Daily Slice: Prosciutto Cotto at Franny's, Brooklyn

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photograph: Carey Jones]

On the menu, it's Franny's Prosciutto Cotto, Onions and Caciocavallo ($17). It shows up on the receipt as "ham pizza." And that's a pretty good description. The prosciutto cotto (a cooked ham, as distinguished from the dry-cured, uncooked prosciutto crudo) is spread in a thick layer under the cheese—there's not a spot without it. This means that the overall effect of the interior bites is something more like a ham sandwich than a ham-garnished pizza — but I'm not inclined to complain. With a well-proportioned blanket of caciocavallo cheese and slender rings of red onion, it's a great combination, even if it's hammier than I'd expected.

A forerunner of the artisanal pizza boom that's swept New York City, Franny's doesn't get as much press nowadays; it's been edged out by places like Motorino and Paulie Gee's for the title of "latest and greatest." Still, with airy, chewy, crisp-edged crusts, great exterior char, and real hole structure, Franny's keeps on making damn good pizza.

Franny's

295 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11217 (map) 718-230-0221; frannysbrooklyn.com