Entries tagged with 'Reviews'
Posted by Daniel Zemans, September 4, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Bacino's has been selling stuffed pizzas since 1978, making it one of the oldest purveyors of the Chicago delicacy. The founder, Dan Bacin, had a background in business, not cooking. No marketing dummy, Bacin used a variation of an old Chicago political trick in naming his restaurant. There is no truth to the rumor that Barack Obama's last name used to be Bama before he ran for office in Chicago, but many political candidates have changed their names to appeal to the significantly Irish electorate. While it would make no sense to name a pizzeria O'Bacin's, adding an o to the end of his name gave Bacin's pizzeria some faux Italian authenticity.
I don't know the full story behind the founding of Bacino's, but it involves Giordano's (reviewed for Slice here), Chicago's most popular stuffed pizza chain. Not long after Giordano's was formed in the mid '70s, the company was looking to grow. Dan Bacin got involved with them but ended up going out on his own and starting Bacino's. I'm unclear as to the time frame and whether Bacin ever actually opened a Giordano's, but a search of the relevant page on the State of Illinois website shows that on September 11, 1980, The Bacin Group was registered as Giordano's of Lincoln Park, Inc.
For this review, I went to the Bacino's location in the heart of Lincoln Park. There are three other locations, two downtown and one in the suburb of LaGrange. The building itself, both on the outside and the inside, is pretty nondescript. There is a bar on a different side of the restaurant that has a little more to look at. There is also a downstairs dining area that I've never seen used.
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Posted by L.A. Pizza Maven, September 3, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Pizza wars, once confined to New York, now rage in Los Angeles. New York's dough-slinging gladiators, DeMarco, Grimaldi, and Mangieri, have their counterparts here in Joe and Vito, of their own respective eponymous pizzerias.
L.A. food bloggers, like their New York brethren, get rather emotional over pizza, which strikes me as odd since I've yet to taste pizza in L.A. (except for Mozza) worth getting especially excited about. Nevertheless, on the web locally, and on Slice, pizza freaks have slammed Joe's for uncharred crust, insipid sauce, and unhelpful and discourteous service. One gourmand opined that Vito's "is genius ... everything Joe's is not ... the best in L.A. (tied with Mozza)."
The claim that Vito's is tied with Mozza as the best pizza in Los Angeles, of course, is insanity. And I will admit that, though my first few pies at Joe's, made by Joe Vitale himself, brought joy and contentment to my gastrointestinal system, the quality definitely must now be considered, at best, inconsistent. So, given some of the raves about Vito's, an investigation was in order.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 29, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Photographs by Robyn Lee
As far as I'm concerned, every neighborhood in the U.S. should have at least one serious pizzeria. How do I define serious? The oven (be it gas, wood, coal, or electric) has to get hot enough (800°F, at least) to slightly char the pie and cook the crust all the way through in a few minutes. The cheese has to be fresh mozzarella, and high-quality canned tomatoes must be used for sauce.
Covo has brought serious pizza to West Harlem, just off the West Side Highway at 135th Street. My Margherita was more than respectable, as you can see from the pictures. The crust was chewy and pliable, the mozzarella was creamy and tangy, and the tomatoes and fresh basil were up to snuff. The other food we ordered (fried calamari, beet-and-walnut salad) was less successful, so I would stick with the pizza for now.
Covo
701 West 135th Street, New York, NY 10031 (at West Side Highway; map)
212-234-9573
covony.com
Posted by Daniel Zemans, August 27, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Burt's Place
8541 North Ferris Avenue, Morton Grove IL 60053 (map); 847-965-7997
Pizza Style: Deep-dish
The Skinny: Run by the iconic Burt Katz, a legend in Chicago pizzadom, Burt's Place features a deep-dish pie with a caramelized crust similar to Pequod's (no surprise, as Katz founded that pizzeria as well). There's a little too much caramelization going on and less cheese than is normal in most deep-dish pies, but Burt's is still worth checking out.
Burt Katz, creator of the caramelized crust, is probably the best known pizza chef in Chicago. In his career, he has owned four different pizzerias here. Inferno was already established in Evanston when Katz bought into it in 1963. Two years later, Katz sold Inferno (which no longer exists), and opened Gulliver's in Rogers Park on the city's far north side. In 1971, he was done with Gulliver's (which is still open) and opened Pequod's (reviewed here on Slice), which he kept for 15 years before burning out and selling it. In 1989, he had the pizza itch again and opened Burt's Place in Morton Grove, where he and his wife, Sharon, have been making and serving pizzas (usually with no help) for nearly 20 years.
Unlike most legendary pizza chefs, Katz did not travel throughout Italy, work his way up under a master pizza-maker, grow up in a family pizza business, or even go to culinary school. All he did was develop a very good crust; use high-quality, fresh ingredients; and proceed to turn out pizza after outstanding pizza for the next 45 years and counting. How iconic has Katz become? When Saveur magazine devoted an issue to Chicago, it put a slice of Burt's pie on the cover. The folks at LTH Forum, which in my opinion is the best website out there related to food in Chicago, have anointed Burt's Place as one of their Great Neighborhood Restaurants.
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Says Irene Sax: "The pizzas are hand-rolled disks of dough with charred, blistered edges and thin but flexible crusts. The rich, pure tomato sauce on the Calabria is topped with melted fior di latte, or cow's milk mozzarella, slices of spicy sopressata, briny black olives and onions ($13). The Brigante starts with the same rich sauce and cheese and adds thin prosciutto, arugula and Parmesan ($16). Meant for one, they are easily big enough for two to share and are definitely worth the voyage." 214 Front Street, New York NY 10038 (near South Street Seaport; map); 212-285-0222
Posted by Daniel Zemans, August 20, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Jonathan Fox was the CFO at Maggiano's Little Italy when decided to go back into the kitchen. Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, he had previously spent time working in a variety of cuisines, including French, Greek, and New American. He did not have a professional background in pizza before opening La Madia last October, but you wouldn't know that after trying his pizzas.
Fox did extensive research and travel, particularly in Italy, before opening La Madia, but he was surprisingly slow in answering when I asked what his favorite pizzerias were. He eventually settled on Da Michele in Naples, Italy; Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix; and 2 Amys in D.C. When I asked whether he liked deep-dish, he dismissed the notion in a way that would make many readers of this site proud. While I question his taste, I cannot doubt his abilities: Fox has built a nice pizzeria that offers one of the better thin crust pies in Chicago.
As La Madia is located on a busy commercial street in the northern part of downtown Chicago (about a block and a half southeast of the Rock N Roll McDonald's ), I was surprised to discover there was outdoor seating and large open windows at the front of the restaurant. I'm not a stickler for ambience, but the sounds and smells of three lanes of traffic might get in the way of pizza enjoyment. Once inside, I was happy to discover that the design of the space is such that the traffic did not affect the space at all (I still have doubts about the outside seats).
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 18, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Every so often, I like to hit the old coal-oven giants in the city to see if they're up or down. For the most part, the old boys do killer pizza, the kind of pies serious sliceheads would be perfectly happy with if they weren't so spoiled by the amazing cornucopia of pizza our town has to offer. But I've found over the years that the consistency and quality of the coal-oven venues varies. So I thought I'd give John's Pizzeria on Bleecker Street a try.
John's often gets slagged off in the comments on Slice and by various members of the pizza cognoscenti. I've always liked it more than others, though, and through a casual observation made by my dining companion last week, I think I've figured out why.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, August 13, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Caffe Florian
1450 East 57th Street, Chicago IL 60637 (Hyde Park; map); 773-752-4100
Each year, nearly two million people visit the Museum of Science and Industry. And though I don’t have the numbers to back it up, I think it’s safe to say a significant number of those visitors decide to enjoy a Chicago-style pizza during their stay in my hometown. But I would guess that virtually none of the out-of-town visitors to the museum know that there is an outstanding pizzeria just a few blocks directly west of the museum.
I grew up in Hyde Park, and Caffe Florian opened before I left for good, but I had not set foot in the place until recently. That was a mistake. I really do have a good excuse: Caffe Florian opened in a space that had previously been occupied by Medici on 57th and I was not a fan of their pizza. I assumed the location was tainted with bad pizza juju, so I never tried Florian. Turns out, that was an error in judgment and I am now committed to making up for lost time (and pizza).
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 12, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Spacca Napoli
1769 West Sunnyside, Chicago IL 60640 (map); 773-878-2420;
spaccanapolipizzeria.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan, as verified by the VPN
Oven Fuel Source: Wood, of course
I wanted to love Spacca Napoli. I really did. Having taken massive amounts of grief for allegedly dissing deep dish Chicago pizza by characterizing it as "at best, a good casserole" in my book Pizza: Slice of Heaven, I was hoping to swoon over Jon Goldsmith's VPN-certified pizzeria in the Windy City and put Spacca Napoli in my pizza pantheon. The friend I met there, Andrew Huff, founder of Gaper's Block, compared Spacca Napoli to Pizzeria Bianco. High praise, indeed, coming from a fellow as smart as Andrew.
I met Andrew there at 2:30 p.m. The day before, serious eater Michael Nagrant had taken me on a phenomenal tour of Chicago (more about that in a future post) that featured the cemita and the huarache of my dreams and the best Sicilian sweets I have ever tasted, so I thought I could continue my Chicago eats hot streak at Spacca Napoli.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 11, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Or, 'Irish Pies Are Smiling'
I received this intel quite a while back. I'm not even going to say when. Suffice it to say that the gatherer of said intel, science fiction author Diane Duane, emailed me recently to nudge me to publish it. (Apart from sci-fi, fantasy, and TV and film scripts, Diane also writes about food at European Cuisines.) Here it is, Diane, and thanks for the report on one sliver of the Irish pizza scene. —The Mgmt.
A red-onion-and-pepperoni pie at Gotham Cafe in Dublin.
First, a note from a native (though rather displaced) Manhattanite: Love your site.
I note, however, that while your sidebar has listings for other countries, in particular the UK, there's nothing for Ireland. Can I give you a suggestion?
There is at least one reliable New York-thin-crust-style pizza to be had in Dublin city proper. (There are tons of pizzerias, of course, but they tend to go more Continental/Italianate than New York-ish.) It can be found at Independent Pizza Co. in Drumcondra (a near-city-center suburb on the main road leading up toward Dublin Airport) and at Independent's city-center sibling, the Gotham Cafe on South Anne Street (just off the main pedestrian shopping street, Grafton Street).
David and Jackie, the owners, are both Irish but have a great love of the New York end of things, and for the past ten years and more have gone to considerable lengths to produce a pizza that tastes like an upmarket New York slice. (They don't do slices, by the way—it's whole-pie or nothing around here, though the small pie would approximate a couple of New York slices in total area.)
A Gotham Cafe pie with sausage, applewood-smoked cheese, and onion.
Live flame ceramic ovens produce great crusts. Everything hand-shaped, no machines are involved. Good toppings—excellent mozzarella, in particular, from the famous Sheridan's Cheesemongers a few doors down—with a wide range of topping possibilities, including some optional Irish additions you're unlikely to see in New York (applewood-smoked cheese, black pudding, etc).
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 30, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pequod's Pizza
2207 North Clybourn Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 (map); 773-327-1512. Additional location: 8520 Fernald Avenue, Morton Grove IL 60053 (map); 847-470-9161 pequodspizza.com
Pizza Style: Deep dish and stuffed crust
The Skinny: One of the better deep dish pizzas in Chicago. The thickness of the crust may upset the balance between the crust and toppings, but that the crust is caramelized by a thin layer of cheese results in a great, unique chewy texture. The sweet, chunky sauce goes perfectly with the sausage.
Pequod's was founded by Chicago pizza legend Burt Katz a little over 30 years ago. He sold the place in 1986, but Pequod’s has remained one of the most beloved deep dish spots in Chicago. There are two locations: the original in the Northwest suburb of Morton Grove, and another in the Lincoln Park neighborhood (where I went for this review).
Before heading to the restaurant, I took advantage of a trick that many deep dish and stuffed pizzerias allow—I preordered, which is like calling ahead for takeout, except when you get to the restaurant, you sit down and eat. Since these pies take 40 minutes to cook, it makes sense to call ahead so you don't have to wait long before starting your meal. I phoned in an order of half sausage, half pepperoni pizza before eagerly making my way over to Pequod’s.
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Posted by famdoc, July 29, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Editor's note: Mark H. (aka Famdoc), is back with another field report. You may be familiar with Mark's dispatches from the Reykjavik Pizza Company in Reykjavik, Iceland; Jule's Thin Crust in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; and the Kula Lodge on Maui. He reports here, from exotic Stockton, New Jersey. —The Mgmt.
Via Ponte's Ortolana ($14), which is topped with onions, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, and calamata olives.
Via Ponte Pizzeria Trattoria
13 Bridge Street, Stockton NJ 08559 (map); 609-397-9397; viaponte.org
Pizza Style: Artisanal, Neapolitan-style pies
Oven Type: Wood-burning
Price: Margherita pizza, $10; Napoletana, $11; Ortolana, $14
These are very good times for pizza, particularly in urban areas. As a New Yorker, I can shuttle from the East Village to Cobble Hill to Arthur Avenue and admire the handiwork of hardworking pizzaioli preparing artisanal pizza in custom-built wood-burning ovens. New Yorkers think nothing of waiting in line for one of those special pies, paying a premium for the privilege. A casual perusal of recent reviews on Slice supports the notion that a similar passion for artisanal pizza exists in many other cities.
If premium pizza is to enjoy widespread success in this country, it will have to make meaningful forays into the vast spaces between large cities. It will mean that risk-taking pizzaioli will have to introduce a new way of looking at pizza to a potentially large audience that's overwhelmingly accustomed to the Americanized idea of pizza preparation.
I recently had the pleasure of tasting the efforts of one such pizzaiolo who is bringing his interpretation of artisanal pizza to the riverfront community of Stockton, New Jersey, about 60 miles west of Manhattan in Hunterdon County.
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 24, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Apizza Scholls
4741 Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland OR 97215 (at SE 47th Avenue; map); 503-233-1286; apizzascholls.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan-American
Oven Type: Electric Bakers Pride
Price: Apizza ‘Margo’rita, $20; Bacon Bianca, $22; sausage, $20
In my pizza book, A Slice of Heaven, the last chapter was devoted to the "Keepers of the Flame," people whose dedication and single-minded devotion to making great pizza made them worthy of inclusion in what could have been called the Pizzaiolo Hall of Fame.
I still get excited when I'm in the presence of pizza greatness. So I was psyched to be in Portland, Oregon, eating at Apizza Scholls. Even the pie that owner and pizzaiolo Brian Spangler had reluctantly FedExed to me was pretty delicious. (Even after reheating it at a pizzeria near Serious Eats headquarters.)
When we drove up to Apizza Scholls, the line was snaking down the block, but we got to his place early enough to snag the last table. Brian's warm, friendly, and smart-as-a-whip wife, Kim Nyland, greeted us and escorted me into the kitchen.
Spangler and his crew were in full pizza-making regalia and mode because the dining room was already full of the people who had been waiting in line for an hour and 15 minutes. I wasn't ready for what happened next.
Brian pulled out a gun.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 23, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza, along with his friends, on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Very few places in Chicago sell deep-dish pizza by the slice. On a recent trip to Art of Pizza, I learned why. Until this visit to Art of Pizza, I had never eaten in the restaurant. I had only ordered whole pies and had them delivered or I had picked them up. I had never gone there for slices; and after this experience, I never will again.
The restaurant is located in what was once a small strip mall but has since become Art of Pizza Plaza—the restaurant has expanded over the years to take over the entire development.
Art of Pizza
3033 N Ashland, Chicago IL 60657 (map); 773-327-5600
Pizza Style: Deep dish and stuffed crust
The Skinny: It's not much to look at, but the Art of Pizza lands atop many Chicagoans' best deep-dish list. And they do have a great pizza there—just don't order it by the slice. The herbed crust sets AoP apart from the other players in town, and the crust on the stuffed pizzas are noticeably less flaky than at other joints
The inside of Art of Pizza is nothing special. In fact, for a place that many people rank as among their favorite pizzerias, it is noticeably unattractive. From the old formica tables, to the lack of wall décor to the 20-year-old television set to the view of a parking lot, there is nothing physically appealing about the restaurant. But just like it would be wrong to judge New York by the overflowing piles of hot garbage that line the city's streets, it is wrong to judge the food at Art of Pizza by the restaurant's physical limitations.
The crust at Art of Pizza is what noticeably distinguishes it from other pizzerias. Both the pan and stuffed pizzas feature an herbed crust that goes very well with the impressive amounts of mozzarella both pies use. Also, the stuffed crust, which is two inches tall around the outside of the pie, is not nearly as flaky as other stuffed pies in Chicago. I suspect they use either less shortening than other pizzerias or none at all, but I'm not enough of a breadsmith to be able to tell, and the kid working the counter on this trip had no idea about the dough recipe.
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Posted by L.A. Pizza Maven, July 15, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Editor's note: Today, Chuck K., a New York expatriate living on the West Coast, drops by with intel on the outpost of Joe's Pizza that opened in Los Angeles. Buon appetito, friends! —The Mgmt.
Step right up! Get your honest-to-goodness, 100 percent original New York-style pizza. Whether it's Tony's, Johnnie's, Frankie's, or Vito's, Los Angeles pizza purveyors love to claim New York authenticity in their pies. Not long ago, an establishment in Marina Del Rey killed whatever optimism I had left for "New York-style" pizza around L.A.
At this nameless place, the crust tasted like a ream of loose-leaf paper, and the sticky, sweet ketchuplike sauce was smeared all over the dough. The cheese, well, we won't go there. L.A.'s generally dismal New York pizza scene changed for the better a few months ago when Joe Vitale of New York City's original Joe's Pizza opened a red brick storefront on Broadway in Santa Monica. The sign screamed to me, “Yo, how about a slice?” Was I dreaming? Was I experiencing a pizza hallucination? Would an alleged New York–style pizza finally taste like New York?
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 11, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza, along with his friends, on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
The Chicago Reader, the Windy City's preeminent free weekly, recently named Coalfire the best pizza in Chicago. I disagree, but Coalfire does make a very good pie.
Neapolitan-style pizza has been making headway in Chicago for a few years, but Coalfire, which opened 14 months ago, is the only coal-oven pizzeria in Chicago. The creative force behind Coalfire is J. Spillane, who brought his pizza love to the Midwest from Worcester, Massachusetts. After ten years as a bartender, he perfected his pizza-making craft at home and opened Coalfire.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 5, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Do you remember when the Chicago Bulls had a 1.7 percent chance of getting the first pick in the NBA Lottery and won? Sure you do—it was only a little over a month ago. And surely you remember when the Bulls drafted Derrick Rose last week while the Knicks took some dude from Italy. I don't know what Danilo Gallinari knows about pizza or whether he is the next Frederic Weis, but I do know that Derrick Rose is going to be a star and that he is a pizza connoisseur. The point guard of the future's favorite pizza is Home Run Inn, an institution on the southwest side of Chicago.
Home Run Inn opened as a bar in 1923. According to restaurant lore, the place got its name after a ball from a neighborhood baseball game flew through the front window (which was not open). For the next 24 years, the family-owned bar established itself as a neighborhood fixture, with Vincent Grittani serving the drinks and his wife Mary cooking up midday meals. In 1942, Nick Perrino married Loretta, the Grittani's daughter. In 1945, he returned from World War II and Vincent Grittani died. Two years later, Perrino and his mother-in-law decided to start giving away Mary's pizza for free in an effort to boost business. Needless to say, the idea worked. Today, the business, which is still family owned and run by Nick's son Joe, has eight locations and a booming frozen pizza business, all of which serve up pizzas made according to the family recipe introduced to the world in 1947.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 30, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Toby's Public House
686 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (at 21st Street; map); 718-788-1186; kitchenbarny.com
Oven Type: Wood-burning
Pie Style: Neapolitan
The Skinny: A relaxing, laid-back pub whose name belies the fact that there are some great little Neapolitan-style pizzas coming out of the rustic wood-burning oven here. Small, 12-inch, well-balanced pies are crisp at the edges but do exhibit some tip sag
You could be excused for overlooking the great little pies being served at Toby's Public House. The exterior looks more like something I'd imagine you'd see in small-town England, and the name doesn't exactly scream pizza. But step inside, glance to the back, and you'll find a rustic-looking wood-burning oven with a couple no-nonsense-looking pizzaioli going at it with the dough.
What's more, on our initial visit there last week, we spotted a familiar face—Nicola Bertolotti, who once worked as the lead pizzaiolo at Fornino in Williamsburg. I've always liked the pizza at Fornino, so I Bertolotti's presence seemed to go a long way in backing up the praise-laden emails and IMs I'd been getting about the place since it opened in March.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 25, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
"I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite."
Lou Malnati's
Location visited: 958 West Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 (map; but there are multiple locations); 773-832-4030; loumalnatis.com
Pizza Style: Known for deep-dish but also serves thin-crust and gluten-free
The Skinny: The best deep dish in the Chicago area can be found at this local chain of pizzerias located mostly in the suburbs. The signature pizza, The Lou, comes with a butter crust, but it's worth the 75¢ upcharge to get the butter crust on any other pizza you get. Malnati's also serves a unique "gluten-free" pizza that does right by the celeiac set by replacing the crust with sausage
Price: The Lou, large, $22.50; medium, $17.85; small, $12.85; individual, $6.65
When I was a young sparky attending Cubs games, I noticed advertisements for a pizzeria called Lou Malnati's on the back of the tickets. I have a vague recollection (perhaps completely fabricated) that I asked my father about going there and he explained that they were in the suburbs and did not have stuffed pizza. That meant they were far away and that I would have seen no point in eating there (in my young mind, if a pizza wasn't stuffed, it wasn't good).
By the time I tried Malnati's for the first time in 1999, I already knew that deep-dish pizza was worth eating. But the buttery crust, sweet chunky tomato sauce, and fresh homemade sausage on a Lou Malnati's pie changed my pizza worldview forever. Since that time, I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite.
Lou Malnati and his wife, Jean, opened the first Malnati's in 1971 in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Before that, he had worked at Uno's with his father, Rudy Malnati. In fact, there is some debate as to who actually created the deep-dish pizza that Uno's introduced to Chicago. Uno's says Ike Sewell did, but a Malnati's spokesperson says that Rudy Malnati was the creator. According to Wikipedia, there was a 1955 newspaper article that backs up the Malnati version of events.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 23, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Or, 'Every Damn Slice Pizzeria in Park Slope'
You know, for all the pizza-eating I do in the service of this beast that is Slice, I typically focus on one place per blog post. I visit a few times, get a feel for the joint, and then file a dispatch for your approval. But a while back, I was forced to try a new approach—a systematic neighborhood slice survey. I had been asked by Time Out New York to survey the city's various Little Italys in search of the best pizzas in each one. Taking my journalistic duty seriously, I ate at each pizzeria in the various neighborhoods I was sent to—Bensonhurst, Howard Beach, Arthur Avenue, and Staten Island. (OK, with Shaolin, I had to ask some experts and narrow it down, so I didn't eat at every pizzeria there.)
Anyway, I quickly learned some slice-survey survival skills—like only sampling slices, not entirely consuming them. Like wine-tasting, except you swallow. I won't bore you with the other stuff I puzzled out, but I will say that I learned it was possible to tear through a neighborhood and get a feel for the slices on offer there. Recently, I decided I'd try to do a survey—or a slice walk—more regularly. So here's the first.
I focused on my own 'hood, Park Slope, for this one. My boundaries were Flatbush Avenue and the Prospect Expressway to the north and south, and Fourth Avenue and Prospect Park West to the west and east. I ate only where slices were available—no pies-only places. (Those, I'll deal with another time.) The results, after the jump.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 19, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Vito & Nick's Pizzeria
8433 South Pulaski Road, Chicago IL 60652 (map); 773-735-2050; vitoandnick.com
The Skinny: Very thin, crackerlike crust "bar pizza" cut into squares. Sparse sauce but plenty of toppings
It is a common misconception that Chicago-style pizza is limited to deep dish and stuffed pies. There are even many residents of Chicago who don't realize that their city has its own distinctive style of thin crust pies—a very thin pie with a crisp, almost crackerlike crust that is cut into small squares. At the same time, there are plenty of Chicagoans who think of that thin-crust style to be the true Chicago-style pizza. Personally, I don't care which one people think of as "the" Chicago style, I'm just glad I live in a city that has all three.
For your introduction to Chicago's distinctive thin-crust pizza, I went to a place few tourists ever venture other than to see the Museum of Science and Industry or the University of Chicago: the South Side. Specifically, I went to the Ashburn neighborhood, located on the Southwest side. About three miles south of Midway Airport and one mile east, Vito & Nick's stands on the corner of 84th and Pulaski.
Vito and Mary Barraco opened their first tavern in 1923. Another location opened a few years later, and in 1939, they started selling some Italian food. In 1945, their son Nick joined the family business, and four years later Mary began making pizzas with a dough recipe that remains a secret to this day. In fact, even the guys who make the pizza do not know how to make the dough. Nick's daughter comes in and makes the dough a few times a week, and the cooks do everything else. Also keeping the family tradition strong is Nick's sister Lee, who is a couple years shy of 90 and works as a waitress every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 16, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Click me bigger for a beautiful view of Sam's dining room »
Sam's Restaurant
238 Court Street, Brooklyn NY 11201 (at Baltic Street; map); 718-596-3458
The Skinny: A pizzeria that looks like it was transported lock, stock, and barrel from the early '60s has the most amazing old-school dining room. Thankfully, its pizza matches the awesomeness of the blessedly preserved interior
Oven Type: An old coal-burning brick oven that's now fueled by natural gas
Sometimes you just want to love a place for its old-school charm. Sam's Restaurant, on Court Street in Cobble Hill, is one of those places.
With neon blazing outside; old-school, hand-lettered painted signage; and six small TVs inexplicably unreeling footage in the windows, you're already attracted to the place before walking down a couple steps and in through the door that sports a none-too-subtle "NO SLICES" sign.
And that's before you even get a load of the interior. Once you do, Sams' time-warp quality hooks you. The joint is vintage early '60s red-sauce Italian mixed with a little bit of your grandparents' rec room. It is, quite frankly, one of the most beautiful dining rooms I've been in in ages.
Fortunately, there's much to love here beyond the space.
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Posted by Lance Roberts, June 12, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Editor's note: If you read the Dear Slice letter yesterday from homeslice Lance R. asking for New York pizza-eating advice, you'll remember he mentioned a piece he wrote for us about Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. I forgot to run it when he sent it in. But here it is. No worse for the delay, I might add. Lance, sorry about spacing this; I'm an asshat. —The Mgmt.
Sorry about the quality of the pics, I was too giddy about the food to focus. Anyway, here's the rundown. My friend Mat and I are in the same pizza obsession club with you, but let us first state our credentials. Together, we've tried 30 or so pizza places in Los Angeles where we live (Village Pizza on Larchmont and Mozza are the current title holders). I've done a lot of Chicago pizza, and he grew up in NY and recently went to Italy (and had the best pie of his life). After hearing all this Bianco/Mozza talk from Ed Levine and others, we decided we needed to know the truth for ourselves.
So we decided to compare them. We started with a decent breakfast that would tide us over until 5 p.m., then headed to the airport for a 12:45 p.m. flight from LAX to Phoenix. We arrived at 2 p.m. and took a cab to Pizzeria Bianco. Three hours later we were inside. Chris Bianco was working behind his counter with a focused look (or scowl, depending on how you see it) on his face that would immediately break into a smile the second he began to talk to a customer. We ordered two pizzas for appetizers, two for the main course.
Let me discuss them in order.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 11, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
In my last post I discussed the best-known example of deep dish pizza, the style that put Chicago on the international pizza map more than 60 years ago. There is a second style of Chicago pizza that people inside and outside the city often conflate with deep dish, and that is stuffed pizza. Of the many places that offer it, Giordano’s, which has proclaimed itself as "Chicago's World Famous Stuffed Pizza," is the best known and most popular.
Stuffed pizza entered the American culinary scene in the early '70s when Nancy’s and Giordano’s both opened in Chicago. The Boglio brothers, who founded Giordano’s in 1974, are from a small town near Turin, Italy, and say their stuffed pizza is based on their mother’s Easter pizza, which featured a double crust and was stuffed with ricotta cheese.
This makes sense except for the fact that Nancy’s claims its pizza is based on an Italian pastry. Given that they developed incredibly similar pizzas in Chicago around the same time and were from near each other in Italy, I suspect that there may be more to the story.
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The New York Times's food critic Frank Bruni reviews Ago in today's paper and makes a passing mention of the pizza in an otherwise dismal review of the joint. "Some of the other food passed muster. The best of the pizzas from Ago’s wood-fired brick oven had blistered, smoky crusts and thin sheets of decent Parmesan." In the Greenwich Hotel, 377 Greenwich Street, New York NY 10013 (at North Moore Street; map); 212-925-3797
Posted by Adam Kuban, June 11, 2008 at 8:45 AM
On Serious Eats New York, our man Ed Levine visits Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick: "The pizza is already very good and may or may not be on the way to great. But I don't think it really matters if it gets there, because the place itself is already filled with positive energy and good feelings, as well as plenty of really good food made with carefully chosen ingredients."
Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 5, 2008 at 9:45 AM
Editor's note: I'm pleased to introduce you all to Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago. Daniel and his friends have been blogging about pizza in the Windy City on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. He'll be dropping by here on Slice with the deets on the eats in this pie-mad city. —The Mgmt.
Greetings from the Pizza Capital of the World!
Stuff Chicago's Known For: The 1893 World's Fair, Al Capone, Michael Jordan, Barack Obama, deep-dish pizza.
This is the first in what will be a weekly series on pizza in Chicago. For those unfamiliar with Chicago—and having spent three years in New York myself, I know many of you are—allow me to give a brief introduction full of references to your fine town.
Chicago is in Illinois, one of the many states in this country that does not sit next to an ocean (and is therefore a great mystery to many in New York, where I'd imagine most of Slice's readership lives). Over time, Chicago has been famous for a few different reasons. In 1893, the city made its first splash on the international scene when it was chosen over New York and a few other cities to host what would be the wildly successful World's Columbian Exposition.
To most of the world, the Chicago World's Fair, as the event is commonly known, symbolized Chicago—until Brooklyn-born Alphonse Capone attained a level of power that no gangster ever had. Capone remained Chicago's enduring image until Brooklyn-born Michael Jeffrey Jordan mastered basketball and sports-marketing in a way that nobody ever had. While Jordan remains Chicago's most widely known icon, he is soon to be displaced by New York–educated Barack Obama (Columbia '83).
Just as Capone did with gangland violence, Jordan did with basketball, and Obama is doing with politics, Chicagoans have taken pizza and elevated it to a level previously unimaginable. Scale the pinnacle of pizzadom, after the jump.
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Posted by DJ Bubbles, June 3, 2008 at 2:00 PM
"What does DJ Bubbles think of the pizza at Pizzeria Bianco? Short answer: It is unquestionably great."
Above: The Margherita from Pizzeria Bianco—mozzarella rich and buttery, sauce sweet and tangy, basil fresh and evenly spread, and crust crisp yet soft.
As usual, I've taken my sweet-ass time between articles, and I know that has been a cause of concern for some of you out there looking for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Well, I think you may be in luck, because I think I've found it—and it ain't in New York City, suckas!
No, it may actually exist in the great American Southwest, in a little place called Phoenix. Yes, many of you are on to me and realize that I'm talking about none other than my main man, Chris Bianco and his eponymous restaurant, Pizzeria Bianco, where locals and tourists gladly wait hours in line for their own slice of heaven. While it is true that Chris is one of my new main men (think Ali G. interviewing an important U.S. dignitary: "I'm 'ere with none otha than my main man, Buzz Aldrin!"), it is worth mentioning that I have also designated the dude as one of my new Pizza Yodas (or PY; pronounced PIE). A PY is a counselor or learned man who has inspired, educated, or enriched my walk with Pizza. I have returned to New York feeling all of these things, and I have Chris to thank for that. Yes, the force is strong in me at the moment. It is my hope that, after you finish reading this article, it will be strong in you, too. Let us continue.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 28, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Photograph courtesy of The Beef Aficionado
When it rains, it pours, huh? The New York Sun writes about Artichoke this morning, as well. I knew this story was coming out, since I was quoted in it, I just didn't think we'd get hit with two Artichoke Basille items today. The thrust of the Sun piece is that Artichoke is one of the few pizzerias holding down the fort when it comes to good slices in Manhattan and that people are nuts for it.
Mr. Connolly, a New Jersey native, said the best pizza is typically from the Garden State and Staten Island. "Pizza stinks in Manhattan for the most part. Most places use bad ingredients," he said. "But New Yorkers will wait on line for an hour for a slice of pizza. They won't do that anywhere else in the world."
And this bit of news should excite the boozehounds among us:
Starting in July, Artichoke will offer a 32-ounce Styrofoam cup of draft Budweiser for $5. Now, there is only a half-size refrigerator with bottles of root beer and seltzer water. "If you serve Bud at 33 degrees, if you keep it cold, you can turn it over fast," Mr. Garcia said. "I anticipate the beer being a big hit."
As if they need anything else to make that line longer.
After the jump, the ramblings of a madman. (That would be me.)
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 28, 2008 at 1:00 AM
Photograph courtesy of The Beef Aficionado
The New York Times's outgoing "$25 and Under" columnist Peter Meehan "comes to the party late" but arrives nonetheless at Artichoke Basille's. Like most folks, he digs the place but quibbles about the queue:
Waiting in line for it spoils the fun, the spontaneity, the charm; needing to strategize to go there is a bummer.
But it’s the blessing of the New York restaurant world, too: supply and demand. The guys at Artichoke brought an underrepresented style of pizza — big pies on a bready, almost tough, crust, generously and greasily topped — and the city has gone nuts for it. Who am I to protest?
Artichoke Basille's Pizza & Brewery
328 East 14th Street, New York NY 10003 (East Village; map)
212-228-2004
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 19, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Editor's note: The place I wanted to visit for this week's review wasn't open, so I'm going to give you a run-down on my weekend in pizza instead, along with a makeshift review on an unexpected place. —The Mgmt.
The Most Insane Pizza I Have Ever Seen
Bacon pizza. That's right: B-A-C-O-N. At the Famous Original Ray's on 62nd and Lex.
On Saturday I was supposed to meet Girl Slice at an undisclosed location on the Upper East Side at 3 p.m. She must have called while I was on the subway in from Brooklyn because when I popped up in Manhattan, I had a message: "Meet me at 3:30 instead."
The less said, the better.
Lucky for me I can always kill time by sampling a slice here and there or by taking photos of pizzeria exteriors to add to my growing collection. Anyway, I hadn't eaten lunch yet and I was starving, and so it was that rare occasion when quality mattered less to me than convenience. And so, after about ten minutes of walking around, I found myself at Little Slice of Italy on Second Avenue and 61st Street. I have to say, for 3:05 p.m. on a Saturday, this block was downright deserted. And with its door propped open to the elements and only one almost-listless patron inside, Little Slice of Italy felt like an Old West saloon whose drinkers have fled in advance of the showdown that's about to take place there.
I ordered a plain slice, to stay, and the less said, the better. I didn't even bother taking a photo. It was a plain ol' generic greasy grilled-cheese-tasting slice. I finished not even half of it before tossing it.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 14, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice revisits Una Pizza Napoletana and, as per his first word on the place, doesn't quite like it:
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....
Related
All UPN posts on Slice
Photo Gallery: Robert Sietsema Visits Naples, Sends Slice Pictures
Forget UPN, Sietsema lurves Il Brigante for Naples-style pies [VV]
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 13, 2008 at 10:45 AM
I love Alan Richman's write-up on Artichoke Basille's, the East Village newcomer that has been more than well-documented on this site. Richman, known for just a bit of cantankerousness, gets in almost 500 curmudgeonly words (long, mismanaged line; shabby digs; annoying patrons) before coming out with it: He likes it. He really likes it. "This is ordinary pizza," he says. "It’s also fabulous pizza."
He digs the fact that the place is free of pretense, "No flour from an ancient fattoria in Tuscany. No basil smuggled in from a dissident farmer’s market in Croatia. No fanatical obsessiveness."
Of the three slices on offer there, he liked the regular plain slice the most ("beautifully balanced"). It's not clear whether he was able to try the signature spinach-and-artichoke-dip slice, as a fresh pie of that variety was about two hours out when he visited.
The pizza here, he says, is what ordinary food used to be like in New York: "... superficially no different from food anywhere else, but in reality considerably better. It had little to do with superior ingredients and everything to do with New York know-how."
Artichoke
328 East 14th Street, New York NY 10003 (East Village; map)
212-228-2004
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 12, 2008 at 9:45 AM
We were in Midtown in the 50s taking in the last day of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. But I also wanted to take in some pizza while I was there. Where to go?
With the Modern on 53rd and a hoard of mediocre good-enough-for-lunch slices surrounding it, I thought I was sunk. And then I remembered Angelo's Pizza, a coal-oven place on 57th Street, between Sixth and Seventh. And as I've never really done much about the place on Slice, I figured it was time for a revisit.
I'd been a number of times when I worked on 42nd and had even had a Slice Pizza Club outing there at one point. I'd never been that impressed with it. But last night's pie was good, if not great.
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Posted by Prairie, May 6, 2008 at 2:30 PM
Editor's note: And our roving pizza correspondent, Philip G., checks in from the Old Line State, good ol' Maryland. Buon appetito, ladies and gents! —Kuban
Ask any Baltimorean about what makes the Baltimore food scene special, and there is sure to be one answer: Crabs.
Crap. This is a pizza site.
When I thought about doing a series on Baltimore pizza, I knew exactly where I had to start: Pizza John's. I have been reading about Pizza John's for a few years now. It always seems to break into the top 5 of AOL Cityguide's Best Pizza in Baltimore, and it comes up from time to time on Chowhound, but up until recently I had never made the trip to visit.
Pizza John's has been a Baltimore area staple since 1966. It was a carryout-only operation up until 1981, when it added a seating area. The space was renovated and expanded in 2004. It is now a giant, mustard-colored building with a highly stylized exterior—almost reminiscent of a full-service chain restaurant. Oh, and it has a 12-foot-tall pizza guy statue standing out front. Confused? Me too. But he's been standing on that street since 1977, so leave him alone.
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Posted by L.A. Pizza Maven, May 5, 2008 at 2:30 PM
Editor's note: Today, Chuck K., a New York expatriate living on the West Coast, drops by with some news about a little slice of heaven in Sedona, Arizona. Buon appetito, friends! —Adam
Attention, pizza lovers: There is a pizza paradise that has been under the radar for far too long. I first discovered this oasis in the pizza desert (some say that's everywhere west of the Hudson River) four years ago when I was returning from a road trip through the Southwest.
I came to the proverbial f