Asiaggo Pizza Pasta Plus offers three different styles of pizza: Chicago deep dish, New York-style, and Sicilian. I scored a pepperoni Sicilian slice fresh from the oven. Rosemary is mixed into the airy dough, giving it a distinct focaccia-like character. The dough is baked without the sauce or toppings at first, so it crisps up to a light and flaky golden brown on both sides before receiving sauce and cheese. This may not be traditional, but it's pretty tasty.
The ideal square pie needs a soft, moderately chewy, and pliant crust, with an almost fried crispness to the bottom. The layer of cheese should be thicker than on a traditional pizza, and as for the sauce, I like it with a hint of roasted garlic, a touch of herbs, and lightly cooked with a distinct sweetness and overt tomato flavor. I know—I'm a demanding guy, but I'm also willing to work for my pies. 23 takeout containers worth of leftovers,** 8 pounds of mozzarella, 16 pounds of flour, and more tomatoes than you can shake a stick at later, I finally achieved the pie of my dreams. Let me walk you through it.
Even amidst the flashing lights that dominate San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, it's hard to miss Golden Boy Pizza. The giant neon hand above the restaurant points the way. And the people follow. They don't come for delicate artisan pies. The purpose of a slice from Golden Boy is to sate the alcohol-induced hunger of a party-goer finishing a night on the town
The Sicilian square is the way to go, and the counterman generously offered us a corner slice. Though it may look a little dark, the crust isn't bitter at all, just crisp and well seasoned on the outside, without getting tough. The interior is fluffy and warm, rich and comforting. This is a slice you want to eat on a cold day.
In one of last week's Daily Slice entries, I mentioned that I preferred the corner slices of Sicilian or square-cut pizzas. Which led JustinH to ask: "Do you covet the corner slice? I'm a longtime Sicilian fan and have always preferred an edge slice, even the center slice, though messy is preferable in my opinion." Shazam! Poll inspiration. So how 'bout it: When it comes to square pies, do you prefer corner, edge, or center slices? »
October! National Pizza Month! This month we'll be bringing you Daily Slice, quick snapshots of slices and pies all of us at the Serious Eats empire have been enjoying lately. —The Mgmt. [Photographs: Caroline Russock] Dyker Heights is a virtually untouched Italian-American stronghold in southern Brooklyn with plenty of fantastic pizzerias including Krispy Pizza, full of old-school Sicilian touches from the cases of arancini to colorful mural of an ornate donkey-drawn cart that adorns the wall facing the oven....
L & B Spumoni Gardens 2725 86th Street Brooklyn, NY 11223; map); 718-449-1230; spumonigardens.com Pizza Style: New York–style and Sicilian-style Oven Type: Gas The Skinny? A unique version of Sicilian is served at this Brooklyn institution Price:Slice, square or round, $2.25 As the sun sets over Brooklyn, its last gasps of light streaking the sky in pink against a deep blue backdrop looking like camouflage as envisioned by Elio Fiorucci, they flock to L & B Spumoni Gardens. Just as they did last summer and the summer before that. And the same way that their parents and grandparents did...
Located in a strip mall off Route 46 in Clifton, New Jersey, Bruno's has been around for decades, and the worn oven tells the tale—you can barely read the Bari logo on the door. It has all the hallmarks of a neighborhood pizzeria: The wall is decorated with pictures of Little League teams sponsored by the restaurant, and the menu is an unadulterated affair—no chicken wings or wraps to be found anywhere. Just two kinds of pizza: round and Sicilian. The regular round is decent, not extraordinary, but the Sicilian slice is exquisite.
New Yorkers may no more concede that Boston has a lively pizza scene than accept the Red Sox as the greatest team in baseball. Bostonians, of course, don’t care; their city sits squarely on what our Ed Levine has called “the pizza belt”—and from fancy-pants pies to the old-school Pizzeria Regina and Santarpiro’s, there’s plenty of good eating to be had. But what about the Sicilian? While we’ve written about the acclaimed Galleria Umberto before, more than a few commenters (and my own frequent dining companion) claimed that there were better square slices to be had. So on a...
If you get a slice to go—tied up in a neat white box—the grease will soak right through the cardboard. If that box is in a paper bag, it'll soak through that, too. If this troubles you, this is not your kind of pizza.
