What is New York Pizza?
I have seen in many advertising banners that the New York Pizza is the best Pizza in the world. I don’t really know if its true.
New York pizza is often referred to as the original American pizza, since the first pizza place to open was in Manhattan. This is the famous Lombardi’s founded by Gennaro Lombardi in 1905, which still has an excellent and devoted fan base today. The New York Pizza though is credited to Lombardi’s employee, Antonio Totonno Pero, who opened his own restaurant in 1924 on Coney Island. The thing that makes New York pizza unique is its ultra thin-crust style. In fact people may fold slices of the pizza when they eat it because slices are rather large. Another feature of this type of pizza is simplicity; a good slice or pie may come topped only with cheese and pizza sauce, though you can certainly get other toppings on it if you choose. Devotees of New York pizza point to several other differences and features of the original American pizza. The crust, though thin, should not be cracker thin or crunchy, and the only cheese you should use is mozzarella. High gluten bread flour tends to be the
Well, it’s not Two Boots. Because who ever heard of a New York pizza with cornmeal crust? Here are the basics: The crust: Everybody knows New York pizza, like its Neapolitan forebear, is thin. It should be less than one-fourth-inch thick until you get about 1 to 1 1/2 inches from the edge; this area should be thicker, with good hole structure, i.e., bubbles. (In case anyone was wondering, this is one of the factors that eliminates Eagle Rock favorite Casa Bianca as New York pizza; it’s flat all the way to its perimeter.) Unlike Neapolitan pizza, New York pizza is large. According to Jeffrey Steingarten in the chapter titled “Perfect Pizza” in his book “It Must Have Been Something I Ate,” it’s 14 to 18 inches in diameter. At Vito’s Pizza in West Hollywood, menu says “the pizza comes in one size only, BIG!” (It’s 18 inches.) Steingarten also helpfully describes the crust in cross-section: “The bottom 1/32 -inch is crisp and very nearly charred. The next 3/32 -inch is made up of dense, de
Here are the basics: The crust: Everybody knows New York pizza, like its Neapolitan forebear, is thin. It should be less than one-fourth-inch thick until you get about 1 to 1 1/2 inches from the edge; this area should be thicker, with good hole structure, i.e., bubbles. (In case anyone was wondering, this is one of the factors that eliminates Eagle Rock favorite Casa Bianca as New York pizza; it’s flat all the way to its perimeter.) Unlike Neapolitan pizza, New York pizza is large. According to Jeffrey Steingarten in the chapter titled “Perfect Pizza” in his book “It Must Have Been Something I Ate,” it’s 14 to 18 inches in diameter. At Vito’s Pizza in West Hollywood, menu says “the pizza comes in one size only, BIG!” (It’s 18 inches.) Steingarten also helpfully describes the crust in cross-section: “The bottom 1/32 -inch is crisp and very nearly charred. The next 3/32 -inch is made up of dense, delicious, chewy bread. And the top 1/16 -inch is slightly gooey.” In short, it’s crisp yet
The San Francisco Board has these endless discussions about what NY Pizza is supposed to be. So if you are a New Yorker, what is pizza to you? If you are a transplanted New Yorker, especially a Californian, what are you looking for that you are not getting. I grew up in Connecticut, close enough to NY to know the city very well and ate a lot of pizza in NY and surrounding areas. All I can say is that we still don’t have it in San Francisco. Not that we don’t have excellent pizza in the area … still … when I’m on the East Coast and stop in even a nothing special pizzaria, with one bite the old yearnings come back and I think “why can’t they do this in SF? It is just dough, cheese and tomato sauce”. One of the discussions is that NY pizza has a darker bake. I don’t think that is true. I never actually liked a dark bake pizza. Then there is the issue of foldable slices. All I can say is that usually in SF, the crust is too thick and … well, really … everything is medicore … the
