world headquarters this morning, sat down at my desk, and before I could do even a lick of work, the bossman, Ed Levine, started badgering me: "Whatever happened to the excerpts of my pizza book you were posting? I haven't seen one on Slice in ages." He's right. So without further ado, Slice will resume posting excerpts from Pizza: A Slice of Heaven. If you've missed any, here's the archive of all Slice of Heaven entries. —The Mgmt. City officials know a good slice of pizza when they see one:... More

Internally at Slice and on my Flickr photostream, this site has used the term pizza upskirt to denote the type of photograph you see here, but we have never called explicit attention to this terminology—until now. Slice first realized the value of shooting pizza undersides while perusing this post on eGullet, which compared the chars on the bottom of slices from Di Fara, Grimaldi's, and Patsy's. Believe it or not, until then, we had never thought of offering our readers photographic evidence of crust char. We liked the eGulleteers' idea but weren't that keen on the way the slices... More