The pies arrive literally smoking, with charred dough on one side or the other. I ate the standard Margherita, which shocked me with its $21 price tag, Sicilian sea salt or not. It was good, but a little too substantially charred for my taste, and the “bone” (the thickest part of the crust) was a little too doughy. Still, as an example of the Naples style, it was about 95% there.
The other pizza I tried, the bianca, was a white pie (well, duh!) with a heavy dose of buffalo mozzarella on top. To begin with, Naples pizzerias almost never use buffalo mozzarella, preferring the fiore di latte that is the equivalent of our Italian-American mozzarella. While I don’t usually argue with dairy generosity, this pie had too much cheese, lending a rubbery quality to the pie. In Naples, when they apply cheese, it is in small chunks....
Posted by Adam Kuban, January 18, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Michael Bauer, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, continues his Pizza Friday series on his blog Between Meals with a trip to Pizzeria Picco in Larkspur, California. Pizzeria Picco makes a Neapolitan-style pie in a wood-burning oven:
Bauer says:
Thin with crisp, blistered edges. The Margherita, drizzled with De Padova extra virgin olive oil sets the standards for this ubiquitous combination. The Marin features roasted garlic, young potatoes that crisp at the edges, mozzarella, Parmesan and a slight drizzle of rosemary oil. The Cannondale is my favorite: house-made sausage, roasted peppers, onions, basil, and mozzarella.
Pizzeria Picco
Address: 320 Magnolia Avenue, Larkspur CA 94939 (at King Street; map) Phone: 415-945-8900 Website:pizzeriapicco.com
Posted by Adam Kuban, November 27, 2007 at 3:45 PM
Another email from the Slice mailbag. This time from Mark Graban, who built a backyard wood-burning pizza oven at his home in Texas. You'll see why Mark sounds a little miffed. —The Mgmt.
Did you catch the episode of Kitchen Nightmares that featured a restaurant, Sebastian's, in Burbank, California? The idiot running the place had two wood-burning ovens running, and they were just for show. Frozen dough, microwaved crap, it was awful. And, worse, the moron wouldn't take the advice of chef Gordon Ramsay.
Michael Bauer, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, continues his Pizza Friday series on his blog Between Meals with a trip to Pizzaiolo in Oakland, California. Pizzaiolo makes a Neapolitan-style pizza and is owned and helmed by Charlie Hallowell, a longtime pizza-maker at Alice Waters's famed Chez Panisse:
Bauer says:
Crust: The thin crust has well-formed blisters that shatter into a dozen pieces on contact, and a chewiness that gives the jaw a good workout.
Pizza tried: The classic Margherita has a restrained swipe of savory tomato sauce, pools of buttery mozzarella and shards of intensely flavored basil. We also tried a pizza with chunks of ground sausage, basil, and orange and yellow gypsy peppers, enhanced with a last minute drizzle of fragrant olive oil.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 15, 2007 at 12:00 PM
The first time I tried to have a pizza at Forno Italia, the place had been reduced to rubble by a complete renovation. I worried that the wood-burning pizza oven I had heard so much about would not be part of the new restaurant. I needn't have worried. What makes Forno ltalia's pizza so good is the gorgeous oven, a skilled pizzaiolo, and the house-made mozzarella, which is so good that the proprietors wholesale it to other Italian restaurants and pizzerias in the know. The pies are individual Neapolitan-style beauties, with a chewy, puffy crust that is pretty swell. I usually have the Margherita here, but I've always been tempted to order the Southern pizza, topped with spicy sausage and American and Swiss cheeses. It ain't exactly authentic, but I bet it's tasty.
Forno Italia
Address: 43-19 Ditmars Boulevard, Astoria NY 11105 (b/n 43rd and 45th Streets; map) Phone: 718-267-1068
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?
You: A hot, shapely Italian number that I can place my burning wood in.
Me: An eager young pizzaiolo used to playing with fire. I've played around most of my life; now looking to settle down with the right oven.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, champion pizza-maker Tony Gemignani hopes to open a wood-burning pizzeria with an oven worthy of his talent, according to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Gemignani, long known in the pizza world for his pizza-spinning techniques (he's been called "the Michael Jordan of pizza-tossing"), got tired of dough acrobatics a couple years ago and started to focus on making true Neapolitan-style pies.
After installing a portable Beehive oven in his backyard and practicing the craft, he went to Italy to compete in the Trofeo Citta de Napoli Championato Internationale per Pizzaioli in June. And he won.
"It was a big win," he said. "People are comparing it to Stag's Leap (Wine Cellars) going to Paris," and beating the best French Bordeaux makers in the 1976 tasting that put California Cabernet Sauvignon on the map.
Trouble is, strict air-quality standards in the Napa Valley usually don't allow for wood-burning ovens there.
But the Vera Pizza Napoletana association (aka "the Pizza Police") is going to allow Gemignani and his brothers to open a pizza school under its aegis. If so, Gemignani and family hope to talk the local government into making an exception. As the Chronicle says, "If that happens, they hope to start construction late this before year and move from their current location in a strip mall near Interstate 580."
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 bite. It isn't something that happens all that often in these times, but when it does, you don't soon forget it. To say that I had one of these experiences this Saturday may be true—I'm still not sure. How is that possible, you ask? That's a good question, and all I know is it happened on my second trip to Isabella's Oven after a very mediocre first visit. The difference in pie quality was immediately apparent after I had my first slice of an individual Margherita while sitting on Isabella's outdoor patio. However, the questions regarding this newbie's consistency linger, and I have to ask myself—was this past Saturday the beginning of a beautiful friendship or a flash in the pan, mere pizza fool's gold?
WELCOME OPRAH VIEWERS! If you've found this page after watching Oprah's pizza show, welcome! Slice is a blog about pizza. We have more Pizza Bianco coverage here. Enjoy!
Editor's note: Ladies and gents, allow me to introduce a new voice here at Slice: Robyn Lee. You may already be familiar with Robyn from her blog The Girl Who Ate Everything. She also works with me at Serious Eats, which is how she found her way to posting on Slice. Anyway, she recently visited Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. Here's her take. —The Mgmt.
Best. Pizza. Ever.
That's what I was expecting from Pizzeria Bianco, which is known for having, well, the best pizza ever. In the U.S., at least. Maybe even in the world. But I can't vouch for that since I haven't eaten all the pizza in the world (although I'd be happy to make that a lifelong goal).
What I can say is that out of all the pizza I've ever eaten, Chris Bianco's may have been the best I've ever had the pleasure of sending through my digestive system. I only hesitate because I don't know if it was the pizza alone or a combination of things (the warm atmosphere and friendly company) that resulted in a night of explosive happiness derived from stuffing my face with slice after slice. Maybe it was the best pizza and the best pizza-eating experience. My mind is still a little fuzzy from the happiness hangover.
Slice reader Philip G. visited Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix last week and came away with a bellyful of what sounds like great pizza, and, I assume, memories to last a lifetime. He sent along his pix and this great video—the first instance of a motion-picture pizza upskirt. Thanks, Philip!
You should have noticed in that video that Philip is wearing the "I Slice NY" shirt. W00t! And if you didn't, here's a pic of him and the man himself, Chris Bianco:
Ladies and gents, my homeslices, every now and then one of you writes in with reviews and info about far-flung pizzerias that are way out of the range of typical Slice coverage. Today, we've got such an item for you. Mark Cohen, who lives part of the year in Manila, submitted a couple dispatches about some pizzerias in the Philippines. Here's the first of his reports. —The Mgmt.
Words and photographs by Mark Cohen | I grew up in the New York City area and lived there until I left for college. I was a typical New York pizza freak—except that, at the ripe old age of 12, I was making pizza out of the box, learning to work with dough (Chef Boyardee for those who remember). By the time I was 23, I was making pizza from scratch and was fortunate enough to work for a master pizzaiolo in the best pizza place in San Francisco in the late '60s, early '70s. My mentor hailed from the Naples area and was a great cook all around, so I learned from the best.
I had a truly great pizza in a new pizza place on Saturday, and though I'm not going to tell you that I have seen pizza's future and its name is Isabella's Oven, the way Jon Landau did a zillion years ago when he saw Springsteen live and declared that he had seen rock and roll's future, I will say I had a pie that would easily make a New York City top ten list and maybe a national one as well.
Now in New York, when you declare a pizza place that's not on anybody's radar to be Pizza Hall of Fame-worthy, there can be hell to pay. But I'm willing to stand the heat of the wood-burning oven.
At its heart, Il Brigante is a pizzeria, and a damn good one. The rear wall is dominated by a flickering wood-burning hearth inside a limestone proscenium, where a sweating and grunting pizzaiolo is the star of his own small repertory theater. In the style of southern Italy, the 10-inch pies are intended for individual consumption. In fact, the margherita ($10) is the city's most perfect evocation of the true Naples style (even surpassing top spots like Una Pizza Napoletana and La Pizza Fresca). Starting with an irregular round of glove-soft dough with no yeasty taste, the margherita is dampened with plain tomato sauce and excellent cheese, bravely wearing a pair of fragrant basil leaves on its bosom. Eat it with a knife and fork—this is no New York pie.
Il Brigante Address: 214 Front Street, New York NY 10038 [South Street Seaport area; map] Phone: 212-285-0222
LA RUSTIQUE BAKERIA Address: 84 1/2 Morris Street, Jersey City, NJ 07302 (near Exchange Place) Phone: 201-860-4010 Hours: Mon-Fri 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sat-Sun 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. (hours can be quirky; call ahead) Payment: Cash and all major credit cards The Skinny: Takeout and delivery only, with some outdoor seating
BY MICHAEL PARILLO .:::. As both a lifelong New Jerseyan and a pizza obsessive, I've been known to get gloomy about the state of the slice in my area. Too many ten-gallon cans of industrial-grade tomatoes, too much sweet and spongy dough. So a couple of years ago when I was tipped off about a killer pie in Jersey City, I made a beeline to La Rustique Bakeria.
JC isn't exactly in my neck of the woods, but if you have pizza, I will travel. I loved the pie, and I vowed to return. But then, whether out of laziness or wanting to avoid faraway takeout—La Rustique has just one table inside but adds outdoor seating in the warmer months—or simply because I've been captivated by my wife's homemade pizza and the impressive recent offerings in New York City, I didn't make it back until now.
Not much has changed at the small, modest-looking storefront bakery and pizzeria. A blown-up 1938 mug shot of Frank Sinatra still watches over the pizzaioli as they stretch their dough ("Nice and thin, gumbah—attaboy," I imagine Blue Eyes saying), and a glass case by the register still holds a tempting array of enormous pies—larger than those on the menu—which are cut and sold as "oversized slices" (Margherita $3; with toppings, $3.50).
Since this wasn't a warmer month, I had to order my pies to go. I went with a large Margherita with half sausage (large Margherita, $14.30; small, $8.50), and a small white pie with spinach (large white, $16.95; small, $10.95). The owner seemed suspicious when he saw me snap a photo from the sidewalk, and I didn't want to blow my cover, so I faded into the woodwork for a few minutes while my pies cooked. (I would defend my right to photograph, sans flash, to the ends of the earth, but I prefer to avoid confrontation with people who are feeding me.) Luckily, the baking didn't take long, given the intensity of the inferno beneath the brick oven's high-heat tiles.
After paying and shrugging off a sarcastic comment about my "taking pictures for posterity"—did he think I was trying to steal his design secrets?—I threw my short stack of boxes in my car and drove away. This is the part that kept messing me up. I was staked with hot pizzas, but I had no nearby safe house at which to tuck into them—home was almost 20 miles away. Park bench? Hourly motel room? I pulled over and settled for a few quick bites of the white pie—you know, because it would be unfair not to eat some of the stuff while it was as hot as possible. This was a good move, for the moment.
But then, as I drove, with my windows fogging over and my taste buds teased into great expectation, I had to endure the tantalizing aroma of smoke, herbs, tomatoes, and hot cardboard (I love the scent of pizza-warmed cardboard, a perk of the takeout experience). I avoided looking at my speedometer, and I'm lucky I wasn't pulled over.
I made it home while the pizza was still warm, and I went to work in earnest. The Margherita looked similar to the one I had the last time, which I'd photographed, for posterity. Today's specimen was a gorgeous, colorful pie, with snow-white house-made mozzarella peeking out from under the bright red blush of San Marzano tomatoes. (The cheese is so delicate and low in moisture that it must be placed beneath the tomatoes or it will burn.) The vibrant red was blurred to a fuzzier hue where Parmesan cheese had been sprinkled. The end crust bore the precious burn marks that I've come to value so highly.
Unfortunately, the pizza wasn't thin enough in the middle, and some of the internal areas met my teeth with a somewhat gluey texture. It seemed the bottom had charred before the dough directly beneath the cheese had had a chance to set fully.
Still, this was one tasty pizza, albeit subtly so. La Rustique achieves a refined savoriness rather than favoring forceful flavors. In fact, it's a pizza that resists being adorned. I liked the sausage slices, but the fennel-rich links, though nice, threw the flavor out of balance a bit. There's no question in my mind that ordering a Margherita is the way to best appreciate this pie as a whole—the creamy and mild mozzarella, the tangy and not-too-sweet tomatoes, the salty Parm, the nicely charred crust, all in harmony.
Yes, the Margherita is the star, but the white pie might earn top billing elsewhere. Not surprisingly, it, too, had subtle charms, given all of its innocent white, so its generous dusting of oregano and its scattered slivers of basil really picked up the flavors. And it contained no mozzarella, only a thin layer of ricotta. My thoughts on ricotta-topped pizza can go both ways—as much as I love No. 28 in Manhattan, I've found the ricotta on its white pie to be too pillowy—and so I was glad that La Rustique got the ricotta-to-other-stuff ratio exactly right. My only complaint about this pizza was that I could not detect the presence of the roasted garlic that was noted on the menu as being blended with the ricotta, which sounded like a nice touch.
Overall, with both pies, the very best parts were the burnt bits. There's just nothing like an oven that's hot enough to literally put its mark on a pizza. La Rustique's dough itself is good, not quite baking up crisp-chewy at the end crust—the ultimate—but offering a satisfying crunch before the cornicione collapses. Where it's charred, though, and where the smokiness of the burn marks can mix with the flavor of the cheese and the tomatoes—now that's heaven on earth. Jersey, listen up: No more pale pizzas!
The previous post about Ed Levine's top pizza picks drew some emailed and IMed responses that the choices were mostly all coastal and that there were no Chicago joints on it whatsoever. Well, here's a list that ran earlier this month in USA Today. In it, Jeff Ruby, coauthor of Everybody Loves Pizza (along with Penny Pollack), gives the paper his and Ms. Pollack's top spots:
Metro Pizza [four locations, Las Vegas NV; metropizza.com]
"The pizza menu at this gourmet oasis in the desert reads like a map of regional flavors. With grilled shrimp on the New Orleans, barbecued chicken atop the Memphis and pineapple on the Honolulu, there's something for everybody...."
The Cheese Board Pizza Collective [1512 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley CA 94709; map]
" 'The Cheese Board is a collective, owned by its members, that brings sustainable agriculture to the pizza table,' Ruby says. Each day the menu, featuring a single sourdough vegetarian pizza, is decided collectively by the group...."
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 30, 2006 at 11:48 AM
Pity poor Ed Levine. When his workday doesn't involve ordering one of each doughnut at a well-regarded New York City doughnuttery, he gets to eat pizza from some of the country's best pizzerias and write about it for Details magazine. His findings cover some familiar ground to readers of Slice and of Mr. Levine's 2005 book PIzza: A Slice of Heaven, but there are some new entries to be savored.
Pizzeria Bianco [623 East Adams Street, Phoenix AZ 85004; map]
"The sauce tastes like a distillation of the ripest tomatoes."
Di Fara[1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn NY 11230; map]
"... a Di Fara slice has a one-of-a-kind flavor."
Totonno's [1524 Neptune Ave., Brooklyn NY 11224; map]
"Order the white pie, made with ricotta, mozzarella, and enough fresh garlic to ward off a roomful of vampires."
After two years of preparation, Carroll Gardens newcomer Lucali opened, somewhat fittingly, on Columbus Day. Not long after, the Chowhounders started yapping about it, with most barking their approval. At the urging of Slice reader Mark H., I headed over last night to see what all the fuss was about.
The joint is the creation of Mark Iacono and takes the place of a soda fountain once known for making some of the last real egg creams in Brooklyn. Locals can take comfort, however, in the fact that Mr. Iacono was raised in the neighborhood and still lives around the corner. Not only that, but much of the equipment—including the espresso machine—comes from Leonardo's Pizza, which was sadly replaced by a Dunkin' Donuts around this time last year. The recipes, too, are from the neighborhood, having come from Mr. Iacono's grandma and aunts.
From a nice profile of Phoenix pizzaiolo Chris Bianco in the Arizona Republic today:
The faithful and the curious, the foodies and the tourists, the hungry, the whiny and the just plain crazy come to Pizzeria Bianco in downtown Phoenix, and settle into the outdoor picnic tables insanely early, even in 113-degree heat, eyeing each other with a mix of glee and gloating. For sure, they're going to get tables tonight.
They will shovel into their grateful mouths wood-roasted vegetables just barely picked, and fresh mozzarella cheese that Bianco coaxed from curd into milky wonder that morning. They'll dunk fire-tinged bread in local olive oil and sip wine until their teeth are plummy. When the pizza comes, it might be the Biancoverde, grassy with arugula, or the Wiseguy, all smoky and oniony, sausage-laden and divine. This is the best pizza in the nation, a New York Times food writer sighed in 2004. Nay, the best pizza in the world, crowed Vogue's Jeffrey Steingarten that year.
Be sure to click through for the sidebar, "Queue tips for fans of Pizzeria Bianco."
GREEN DOOR PIZZA Location: The Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem. Getting There: From the Damascus Gate, make the first left off El Wad. Telephone: 02-627-6171 Hours: Fluctuates depending on business. On busy days -- en Shala, Mr. Ali says (Arabic for "G-d willing") -- 7 a.m. to midnight. On slow days, he closes as early as 6 p.m.
Do the time warp: Abu Ali greets visitors to Green Door Pizza from his "pizza pit." After cooking an egg-and-cheese pizza, Mr. Ali coats it with uncooked tomatoes just before serving it.
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY SELTZERBOY .::.Let's say you've just traveled 5,600 miles, becoming the first person in your family in 2,000 years (give or take a few hundred) to return to your homeland. Would grabbing a pizza be on your mind? It wasn't on mine, either. Alas, duty calls.
We all eat pizza on the road. Not just to see how it measures up; we like to be reminded of home. But this wasn't one of those trips. Surrounded by the beauty and vibrancy of Israel, I never felt like I wasn't home. So I waited until home took its weekly vacation -- on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath, Jerusalem grinds to a halt -- to explore the local pizza trade. The only place to do that on Shabbat is the Old City. Aside from the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, life there beats as usual.
Holy land: A view of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City. The Dome of the Rock, Islam's third-holiest site, was built in 691 C.E. Below it is the Western Wall, the only surviving portion of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E.; it is Judaism's holiest site.
Old City is the part of Jerusalem that dates 4,000 years and draws religious pilgrims and curiosity seekers from around the world. It's easy to get lost amid the narrow streets and alleys, each filled with a different story from the city's compelling past. Following the action in this one-square-kilometer town, it's little wonder I ended up deep in the Muslim Quarter -- the largest and liveliest section of the walled city. What's surprising is that with nary a tourist following me, I ended up eating something called Arabic pizza. Much of Old City involves visiting ancient places; in the Muslim Quarter, even everyday life looks probably just as it did when the Ottomans ruled. Except that for most of the Ottoman Empire, pizza didn't even exist.
Not far from the Damascus Gate, Green Door Pizza is a respite from the bustle. Whereas all the action in the Muslim Quarter takes place on the street ("streets" are about 10 feet wide), the Green Door does its business in an actual sit-down restaurant. It's near the intersection of El Wad and Suq Khan ez-Zeit, but good luck finding any street signs. Most outsiders just call this the Arab shuk, using the Hebrew word for "market." You'll know you've found the right place when you see its large green doors, unmistakable amid the seemingly endless paths of stone.
Down a few steps are a few mismatched plastic tables and chairs. As I enter, an elderly man is eating a whole fish from a frying pan at the table nearest the door. From the next table, two middle-aged men look up with large smiles. "Welcome," an Arabic-accented voice says from the back. "Come." It is Abu Ali, standing ten feet back from the entrance -- and three feet down. Mr. Ali, who runs the Green Door, works from a three-foot-cube "pizza pit." In the hollow with him is a wood-fired oven (powered by a combination of olive wood and lemon wood); the oven's opening and Mr. Ali's waist are level with the restaurant floor. Talk about working in the trenches.
This pizza wagon one-ups any pizza truck on the streets of Manhattan. And then some:
Several years ago Douglas Coffin, a caterer in New Haven, built a portable bread oven that he planned to use at big events. When that did not work out (not cost-effective) he decided to put a wood-fired oven aboard a truck, drive to company picnics and birthday parties and make thin-crust pizzas for his clients.
At his friend Maurizio DeRosa's urging, Celeste chef Giancarlo Quadalti set out to make authentic Neapolitan pizza in the gorgeous wood-burning oven installed in the corner of his restaurant. A year later, DeRosa concluded that New Yorkers didn't want the real thing. "It was too wet for people. People would take napkins and blot the pizza to absorb moisture. We were devastated. We would look and suffer in silence."
But after an appropriate mourning period, Quadalti made the necessary adjustments. Now Quadalti drains the tomatoes just the way many American pizzaioli do. As a result, Celeste's pizza is probably not authentically Neapolitan, but it is quite delicious and Italian in conception. That means they use double-zero Italian flour, imported canned tomatoes (drained), and excellent cow's-milk mozzarella, imported from Maspeth, Queens. The crust is a little crisper than any I found in Naples, but trust me, Giancarlo, that's the way we like it. I usually have either the Margherita or a marinara (made with tomato sauce and anchovies here), but sometimes I get crazy and order the one with prosciutto and arugula. It doesn't matter what pizza you eat at Celeste. They're all delicious. After devouring your pie, it is imperative that you have gelato for dessert at Celeste. They're all made by the mad-genius gelato maker, Gino Cammarata, from the tragically shuttered restaurant Bussola. If you're with a group, have the "porcini mushroom" ice cream, made with hazelnut ice cream and chocolate sauce in the shape of, yes, a porcini mushroom.
CELESTE Location: 502 Amsterdam Ave. (84th/85th), New York NY Phone: 212-874-4559 Ed's Rating: 3 pies (out of a possible 4)
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.
Brio Forno is one of those generically sleek restaurants on New York's tony Upper East Side that I would have never walked into without a nudge from Simon Dean, one of the managing partners of the terrific Italian fish restaurant Esca. (Full disclosure: I am writing a book with Esca partner/chef Dave Pasternack.) He said, "Ed, I just wandered into Brio Forno with a friend, and we had a terrific pizza and an even better calzone." He didn't tell me about the stunning photos of gorgeous women that greet you from the wall as you walk in the door. Stunning photos of gorgeous women enhance the pizza-eating experience every time.
The other thing you notice at Brio Forno is the colorful, geometrically shaped pizza oven tucked into the corner. The pile of hardwood stored right beneath the oven indicates that Brio's oven is the real, wood-burning deal. I sat down at the counter right in front of the oven because I wanted to observe the pizzaiolo in action. I ordered a Margherita and a calzone and watched Andreas Rinaldi, who learned to make pizza in his native Buenos Aires, do his thing. He stretched the dough for the Margherita first, and carefully put some fior di latte imported from Naples on top of the finest-quality imported La Valle tomatoes. He used the same dough for the calzone, which he filled with the fior di latte, ricotta, prosciutto cotto (roast ham), and champignon mushrooms. A few minutes later Rinaldi slid them out of the oven and onto plates. The pizza was very fine, with a crisp, chewy slightly blackened crust. The sauce was clean tasting; the mozzarella just creamy enough. It would have been a perfect pizza if the outer rim had just puffed up a little more. The Calzone was almost too hefty to eat, but was tasty and substantial.
I asked Brio chef Massimo Carbone about his pizza: "There are no secrets to making good Neapolitan pizza. We use Caputo double-zero flour from Italy. It costs twice as much as American flour, but you really need it to make this style of pizza. The La Valle tomatoes are the best tomatoes to use for pizza. Even Mario Batali uses them. The fior di latte comes from Italy in two-kilo bricks. It's right for the pizza, but we use mozzarella di bufala for the Caprese salad. The oven comes from Italy. We use hickory and oak. The pizzas cook for only three minutes because they are backing at seven hundred degrees. Our customers are half neighborhood people, and half Italians visiting or staying in the city for a while. They appreciate what we do. We make them happy. There is one thing I won't do for anyone, however. We don't put pineapple on our pizza."
BRIO FORNO Location: 135 East 61st Street, New York NY 10021 Phone: 212-980-2300 Ed's Rating: 2.5 pies (out of a possible 4)
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.
A couple months ago, Slice began hearing talk of American Flatbread frozen pizzas. Word was that they're actually worth eating. While I still haven't tried one (I can't stand the crowds at Whole Foods, where it seems I'd have to go to get one), I have been noticing the company's name popping up more and more.
From what I gather, American Flatbread makes frozen pizza at two Vermont locations during the week, then turns the bakeries into informal restaurants on Fridays and Saturdays and turns out some amazing pies.
In addition, there are "licensed restaurant" affiliates in a handful of locations, mostly in New England but with one in Los Alamos, California. Anyway, the latest one to open was in Canton, Connecticut, as per this story in the Hartford Courant:
The entire Flatbread Company experience is not at all average. The pizzas range from the sublime (the "Punctuated Equilibrium" is laden with kalamata olives, organic rosemary, organic red onions, Sunset Acres Farm goat cheese and roasted sweet red peppers) to the simply magnificent (nitrate-free maple-fennel sausage and sun-dried tomatoes). They are baked in a handmade mortar and stone oven which is kept at a temperature of approximately 800 degrees, and fed by freshly chopped wood. (Young children seem to enjoy to dance in front of the oven in Canton as much as they do in Vermont.)
More bold words from the author: "... the most spectacular new pizza experience to be had in Connecticut."
UPDATE: ALL TICKETS SPOKEN FOR. But, people being people, we expect a certain number of cancelations. So feel free to e-mail to get on the standby list (there are only a few names on standby so far). Cancelations will be filled with standby names on a first-come, first-served basis, depending on number of open slots. E-mail pizzaparty [at] sliceny [dot] com.
I hope you're hungry, 'cause get a load'a this: Slice and Gothamist have put together a pizza party
at Fornino in Williamsburg. Tickets will be $26.06 each and include all-you-can-eat pizza as well as beer or wine. We only have 100 total, so reserve them fast if you want to go.UPDATE: ALL TICKETS SPOKEN FOR. But, people being people, we expect a certain number of cancelations. So feel free to e-mail to get on the standby list (there are only a few names on standby so far). Cancelations will be filled with standby names on a first-come, first-served basis, depending on number of open slots. E-mail pizzaparty [at] sliceny [dot] com.
Fornino makes some mighty fine pies using some great ingredients, including fresh mozzarella made in house and tomatoes and herbs grown in an on-site greenhouse. Chef-owner Michael Ayoub will be on hand giving a mozzarella-making demonstration, discussing the various ingredients in his pizza, and answering any other questions you might have. And, of course, the editors of Slice and Gothamist will be there, too, to shoot the breeze on New York pizza and New York events.
GOTHAMIST-SLICE PIZZA PARTY When: 7 p.m., Monday, March 20 Where: Fornino, 187 Bedford Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn Getting There: L train to Bedford Ave. Fornino is mere steps from the subway stairs Included: All-you-can-eat pizza and beer or wine Cost: $26.06 each Getting Tickets: E-mail pizzaparty[at]sliceny[dot]com for reservations. Be sure to include your name, e-mail address, and desired number of tickets (limit 4 per person). Tickets will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis. Any ticket requests in excess of 100 will be placed on a waiting list. Once we receive your reservation, we'll e-mail you a PayPal link where you can complete your ticket transaction and secure your spot. Ticket payments must be made by 6 p.m., Friday, March 17 Monday, March 13, or your reservation will be forfeit. UPDATE: ALL TICKETS SPOKEN FOR. But, people being people, we expect a certain number of cancelations. So feel free to e-mail to get on the standby list (there are only a few names on standby so far). Cancelations will be filled with standby names on a first-come, first-served basis, depending on number of open slots. E-mail pizzaparty [at] sliceny [dot] com.
Slice is happy to bring you another excerpt from Ed Levine's book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven. This time, Ed's trip to Naples. Be sure to click past the jump for a list of some of Napoli's—and Rome's—best pizzerias.
The pizza police, dedicated to the proposition that authenticity is everything, tell us that you cannot judge or taste pizza properly without having eaten it in Naples. Pizza wasn't invented in Naples (there have been flatbreads with toppings for thousands of years), but it is the place where pizza became popular, and where this perfect, simple food burrowed itself deep into the consciousness of Neapolitans of every class and neighborhood. Naples, they say, is where the modern pizza-eating rituals first flowered.
In 1830, the world's first pizzeria, Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba, opened its doors in Naples, and an industry was born. Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba is still in business, by the way. Fifty-nine years later, a pizzaiolo named Raffaele Esposito was invited to the Italian royal palace to make three pizzas for the visit of King Umberto and Queen Margherita of Savoy. The queen was apparently no dummy when it came to politics, so she declared her favorite pizza to be the one with the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), white (mozzarella cheese), and green (basil). Thus, Pizza Margherita was born.
Right around the time Esposito came up with the Margherita, Italians started coming to America by the millions, driven by the prospect of improving their standard of living. According to author Pamela Sheldon Johns, five million Italians made their way to America by the turn of the twentieth century, 80 percent of them from the south of Italy. Thus it was almost inevitable that a Neapolitan immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi would open the first pizzeria in America—on Spring Street in lower Manhattan in 1905.
Every food writer and historian worth his or her pizza crust has made the pilgrimage to Naples to taste pizza at the source. When I went, I was armed with clippings from many of the illustrious "foodies" who had gone before me—David Downie, Alan Richman, and Jeff Steingarten . To bolster my credibility and to guide me through that stunningly beautiful city, I persuaded Maurizio DeRosa to come with me. Maurizio is a Neapolitan native and the former owner (along with his mother and brother) of the now-defunct DeRosa, the only Neapolitan restaurant ever given three stars by Ruth Reichl during her stint as restaurant critic for the New York Times. We stayed at his mother's in the Vomero section of Naples, and set out to eat at the fifteen best pizzerias in the city. I actually would have gone to more, but Maurizio assured me that fifteen pizzerias in five days would be his limit. What did we find? Well, I hope Maurizio doesn't banish me from Italy for saying this, but what I found is that the Neapolitan culture of pizza is in many ways more interesting than the pizza itself.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT SIETSEMA .::.
A couple days ago, Robert Sietsema offered to let Slice post some of his photos from his recent trip to Naples. Before you take a gander, though, I'd recommend that you go read his account on the Village Voice site. It'll help put the photos in context.
OK. have you read Mr. Sietsema's column yet? Good. Now here are the pix. Be sure to click on them for larger versions, and click through the jump. There's more!
Naples street scene. Photograph by Robert Sietsema
Da Michele exterior. Photograph by Robert Sietsema
Da Michele interior. Photograph by Robert Sietsema
Da Michele pies. Margherita, foreground; Marinara, background. Photograph by Robert Sietsema
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 1, 2006 at 11:45 AM
Robert Sietsema visits Naples, making stops at the legendary Da Michele as well as nearby pizzeria Trianon. Regarding Da Michele:
The menu is limited to a pair of amazing pies. Most modern is the margherita (4 euros)óinvented in 1885 on the occasion of a visit from Queen Margherita of Savoia, probably the first pizza to feature cheese, which joins sieved canned tomatoes, a generous pouring of olive oil from an antique pitcher, a basil leaf or two, and sea salt on the surface of the pie. The older of the pies, called marinara (3.5 euros), has its origins in Mediterranean antiquity, an irregular round of hand-patted dough with tomatoes, raw garlic, andóoddly, I thoughtódried oregano, making it seem almost Greek. The dough rises with a decades-old starter, rather than commercial yeast, baking up as soft and pliable as glove leather. You certainly can't pick it up like a New York slice. The overall effect of both pies is a sublime blandness.
"Sublime blandness" may be the most befuddling compliment(?) paid to a pizzeria I've ever seen.
This review comes to us through special arrangement with Ganda Suthivarakom, who eats and complains on her foodblog Eat, Drink, One Woman. It was posted there in late November, after we met at No. 28 for lunch. Ms. Suthivarakom pretty much says all I wanted to say about No. 28, so I asked her to let me re-post her words here. Thanks, Ganda! WORDS BY GANDA SUTHIVARAKOM .::. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM K. .::. Adam and I hit No. 28 Carmine for lunch today. We split a Margherita (above) and a mushroom with truffle oil. Nice crisp-to-chew ratio, charred bottoms, perhaps a hair thicker than I prefer, but not in an unpleasant way. The Margherita had judiciously thin slices of mozz with delicious squashed San Marzanos in a good cheese-to-tomato ratio, though I could have used a little more basil. The mushroom pizza was a white pie with a fragrant but not overpowering sprinkling of truffle oil, setting off thinly sliced crimini mushrooms and rosemary. The meal was bookended by pizza dough in alternate formats: first as little blackened squares of pizza dough dusted with herbs and anointed with a very fruity olive oil; last in a champagne flute filled with hot, toothsome, cherry-sized zeppole (top right), dusted with powdered sugar and topped with a dollop of Nutella.
They've got a great lunch special—salad, pizza or pasta, and a soda for $9.99. Even better is the happy hour Beat the Clock deal from 5:30 to 7:30pm—arrive at 6 p.m., and your $14 pie is only $6. Arrive at 7:15 p.m., it's still only $7.15.
Chatty pizza maestro Salvatore obviously takes pride in his work. He changes the menu four times a year, so if you loved that zucchini flower pizza, you'll have to wait 'til September comes around again. But there are plenty of choices I'm looking forward to from this season's menu—like arugula and San Daniele prosciutto, or ricotta potato pizza, or anchovy with hot pepper.
Even with our carb-loaded lunch, I still had room to stick my foot in my mouth when I got back to work: Ganda: I really want to try their lasagne. They've got real lasagne, with bechamel ... Boss: What? What's bechamel? Ganda: White sauce. Boss: My mother is Italian, and I've never heard of lasagne with white sauce! Co-worker: What white sauce? Sometimes they put ricotta in the mozzarell— Ganda: [Sheepish] Yeah, but that's Italian-American...um...I'm going to go back to my desk now.
NO. 28 Location: 28 Carmine Street (b/n Bedford and Bleecker streets) [Map] Getting There:A/C/E/B/D/F/V to West 4th Street Phone: 212-463-9653
When the subways stopped rolling, everyone tried to roll with the punches. Some people pounded the pavement while others simply slept in. I ate pizza.
Two weeks ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority illegally refused to negotiate a contract with the workers who move New York. This courageous yet unfortunate work stoppage brought the city’s transportation infrastructure to a screeching halt. It was like Independence Day without the bombs. For the Slice czar, it meant a treacherous commute by shoe leather. For me, it meant a car ride from Queens and an impromptu commuter club with three colleagues.
The commute was surprisingly pleasant, at times evoking memories of college road trips. Packed in a carful of strangers, after an hour or two—the time required to reach the Williamsburg Bridge from Chelsea Piers—we all needed to get out to flex our cramped muscles and recharge with food. This, however, beat any highway rest stop (with apologies to the Roscoe Diner).
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 14, 2005 at 1:00 PM
Speaking of Pizzeria Bianco, back in November, reader Alex K. sent Slice some photos of the place on a recent trip out there. Alex probably didn't think we'd ever use these, but here they are. Of Pizzeria Bianco, he said:
Some people claim this is the best pizza in the U.S. It is very good, but not No. 1. The crowd lines up daily at least an hour before opening, and by the time the doors open, the entire place is full with more still waiting. Pictures include: The Wiseguy (right): Wood-roasted onion, house-smoked mozzarella, fennel sausage. A crowd favorite, but not my taste. From an objective point of view, this smokey combo delivers without being too overwhelming.
The Margherita (above): Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil. Really nice, and a pie that lets the ingredients speak for themselves. Simplicity at its best. Crust is really crispy yet with just the right chew.
Spiedini (above): Italian fontina wrapped in prosciutto di Parma, served warm. This was amazing and one of the best appetizers I have had.
And here's a pic from Bar Bianco (below), the adjacent watering hole serving really nice wines. If you are lucky, like me, you start and finish there.
Lucky, indeed. You've had the chance to eat at Bianco's place, Alex, while Slice and its readers are left salivating at the photos. Thanks for the peek.
One of Slice's favorite local food writers, Josh Ozersky, checks in with a story on Anthony Mangieri of über-traditional pizzeria Una Pizza Napoletana. Ozersky likens Mr. Mangieri to a young Dom DeMarco, oh he of Di Fara fame.
In his way, this young guy with tattoos covering both arms is a soul brother to the city's greatest and most single-minded pizza maker, Dominic DeMarco of Di Fara pizza in Brooklyn. Neither man seems to have any interest in the world beyond the loving, lingering task of making perfect pizzas one at a time.
Mr. Ozersky describes a UPN pie: "Pliable and elastic, the crust supports tomatoes that pop like a garden salad, and a thin layer of buffalo mozzarella which, thanks to Mangieri's practice of not over-refrigerating the stuff, keeps its extraordinary milky sharpness. Extra-virgin olive oil and oregano round out this concerto of rarefied tastes."
Delicious. It's only 9:30 a.m., and I'm hungry already.
Una Pizza Napoleana Location: 349 East 12th Street, Manhattan NY Cost: $16.95 per pie
Here's the good news about his new pizza venture: toppings, especially the more adventurous ones, are largely top-notch. Few linen-draped restaurants can boast of lamb as succulently braised as what's served here with bits of roasted lemon on one of the specialty pies (half-pies are $5 to $6; small pizzas are $9 to $14; large are $14 to $19).
But the crust makes or breaks a pizza, and at Waldy's, prestretched dough sits in plastic-covered piles, looking as uninspired as it tastes even after a journey through the wood oven in the back of the narrow space.
WALDY'S WOOD FIRED PIZZA & PENNE Location: 800 Sixth Avenue (at 27th Street; Chelsea) Phone: 212-213-5042 Cost: Half pies, $5 to $6; small pies, $9 to $14; large, $14 to $19 Payment: Cash and credit Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily
Regular readers will know that I love the Pacific Northwest. It's the most beautiful part of the Lower 48, hands down. So I'm always watching for stories out of western Oregon and Washington. And today, there's a wood-oven pizzeria review from the Evergreen State.
The Olympian visits a Farrelli's Pizza and Pool (it's a small regional chain) in Lacey, Wash., and has this to say:
At Farrelli's Pizza and Pool, the crust is the thing. The pizzas are wood-fired, which makes for those crispy brown spots on the crust. And crusts are thin, but not so thin that they fail to support the weight of the toppings....
... You also can branch out not just to the fairly common pesto and Alfredo but the downright adventurous salsa, honey Dijon, blue cheese and ranch. (Hey, aren't most of those salad dressings?)
Food-critic obligations aside, though, I didn't try a pizza with honey Dijon sauce. It's not that I'm that much of a purist, but rather that standard cheese pizza is a must-try for reviews....
... Farrelli's variation on [the classic pizza Margherita] added marinara sauce and balsamic vinegar; the former boosted the tomato flavor, and the latter added a touch of sparkle. The tomato sauce on the basic cheese pizza tasted fresh, but I would have liked a tangier flavor. And the cheese mixed provolone with the mozzarella, yielding a chewier texture.
Balsamic vinegar?!? Provolone? Well, the Northwest has gorgeous terrain and climate, but it won't surpass New York in the pizza category anytime soon.
FARRELLI'S PIZZA AND POOL Location: 4870 Yelm Hwy SE; Lacey, WA 98503 Phone: 360-493-2090 Website:farrellispizza.com
The Post gives props to East Village coal-burner Luzzo's in a story cleverly headlined Old King Coal. (Heh, those merry old souls that are the copy editors there.) What they say:
Lombardi's, Patsy's, Grimaldi's, Totonno's, John's. Aside from rabid fans, there's one thing these legendary New York pizzerias have in common: coal-burning ovens.
The super-hot kilns, aficionados agree, can elevate a pie to greatness by perfectly charring the crust and imparting a smoky flavor. But there are only a handful of them left, since city codes prohibit new coal ovens from being built.
"Nobody can get them. They're like taxi medallions," says restaurateur Charles LoPresto, who recently opened Luzzo's Ristorante in a First Avenue space with an existing, but decrepit, coal oven. By New York City law, they cannot be used unless they're grandfathered in.
"But they make the best pizza, and if they weren't prohibited, people would be constructing them." ...
One bite of Iuliano's Neopolitan-style pie proves it's crisp on the outside, tender within. A few dollops of buffalo mozzarella lend a creamy fresh counterpoint to a skim of tomato sauce that's uncooked, save for a three- to four-minute stint in the oven.
Slice was last at Luzzo's late last year, as part of an East Village pizza crawl that never made its way onto the site because my iBook fried and I lost my tasting notes and photos. We'll have to go back to Luzzo's again. The times we've been there, we found the crust to be crisp and chewy, exquisitely light, but a little bland and devoid of the nice char we like on Totonno's or Patsy's or Grimaldi's pies.
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 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 previous post about 
One of Slice's favorite local food writers, Josh Ozersky, checks in with a story on Anthony Mangieri of über-traditional pizzeria Una Pizza Napoletana. Ozersky likens Mr. Mangieri to a young Dom DeMarco, oh he of Di Fara fame. 
The Post gives props to East Village coal-burner Luzzo's in a story cleverly headlined 
