Flo Consiglio adds up the receipts by hand in a back booth at Sally's Apizza in New Haven, Connecticut. [Photograph: Adam Kuban] I thought I had lost this photo of Sally's Apizza matriarch Flo Consiglio in a hard-drive crash. But I was able to recover some files from my camera's memory card today. Flo is a real character, as I found out during a recent visit to Sally's. But more than that, she's what our man Ed Levine calls a "Keeper of the Flame," a direct link to some of our country's fading food heritage. Here, after the jump, I... More

Frankie and Mary Lou Cappezza, the former owners of the now-closed Corona Heights Pork Store, are my culinary E. F. Huttons. When they talk, I listen. So when they told me I had to check out Rose & Joe Italian Bakery in their old Astoria stomping grounds, I wasted no time getting there. As usual, they were right. Rose & Joe's wondrous braided semolina bread has plenty of character and flavor. But as good as the bread is here, Rose & Joe's ultimate triumph is their Sicilian pizza. In the back of the bakery a young woman sells slices:... More

Most Sicilian pizza is just too thick for me, but Rizzo's in Astoria is the home of the wondrous thin-crust Sicilian slice. For 40 years, Joe Rizzo has been making thin-crust Sicilian pizza the way his father learned in Sicily. That means he uses homemade sauce (slightly sweet), full-cream mozzarella that lies ever so gently on top of the light—almost demure—crust, and just enough Romano cheese to give his pizza a little zing. When you walk into Rizzo's, all you'll see on the counter are rectangular trays of fresh-out-of-the-oven Sicilian pizza. After years of maintaining Sicilian-only pizza purity, Rizzo's... More

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

It's not always easy searching for pizza. I had just eaten a fine pie in the outdoor café at Tosca in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. It was really hot and muggy, and I was on foot, looking for PJ Brady's, which a couple of locals had insisted was just a few blocks away. I headed east on East Tremont Avenue. I crossed Interstate 295 on a bridge and walked two hundred yards. I reached Philip Avenue and made a right. The first house number I saw was 2800, and the numbers were going up, a good sign... 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

If you find yourself headed to Madison Square Garden for a Knicks or Rangers game or a concert and you have 15 minutes or less to get something to eat, Pizza Suprema is the answer to your prayers. A mere two blocks from a Garden entrance, it looks like a generic pizzeria. Don't be fooled. The regular slices have a crisp crust, a fine if overly sweet sauce and a little too much cheese. Have one regular slice and one slice of the marinara pie—a Sicilian slice coated with marinara sauce containing flecks of fresh onion, then sprinkled with... 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