Posted by Adam Kuban, November 26, 2007 at 4:15 PM
I forgot about this photo set, but earlier this year, our web developer here at Slice–Serious Eats HQ went on a trip to Dallas and visited Coal Vines, one of America's coal-oven pizzeriasnot in New York or New Haven. He brought back some pix, below:
Doesn't look half bad, does it?
Coal Vines
Address: 2404 Cedar Springs Road, Dallas TX 75201 (map) Phone: 214-855-4999 Website:coalvines.com Notes: Second location at 1251 East Southlake Boulevard, Southlake TX 76092 (map); 817-310-0850
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 is now making conventional Neapolitan pizza. I can't tell you how it is, though, because I refuse to order it on general principle—I come here for the Sicilian slice only.
Rizzo's
Address: 30-13 Steinway Street, Astoria NY 11103 (Queens, between City Avenue and Dunway Street; map) Phone: 718-721-9862
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 with mozzarella, onions, fresh garlic, and a splash of olive oil.
After 53 years, you might think the Denino family has gotten bored with making pizza. Not so, according to third-generation co-owner Michael Denino: "We still put our heart and soul into every pie."
Denino's
Address: 524 Richmond Avenue, Staten Island NY 10302 (at Hooker Place; map) Phone: 718-442-9401 Related: All Denino's entries on Slice
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 pizza is to make it with fresh mozzarella.
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 view of the salivating patrons, who watch as he turns out beautiful pies. Pollito uses low-moisture, slightly aged mozzarella, Italian tomatoes, and fine locally sourced sausage on his pies. His crust is fairly thin, bready, and soft and doesn't have much chew to it.
Bella Via
Address: 47-46 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City NY (at 48th Avenue; map) Phone: 718-361-7510 Related: All Bella Via entries on Slice
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 just enough Romano cheese to give the whole thing a pleasant tang. The Sicilian crust is thick but surprisingly light, with enough oil to keep it moist. If you're still hungry (and I don't think you will be) get a Roman slice, basically a stuffed slice with a crisp crust filed with sausage, pepperoni, ham, and cheese. After your stop here, you can go to the Garden totally sated, armed with the knowledge that you won't have to spring for the absurdly expensive hot dogs.
Address: 413 Eighth Avenue, New York NY 10001 (at 31st Street; map) Phone: 212-594-8939
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
In planning Pizza: A Slice of Heaven, I originally envisioned a chapter on "beach pizza," for pizzerias found along the boardwalk in places such as Ocean City and Atlantic City in New Jersey, and Rehobeth, Delaware. I eventually nixed the idea because my research revealed that most beach pizza is pretty awful (there are exceptions along the Jersey Shore that are written about elsewhere in the book). Another exception that I had to include is New Park Pizzeria, located in Howard Beach, Queens, right next to Kennedy Airport.
New Park Pizzeria is the paradigm of a beach pizza joint. You order at the counter and take your slices to the outdoor eating patio in front of the restaurant. There's a small heated room in the back where people eat their pizza in cold weather. The guys behind the counter are invariably teenagers from the 'hood, and they wear their baseball caps backward, but don't be alarmed; they're reasonably friendly. The pizza comes out of a super-hot gas oven that produces charred-on-the-bottom, crisp-crusted slices topped with just a little too much good commercial mozzarella.
New Park Pizzeria
Address: 156-71 Cross Bay Boulevard, Howard Beach NY (at the corner of 157th Street; map) Phone: 718-641-3082
Note: Many people know New Park Pizzeria as the scene of a really ugly racial incident in December 1986, when four black men came to the pizzeria looking for a phone to call a service station because their car had broken down. They were chased out of the pizzeria by a group of white teenagers and beaten with baseball bats and a tree limb. They ran onto the nearby Shore Parkway, where one of them was killed by a passing car. That was years ago, and though I don't think the NAACP is holding any meetings in Howard Beach, nobody working in the pizzeria was ever accused of any wrongdoing.
Wassup, Homeslices? Adam here. I arrived at at Serious Eats–Slice world headquarters this morning, sat down at my desk, and before I could do even a lick of work, the bossman, Ed Levine, started badgering me: "Whatever happened to the excerpts of my pizza book you were posting? I haven't seen one on Slice in ages."
City officials know a good slice of pizza when they see one: The street in front of Louie and Ernie's has been renamed Ernie Ottuso Square, after one of the owners. A Louie and Ernie's slice is a diminutive triangle of pizza pleasure in which grated cheese and full-cream mozzarella sparingly cover a thin-enough crust. Also worth the calories and the trip are the fried calzone and the white pie, both made with ricotta. The white pie, in particular, is Louie and Ernie's pièce de résistance. The overflowing ricotta was so sweet and creamy I could have had it for dessert. The mozzarella on it was clearly full cream, and there wasn't even a hint of tomato sauce on it. This was serious pizza. A word to the wise: Don't arrive too late. The pizzeria ends its day when the dough is gone. "We run out, we run out ... that's it," says John Tiso, an owner. "We close."
LOUIE AND ERNIE'S Phone: 718-829-6230 Location: 1300 Crosby Avenue (at Waterbury Avenue), Bronx NY 10461 [map] Rating:
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