Entries tagged with 'Totonno's'
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 17, 2007 at 3:36 PM
Slice reader Conduit Design Group just asked how Pizza Club No. 8 went. So, without further delay, the quick rundown.
Numero Ocho was scheduled for this past Sunday at Coney Island. Unfortunately, so was a crappy nor'easter. Girl Slice and I made our way to Totonno's anyway, just in case any stalwart readers made the trip. Nobody did. Oh well. It turned into a soggy private date for just us two.
We knew the Cyclone would be closed, but we exited at the Surf Avenue end of the station (above) because we had to meet any prospective attendees at noon at Nathan's (below).
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 28, 2007 at 5:03 PM
DETAILS: April 15. 12:30 p.m. The Cyclone. Coney Island
Well, folks, how long's it been? How long since Slice has convened a Pizza Club? I think Slice tried to organize one last year, but it wasn't an "official" club meeting and did not get a numbered designation in the annuls of Slice history.
Anyway, Pizza Club No. 8 will occur at a familiar location: Totonno's in Coney Island, the site of Club No. 2 in April of 2004. Before throwing back some pizza, though, we're going to ride the Cyclone, as per Slice tradition.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 2, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Adam,
Any idea just how many pizza ovens in NYC are heated with coal?
Mahalo,
E.J.F.
Dear E.J.F.,
I know you've emailed a couple times about this, and my apologies for the delayed response—things have been busy at the Slice–Serious Eats office. Anyway, off the top of my head, here are all the ones I can think of. Readers, if I've forgotten any, do let me know in the comments.
Hasta la pizza,
Adam
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Posted by Adam Kuban, December 14, 2006 at 1:31 PM
And here's the pizza we were
talking about ordering. From Totonno's on 27th Street and Second Avenue in Kips Bay.
I gotta say ... Hello? Quality Control Dept.? Are you in?
The crust on these is a scootch thicker and much tougher than the Totonno's in Coney. To be fair, toughness may be due to delivery, but the telltale charring of the coal oven is not present at all in the patented
Slice Pizza Upskirt shot (right). Boring ol' golden brown. :(
Ugh: Metapizzablogging.
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 14, 2006 at 12:20 PM
Officemate: "I believe this day calls for a Totonno's pizza for lunch."
Me: "I believe it calls for two."
Posted by Adam Kuban, November 7, 2006 at 7:48 PM
Kim Severson of the New York Times does the best job yet of getting to the bottom of the puzzling Domino's Brooklyn Style Pizza kerfuffle. We're surprised she lived to write the story, after having brought the chain pie into Coney Island's Totonno's for comparison:
“Get that thing out of here,” was the first thing Totonno’s owner, Louise Ciminieri, said when she saw the Domino’s box.
Once we explained that we were on a mission to determine exactly what constituted a Brooklyn Style pie, she softened. Sort of. “When they say Brooklyn Style Pizza they’re referring to us,” she said. “We were the first ones.” [That's a snippet of a Totonno pie at right here. —Ed. ]
And here's a gem from Ms. Severson: "We purchased our Domino’s pie just a few blocks away from Totonno’s on Neptune Avenue. That it was handed to us over bulletproof glass turned out to be the most authentically Brooklyn part about it."
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Posted by DJ Bubbles, October 19, 2006 at 10:05 AM
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....
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 9, 2006 at 11:22 PM
The Cyclone has been ridden and the pizza has been eaten, and so spring begins for Slice.
Earlier today, Seltzerboy and I were joined by five friends of Slice in a tradition he and I have shared since 2001, way back in the pre-Slice era. On hand for the coaster ride were Dan, Katie, Tien, and our Queens correspondent, Chito. We met up in front of the 'Clone, bought tickets ($5 a ride), and submitted our bodies for a little Jazz Age G-force testing.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 7, 2006 at 2:34 PM
Creeping up into the sky. Stopping at the top and starting down. The girl grabbed my hand. I clutched it tight. I said good-bye to the ground.
Just a reminder: The long-dormant Slice Pizza Club will be revived Sunday at noon in Coney Island. We'll be meeting outside the ticket booth of the Cyclone. At noon.
As per tradition at Slice, we'll ride the world-famous roller coaster once or thrice on what is its opening day (Palm Sunday every year) and then adjourn to nearby Totonno's for some pizza.
As is usually the case, this Slice Pizza Club event is open to anyone who simply shows up. So don't worry about reservations, etc. There are about 10 or 12 people who have expressed interest already. The more the merrier. One caveat: Totonno's doesn't take reservations, so it might be dicey trying to get a very large group in there seated together.
Archived: Coney Island according to Slice
Posted by Ed Levine, February 16, 2006 at 8:43 AM
Here's the American Pizzeria Timeline, which includes only two non–Pizza Belt entries, Tommaso's and Uno's:
1905: Lombardi's, on Spring Street in New York City, is granted the nation's first license to sell pizza.
1910: Joe's Tomato Pies opens in the Trenton, New Jersey, Chambersburg neighborhood.
1912: Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton opened by Papa, who learned his trade at Joe's.
1924: Anthony (Totonno) Pero leaves Lombardi's and opens Totonno's in Coney Island, New York.
1925: Frank Pepe opens on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 15, 2006 at 11:10 AM
You've heard of the corn belt and the rust belt. But what about the Pizza Belt, the part of America that gave birth to what Jeffrey Steingarten calls Neapolitan-American pizza. The Pizza Belt starts in Philadelphia and runs through Trenton and the rest of New Jersey. It extends throughout New York, Long Island, and New Haven and ends in Boston. Think of it as the Interstate 95 belt, with a few detours along the way.
It was in New York that Neapolitan immigrant and grocery store owner Gennaro Lombardi was granted the nation's first Ilcense to sell pizza in 1905. Lombardi's, in turn, spawned Totonno's in 1924 and John's in 1929 and, in an apparently unrelated move, Patsy's in East Harlem in 1933. Joe's Tomato Pies opened in Trenton in 1910, followed by Papa's Tomato Pies in 1912. New Haven was next, where a Neapolitan immigrant Italian bread baker named Frank Pepe opened his eponymous Pizzeria Napoletana in 1925, followed in short order by Paul's Apizza in 1932, State Street Apizza (now called Modern Apizza) in 1934 and finally Sally's in 1938 (founded by Frank Pepe's nephew, Salvatore Consiglio). In Philadelphia, Salvatore and Chiarina Marra opened Marra's in 1927. The Tacconelli family started baking bread in their Port Richmond neighborhood in the 1920s, though they didn't start making pizza until 1946. Similarly, in East Boston, Francisco Santarpio baked bread at his eponymous bakery until Prohibition ended in 1933, when he took over the adjoining storefront and began serving pizza. Seven years before that, Anthony Polcari opened Pizzeria Regina in Boston's North End.
Why did all these pizzerias start in the same 33-year period? What did they have in common? Did Frank Pepe work at Lombardi's before moving to New Haven? Here's what we do know. There was a tremendous wave of southern Italian immigration in the late nineteenth century. These immigrants all came in through Ellis Island, and then fanned out along the Eastern Seaboard looking for work among relatives, neighbors, and friends who had come from the same area in Italy. New York, of course, was where they landed, so it made sense for a certain number of them to look for and find work there. Trenton had hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs and a burgeoning Itallan-American community called Chambersburg. New Haven had many factories (including Colt Industries), as well as a plethora of fishing and port-related jobs. Philadelphia (South Philly) and Boston (East Boston and the North End) both had fast-growing Italian-American communities with thriving commercial centers.
What can we conclude from all this? That the development of America's pizza culture closely followed southern Italian immigration patterns. If the southern Italians had come into this country through Duluth, Minnesota might have been known as the Land of a Thousand Pizzas.
Ed Levine is a regular contributor to the New York Times Dining section and is author of New York Eats and New York Eats More. He also maintains a blog: Ed Levine Eats. This entry is an excerpt from his book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven
, published on Slice through special arrangement.
Posted by Ed Levine, February 13, 2006 at 4:13 PM
Once upon a time, around the turn of the last century, pizza in America was an inexpensive peasant food, made casalinga (home-style) by southern Italian immigrant women in their kitchens. Adverse economic conditions had forced four million southern Italians to come to America by 1900. Descendents of all the seminal American pizza makers indicated their ancestors learned to make pizza by watching relatives make it at home.
In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi applied to the New York City government for the first license to make and sell pizza in this country, at his grocery store on Spring Street in what was then a thriving Italian-American neighborhood. In 1912, Joe's Tomato Pies opened in Trenton, New Jersey. Twelve years later, Anthony (Totonno) Pero left Lombardi's to open Totonno's in Coney Island. A year later, in 1925, Frank Pepe opened his eponymous pizzeria in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1929, John Sasso left Lombardi's to open John's Pizza in Greenwich Village. The thirties saw pizza spread to Boston (Santarpio's in 1933) and San Francisco with the opening of Tommaso's (1934), followed shortly thereafter with additional openings in New Jersey (Sciortino's in Perth Amboy in 1934 and the Reservoir Tavern in Boonton in 1936). In 1943, Chicago pizza was born when Ike Sewell opened Uno's. What did New York, New Haven, Boston, and Trenton have in common? Factory work available to poorly educated southern Italian immigrants. Pizza at this point was very much an ethnic, poor person's food eaten by Italians in the urban enclaves in which they had settled.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 4, 2005 at 12:00 PM
An email from a reader ...
To the editors:
I really enjoy your site. Thought I'd give back a bit and send in a report from the field.
The other day I went to Totonno's and Grimaldi's. I'd wanted to try both places for a long time, and since I had the time, I couldn't resist going for it with both. I had one large, half-cheese and half–roasted pepper at both places.
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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]
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Posted by Adam Kuban, December 10, 2004 at 9:17 AM
A sad bit of news to wake up to:
Joel Cimineri has run out of dough for the last time.
Brooklyn's legendary pizza man — who manned the oven at Totonno's in Coney Island and famously closed for the day if he ran out of dough — died this week from diabetes. He was 59.
A Brooklyn legend, Cimineri not only helped keep alive a pizza-making tradition dating from the turn of the 19th century, but with every thin-crusted pizza he made, he stood up against fast-food culture.
"We live in a Burger King world of 'Have it your way,' " said Dick Zigun, who runs the Coney Island sideshow. "But when you ate at Totonno's, you were with a loving Italian family that did it their way"
Cimineri learned the art of pizza-making from his uncle-in-law, Jerry Pero, who learned it from his father, who learned it from Gennaro Lombardi — the man who brought pizza to America more than 100 years ago....
Posted by Adam Kuban, June 9, 2004 at 6:00 AM
SAY NUMBER 13: Dom DeMarco, Slice's "Italian hero," makes the cover of this week's Village Voice. The alt-weekly's Robert Sietsema tallies his top 100 Italian restaurants, DeMarco of Di Fara fame clocking in at lucky thirteen.
Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice runs down his top 100 Italian restaurants. Seeing as how pizza is Italian or Italian American (depending on style), there are more than a few pizzerias in the mix.
The usual suspects appear throughout as well as a few surprises and what might be hidden gems. Following, we've digested the list, ignoring any nonpizza establishments. For the full list, click here.
We were delirious yet dismayed to see Dom DeMarco of Di Fara Pizza on the cover—heartened that Mr. DeMarco is once again getting the recognition he deserves but upset that the crowds at his pizzeria will inevitably grow larger (and also perplexed that he ranked no higher than thirteen while less-deserving places sit in the top ten).
Well, without further ado, here is the list, parsed for pizza entries...
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 20, 2004 at 2:13 PM
No Pizza for You, Joey: Joey Ramone, whose birthday was yesterday, in a video capture from the movie Rock 'N' Roll High School. To the right of Joey's head, you can make out the stack of pizza boxes that the rest of the band is tearing into. The band's manager only lets Joey eat health food.
Yesterday, May 19, was Joey Ramone's birthday. Although the frontman of legendary punk rock band The Ramones died in April 2001 of lymphatic cancer, his friends and family have continued to throw the annual bash that had been his tradition.
To honor Joey in our own little way, we present to you a couple of our favorite scenes from the 1979 movie Rock 'n' Roll High School.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 30, 2004 at 10:05 AM
Thanks to reader Greg, we're able to present to you the pizza-family-tree graphic that originally ran with Eric Asimov's June 10, 1998, New York Times story "New York Pizza, the Real Thing, Makes a Comeback."
Greg graciously volunteered to snap a picture of this illustration, which hangs on the wall of Totonno's, at the most recent meeting of the Slice Pizza Club.
It's a little blurry—it's difficult to get a good photo in low light and when you're trying to get newsprint into focus—but we think you'll be able to read it.
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 4, 2004 at 11:57 PM
Special Ed:Besides the spectacular turn-out for this month's Pizza Club at Totonno's in Coney Island, we were also excited to meet Ed Levine, who writes about food for the New York Times. From left: Seltzerboy, Adam, Totonno pizziola Lawrence Ciminieri, and Mr. Levine, who happened to be at the pizzeria doing research for an upcoming book on pizza and who was kind enough to give us some tips for upcoming pizza road trips.
Timing is everything. We learned that thrice over earlier today down in Coney Island, where Slice editors were joined by ten readers brave—or foolhardy—enough to tackle Nathan's, the Cyclone, and some of the best pizza in the city.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 20, 2004 at 6:25 PM
In lieu of a detailed write-up of Tontonno Pizzeria Napolitano, let us offer you this gallery of photos from a recent trip out to the venerable Coney Island pie shop. Because we enjoy the icy desolation of the boardwalk in winter, we'll be sure to make it out there again soon to give you the full low-down. Bon appetit!
Posted by Adam Kuban, January 5, 2004 at 3:57 PM
We're clocking in a little late with this one, but the holidays, man, the holidays.
The Village Voice's Annual Manual is out and food critic Robert Sietsma writes about 25 Places Where Two Can Eat for $25. Among this listings is a smattering of pizza joints. The usual suspects take a bow:
This list of inexpensive and excellent eats would be incomplete without including one of the city's venerable pizza parlors, which collectively count as one of our greatest culinary treasures. Besides his own restaurant on Spring Street, founded in 1905, Lombardi's immediate dynasty includes Totonno in Coney Island, John's on Bleecker Street, and Patsy's in East Harlem. Nephew and Patsy's veteran Patsy Grimaldi started his own parlor only a decade ago in Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn, and it rapidly rose to be one of New York's best pizza joints. The toppings are perhaps a bit more lush, the crust a little more thick and flavorful than the austere Lombardi's style, but that's just fine with the patrons who throng Grimaldi's (19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn, 718-858-4300) every weekend and evening. Go at weekday lunch if you want to relax.
The same article also makes mention of Joe's of Avenue U in Gravesend, Brooklyn, which is one of the few places I've found in the city that makes panelle specials, chick-pea fritters served on a warm sesame roll (usually with ricotta). It's not exactly pizza, but it's not to be missed!
Joe's of Avenue U
Address: 287 Avenue U, Brooklyn (F Train)
Phone: 718-449-9285
