Pizzacentric

Back in April, as I worked on an article for Edible Queens about women who make pizza, I began to wonder: how many pizza-making women are there?  I had my three for the story ― Lillian Calabrese of Lillian Pizzeria in Forest Hills, Rose and Susan Bagali of John’s Pizza in Elmhurst, and Gianna Cerbone-Teoli of Manducatis Rustica in Long Island City (above photo) ― but how many were out there who I didn’t even know about?

Years ago, when I lived in the East Village I sometimes went to Five Rose’s.  I liked theirpizza ― not too cheesy; thin, pliable crust ― and it was often along the way to where I was going.  But the main reason I stopped there was that the owner (and primary pizza-making person) was a woman.  That was novel.  Unlike Stromboli (1st and St. Marks), Nino’s (Avenue A), and even the alt-art-Louisiana pizza shop Two Boots To Go (down near 2nd Street), Five Roses was less hustle bustle, and molto mellow.  (Five Rose’s closed in 2008 ― here’s a story from the Vanishing New York Blog. 

I cannot recall any other Manhattan places I went to during the ‘90s or ‘00s that crossed gender lines ― and even today within the five boroughs, I know of only a few.  And so, as part of my “research” for the story I was writing I picked up a copy of the 2006-07 Queens Yellow Pages and called all of the pizzerias listed under “Restaurants -------> Pizza.” 

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Here’s how it went:

“Hello, so-and-so pizzeria, how can I help you?” 

“Hi.  I’m writing a story for a magazine about women who make pizza and I’m wondering if there are any women who work there who regularly make pizza.”

“Huh?” most of them replied, at which point I tried to clarify the question by substituting the word “ladies” for “women.”  That helped.

“Honestly, I never heard about any women making pizza,” said the guy at Luigi’s in Bayside.

“No, sir.  It would be hard to find a woman who makes pizza,” said the guy at La Vita Mia in Astoria.

“No, if I had any women working over here my guys wouldn’t do their job,” said the guy at Jack’s (maybe Jack himself) in Bayside.

“No, we don’t.  I wish we did,” said the guy at Pizza Classica in Flushing.

“ ... leave it up to a man to think that a woman can’t make pizza,” said the owner of Il Gusto in Ridgewood.  "That's not what I think," I replied, a bit defensively.

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But despite the surprise and/or cynicism I garnered from many of the calls, I discovered 19 Queens pizzerias (out of the 205 pizzerias I called) that do have a female pizza-maker.  Nearly 10% ― wow!

A few of those 19 shared with me their thoughts on the topic.
 

Josephine at Josephine’s in Ozone Park: “I don’t make pizza all the time but I can make pizza.  It’s hard work.  It’s not easy ― [and you’ll get] really huge shoulders and strong arms.  I think women are more cautious about the food they serve.  A woman has more inclination to feed the family and keep the household going so whatever she does [it] is more with love and [it tastes] better.

Rosa at Alfie’s in Richmond Hill: “It’s a family business.  For me, that’s how I got into it.  It used to be a man’s job but I was bred into it.  This business ― it’s in my blood.  And I love it.  It makes people happy ― especially our old-school customers.  If you make something with love, it comes out much better.”  “The work itself [is not appealing].  You need strength.  It’s more of a manual kind of work.  You need power to put into the dough.  Women have small fingers [compared to men].  But it’s a stereotype that it’s a man’s job.”

Sara at Martiniello’s in Maspeth: “I like cooking but I don’t really like making pizza ― in particular, stretching the dough.  It’s a lot of hours (15-16/day) and [you need] a lot of stamina.”

Lume at Neron’s in Queens Village: “It’s a hard job.  You have to have the touch and a love to make pizza.  Ladies are better [at it] than men but people get surprised to see a woman making pizza.”

Sandro at M&G in Whitestone: “My wife Theresa makes pizza every day.  It’s in her blood: her father owned a pizzeria and she taught me how to make pizza.  We both have a different style.”

Owner at Woodside Pizza in Woodside: “I have an employee who’s been here 2½ years.  Her pizzas are exactly the same as those made by men.  She opens a good pie.”

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Info on the three pizzerias featured in Edible Queens story:

John's Pizza in Elmhurst.  Open Tues - Sun 12 pm - 10 pm (Closed Monday).  Map John's.  Rose and Susan Bagali make all of the pizzas.

Lillian Pizzeria in Forest Hills.  Open Tues - Thurs & Sat - Sun 11 am - 9 pm, Fri 11 am - 9:30 pm (Closed Monday).   Map Lillian's.  Lillian makes the salad pizza.

Manducatis Rustica in Long Island City.  Open Tues - Fri 10 am - 10 pm, Sat 1 pm - 10:30 pm, Sun 1 pm - 8:30 pm (Closed Monday).   Map Manducatis Rustica.  A restaurant with pizza and more on the menu.  Gianna spends most of her time in the kitchen and, along with her employees, does make pizza.

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The Yellow Pages book I used is outdated and thus, this list is incomplete.  Contact me with info on others and I'll add them:

Alfie's Pizza in Richmond Hill.  86-08 117th Street.  (718) 849-8701
Atana Pizza Corp in Long Island City.  21-07 Broadway.  (718) 545-5304
Friend's Too Pizzeria in Ozone Park.  93-12 Liberty Avenue.  (718) 843-1233
Il Gusto in Ridgewood.  62-98 Ridgewood Avenue.  (718) 418-1112
Josephine's Pizza in Ozone Park.  132-04 Cross Bay Boulevard.  (718) 641-2775
M&G Pizza in Clearview.  19-05 Utopia Parkway.  (718) 352-6140
Martiniello's Pizzeria in Jackson Heights.  95-06 Roosevelt Avenue.  (718) 779-4733
Neron's Pizza and Restaurant in Queens Village.  215-32 Hillside Avenue.  (718) 776-6056
Pizza Bella in Elmhurst.  81-30 Broadway.  (718) 507-1009
Romano Famous Pizza in Astoria.  32-21 Broadway.  (718) 626-5292
Steve's' Pizza Place in Middle Village.  82-18 Eliot Avenue.  (718) 899-4751
Tommy's Pizza in Rockaway Beach.  915 Cross Bay Boulevard.  (718) 945-6054
Tommy's Pizza in South Richmond Hill.   93-12 Liberty Avenue.  (718) 835-4408
Venice Pizza in Flushing.  41-94 Bowne Street.  (718) 537-0104
Victoria's Pizzeria Restaurante in Corona.  111-17 Roosevelt Avenue.  (718) 803-8408
Vito's Restaurant & Pizzeria in Bayside.  78-37 Springfield Boulevard.  (718) 465-3855
Woodside Pizza & Catering in Woodslide.  44-06 60th Street.  (718) 533-8888

My first job as a photographer was for the Courier Newspapers in Brooklyn.  I covered community meetings, block parties, and press events.  I made no money and it was not sustainable — they paid $7 per photo (!) and did not reimburse expenses — but I loved doing it because my assignments involved photographing people in places all around the vast borough of Brooklyn.

I photographed in Canarsie, Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst, Flatlands, Flatbush, Midwood, Marine Park — and yes, the brownstone neighborhoods of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Brooklyn Heights — but also in Dyker Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant, Bath Beach, and Bay Ridge.  All were distinct neighborhoods, each had its own local politicians whose spiels I heard plenty of times — and each had its own best pizzerias, many of with which I became familiar.

Last Saturday I returned for the first time in a while to Nino’s in Bay Ridge.  The visit was fruitful due not only to the several slices of pizza I ate but also because State Senator Marty Golden — an affable Republican from Bay Ridge who I had photographed plenty of times for Courier Papers (and then later for the NY Daily News) —came in while I was there.  Somehow, his presence added validation to what I already knew to be true: Nino's makes good pizza.  We chatted for a minute.  He told me Nino's is one of several stops along his regular Saturday route: “Pizza at Nino’s, then I'll have an espresso next door, and I'm doing laundry across the street.” (I asked him why a person of his stature was using a laundromat and — like a pro — he evaded the question.)  (Rollover the above photo of the scene outside of Nino's for a 2001 photo I made for the Courier.  Senator Golden is second from right.)

I should mention that Senator Golden had a square of Nino’s grandma pizza.  At Nino’s, it’s called "Gran Mama" and it is far thinner than grandma pies at other pizzerias.    

For a full description of Nino’s Gran Mama and other pies I tried last weekend, visit the sister review I’ve posted onto slice.seriouseats.com.  

(Above photo shows one of Nino’s owners, Benny Cerva, holding a Gran Mama pie fresh from the oven.)

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Nino's Pizza is open 10 am - 11 pm, 7 days/week.  Map Nino's Pizza.

It was lunchtime, I was hungry, and I needed cash.  On the way to my bank I walked past the local fish store and asked the owner to clean a couple of soft shell crabs for me.  I picked them up on the way home and brought them into the kitchen.  Moments after immersing them into a bowl of milk for plumping, a couple of legs on one of them seemed to move.  I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s interesting.  So it was crimped up and now it’s floating out because of the liquid.  It’s not alive, is it?”  

Then those little legs moved back to where they had been.  Back and forth a couple of times.  

In an instant I was back in my Suffolk Street apartment ― summer of 1990 ― where I had thrown my first of several biennial crab feasts.  That year, we went through two bushels of crabs in one night.  The morning after, I discovered a single live crab on the floor outside the kitchen and for one moment I wondered what to do.  Should I should cook it?  (“No,” said my roommate Chris, who ― though hung over ― had no trouble channeling a voice of reason.)  Should we set it free in the East River? (Humane as this sounded, we concluded it could not survive in the East River.)  Should we throw it out in the garbage?  That’s what we did.  (To this day I lament its loss because it was, alas, a crab gone to waste.)

Yesterday, with the pressure of an unexpected live crab again upon me,  I ran to get my video camera.  “If this is the death of a crab,” I thought to myself, “I might as well document it.”  

But when I returned to the kitchen only seconds later the crab was kaput.  I touched its leg: no movement.  

It shouldn’t have survived its eyes getting cut off and whatever else happens when one asks a fishmonger to clean a crab.  But for whatever reason the powers above had granted this creature a few added minutes of useless reprieve. One could say the final cause of death was DROWNED BY MILK.  (I hope it felt no pain but I don’t want to know ― I like crabs too much.)

I waited 25 minutes for the crabs to plump, and then I sautéed them in olive oil with salt and pepper. 

To sauté soft shell crabs, start with the top side down and cook 3-4 minutes per side over medium heat.  This way they can develop a good crunch and bright red sheen.  (Roll over top photo for a frying pan view of the topsides.) I usually dredge soft shells in flour and cook them in butter, but yesterday I followed the advice from Mark Bittman's recent article and made them sans flour (I used olive oil instead of butter).  

(Bittman's article offers a range of cooking options but does not suggest a milk bath.  Read it here.)

For my lunch, I sandwiched the two crabs in a twelve-inch segment of day-old toasted baguette along with Trader Joe’s “Aioli Garlic Mustard Sauce,” chopped cilantro and scallion from the fridge, and a squeeze of lemon.  Soft shell crabs work with any flavors.  Use the foods you have.  That said, my favorite soft shell crab sandwich has slices of late-summer tomato and sweet onion, lemon juice, and a thin spread of tartar sauce. 

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Many fish stores and markets sell soft shell crabs.  I went to Carroll Gardens Fish Market, in Brooklyn, NY.  The price can vary, but in early May 2012, I paid $6.66 for two crabs (based on three for $10).  

Carroll Gardens Fish Market is open Monday - Friday 9 am - 7:30 pm; Saturday 9 am - 12 pm; closed Sunday. Map Carroll Gardens Fish Market.

SLIDESHOW: Big Slice at Broadway/110th St., NYC

Pizzamen at Koronet combine solid gripping and body girth to maneuver pies into the oven.

Five years after opening in 1981, Koronet upped the diameter of its pies from 26" to 32".

At $3.75 per slice, it's a meal option as cheap as any around.

Extra cheese on a Koronet slice? Not recommended.

Humbled but determined.

As an undergraduate at NYU I rotated through many good pizza options in the Village, but whenever friends at Columbia invited me to their parties uptown, my thoughts turned to that huge Koronet slice I knew I would have at the end of the night.  

Koronet doesn’t need to be good.  Drunk people ― and those seeking value ― will happily spend $3.75 for this meal-size conglomeration of dough, sauce, and cheese.  (One time I ate two, but don’t be impressed.  My friend R., a cyclist who consumed massive amounts of carbs, could eat three.  And (I’m not sure I believe this) when I visited Koronet back in December, the on-duty pizzaman told me he’s seen someone eat six at a time.  Just not possible.)

It so happens that Koronet transcends schtick and serves a formidable triangle of classic New York pie (though I wish it they would cook it a minute or two longer).  The cheese alone weighs about a quarter-pound per slice, but spread out across such massive real estate it neither overwhelms nor becomes rubbery.  The sauce, spiked with oregano and black pepper, asserts itself (and the owners' Greek origins) through every bite.  The crunchy and chewy crust folds well despite its size ― but do use two hands.

Over the years, I’ve seen many pizzerias decline in quality or close down.  I recently visited one old favorite on University Place and had to throw away my slice: the crust was mush and it tasted of gas oven.  I nearly cried.  But against many odds, Koronet has remained consistent through the years.

I asked co-owner Peter Manikis to share his philosophy on Koronet’s longevity.  His answer: “It always stays the same.  We haven’t changed or dropped the quality.”  Cliché words from many a restauranteur, but in the case of Koronet it's a boast that rings true.

So, message of the day to good pizzerias: please don’t change the formula ― we like things as they are.

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Map Koronet.  Koronet is open Sunday - Wednesday 10 am - 2 am; Thursday - Saturday 10 am - 4 am.  Tel. 212-222-1566.

We have many names for those elongated sandwiches stuffed with meats, vegetables, and cheese — you know the ones.  

I believe the plural of hero — the sandwich hero, I mean — is heros.  No e.  I'd bet most refer to this sandwich as a sub, which is short for submarine.  The name derives from its shape.  

Are hoagies and grinders both from Philadelphia?  I believe a grinder is a cooked hoagie, but I assume the cheesesteak is Philly's best-known submersible.  

The contents of a po' boy may be strictly defined, but its shape also approximates that of a sub.  

Many Italian delis in NYC make a fried calamari hero but I've never had one.  More often than not, I order chick parm on a roll.  A hero is pretty big.  I once tried shrimp on a hero, but I'm not into the idea of drowning juicy seafood in a mini-loaf of bread.

Similar broadness exists for the word pizza in Italian.  We define pizza as a flat round dough with tomato sauce and cheese on top.  Put aside wood versus gas versus coal, thick versus thin, pan versus no pan, and plate-size-fancy versus large-size-sharable — and you have a word.

Pizza ripiene translates to "filled pizza."  It appears in many iterations across Italy — including in the format of a calzone.  In towns along the slopes of Mount Etna (such as Viagrande, where I visited Gran Caffè Urna), pizza siciliana is a fried calzone filled with tuma cheese (oozy and buttery, made from cow's milk, difficult to find in the US) and one or two anchovies (photo below shows the pizza siciliana at Urna).  

A panzerotti, by the way, is a little five-bite jobby of a pizza; and pizza farcita is like pizza ripiene but closed around the perimeter.

Schiacciata is a word I just learned.  It means "flat bread baked with non-tomato stuff on top" and can be synonymous with focaccia — or a pizza without tomato sauce.  Imagine if schiacciata had evolved as the primary word to describe pizza.  To what degree would Americans have embraced it?

Many Americans (or at least New Yorkers) refer to pizza as a "pie," but a pizza rustica — which translates to "rustic pizza" — resembles pie more than pizza.   Italians eat pizza rustica when they get together with family or friends (in other words, just about any time), while Italian bakeries and pastry shops in the US sell it only around Christmas and Easter.

Home cooks make their pizze rustiche in countless ways, but the crust should be pastry, not bread.  My friend Laura grew up in Bologna eating her grandmother's homemade rendition (it had no meat, only cheese and vegetables).  The crust was so good, she told me, she rushed through the filling just to get to it.

In New York, pizza rustica is usually filled with salami or sopressata and a blend of cheeses.  The bakers at F. Monteleone, on Court Street in Brooklyn, fill a pastry-lined pie tin with a blend of Italian fontina, fresh mozzarella, auricchio, and ricotta (actually, two types of ricotta: standard fresh ricotta and pastry ricotta), chunks of sweet and spicy sopressatas, and eggs.  The end result is buttery, salty, and fluffy, with a tug of meat-chew in every bite — a nice break from dough, sauce, and cheese!

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Here's a list of pastry shops in New York that offer pizza rustica around Easter and Christmas times:

F. Monteleone - 355 Court Street - Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn - (718) 852-5600 - map
Mona Lisa - 7717 13th Avenue - Dyker Heights, Brooklyn - (718) 256-7706 - map
Fortunato Brothers - 289 Manhattan Avenue - Williamsburg, Brooklyn - (718) 387-2281 - map
Elegante - 165 Avenue U - Gravesend, Brooklyn - (718) 373-7008 - map
Ferrara - 195 Grand Street - Little Italy, Manhattan - (212) 226-6150 - map
Veniero's  - 342 East 11th Street - East Village, Manhattan - (212) 674-7070 - map
Terrizzi - -35-14 30th Avenue - Astoria, Queens - (718) 726-9698 - map

F. Monteleone, the shop from which I sampled pizza rustica this season, offers it in three sizes: 10" ($25), 8" ($20), and mini ($2.50).  

The first thing you notice at Di Fara Pizza on Avenue J in Midwood, Brooklyn is how shabby it looks.  The trash can’s mouth is overflowing — and on top of it, empty cans and bottles accumulate.  If there is an empty table, it needs to be wiped off.

You’ll also notice that the place is in a state of barely contained chaos.  There are dozens of people waiting — but with no clear line.  The list of orders is in a spiral notebook and on tops of pizza boxes — stacked at least a dozen high — and subject to frequent rearranging.  You have questions.  Q1: Has everyone already placed their orders?  (Probably not.)  Q2: Should you raise your hand or call out? (Definitely not.)  Q3: But what if they are waiting for whole pies and you just want a slice or two?  (Keep an eye on the slice pie.  Politely ask, if you notice extras.)  

At Di Fara you will wait, and probably wait for a while.  Sometimes the wait is an hour or more — just for a slice — in this small and crowded room where the air conditioning barely works.

My friend George calls Di Fara “crack pizza.”  Like addicts waiting for their dealer, customers at Di Fara wait for pizza made by owner Dom DeMarco, in a test of endurance.  If you look into their eyes you can practically see their thoughts — begging him to work faster, willing that next pizza to be theirs.  Stomachs grumble.  Elbows are locked in defensive positions.  The addict doesn’t know when the dealer will arrive, but he does know that applying pressure pays no dividends.  Customers know that you don’t rush Dom — he would never consider moving faster because the pizza would suffer.

The wait isn’t for everyone.  I’ve seen bemused first timers retreat to their cars mumbling and pizzaless, after five minutes.  Another friend of mine loves the pizza but cannot endure the wait inside.  He snags a beer from the deli across the street and sips it in the car, visiting me inside occasionally to check on our progress.  The neighbors, who sustained this business for its first 30 years, don’t come anymore.  They can’t fathom waiting so long.  Some have asked if there could be a “locals’ day,” where they could reclaim Di Fara and not have to wait behind the usual pizza excursionists from beyond the neighborhood. 

I’ve learned not to be bothered by the wait.  In fact, I’ve grown to relish it.  Dom, who is 75 as of this writing, essentially works alone, only ceding the tasks of food prep, taking orders, and making sense of the “line” to one of his sons or daughters.  But when it comes to making the pies, Dom delegates nothing.  To me, watching him is like watching a virtuoso soloist.

It starts with stretching out a new dough on the peel.  He ladles on the sauce and then uses a paring knife to cut mozzarella into small pieces.  They land in the center of the dough and he distributes them around.  It’s not done yet, but he turns to open the oven and uses his bare hands to bring a finished pie to the counter, without hurry, lowering it into a box.  He turns to grab the oil tin, opens the oven, pours some olive oil atop a nearly done square pie, and closes the oven.  He returns to the finished pizza in the box and — steam still rising — drizzles on some final oil and adds a couple fistfuls of grated cheese.  With scissors he clips basil from a thick rubber-banded bunch — straight onto the pie.  He closes the box, and with a tap of finality, briefly acknowledges the customer with a nod.  The delighted and relieved customer pays and goes.  The man on stage goes back to preparing the pizza on the peel, restretching the dough with his back to the crowd.  The rest of the people — who have watched his every move since first entering — each step forward a couple of inches to fill the new space.  The wait continues.

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DI FARA ESSENTIALS

Who: Owner Domenico DeMarco (with five of his seven kids alternating as his backup team).  

What’s there: Two kinds of pizza: round & square, available as a whole pie or by the slice.  All pizza made with liberal amounts of a chunky San Marzano tomato sauce, at least two types of cheese (grana padano, low moisture (whole milk) mozzarella, and fresh cow's milk or buffalo mozzarella (for the square pies only)), extra virgin olive oil, and fresh snipped basil.  Standard toppings (pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, onions, garlic, black olives, meatballs, anchovies, and peppers) and gourmet toppings (artichokes, porcini mushrooms, green olives, baby eggplant, broccoli rabe, wild onions, sun-dried roasted peppers, and sun-dried cherry tomatoes) available.  White pizza and calzones also offered.  BYO.

Why go: Go for the pizza and for the slow food drama.  His kids plan to continue the business after he retires — and the pizza will remain great — but it may take them a while to achieve their father’s standards of perfection.  “If some pies come out some way I no like, I just throw them in the garbage,” says Dom.

How: DeMarco takes New York style pizza and amps it up with insane amounts of premium ingredients.  Each year he burns out a couple of thermostats because he keeps the oven cranked up to 800-900 degrees — well above the norm for a gas-burning pizza oven.  Dom moves slowly — not only because he’s 75 — but because to him each pizza is a project that merits extremely careful attention.  When asked what makes his pizza special, the first words out of his mouth are, “My hands.”

Quote: “Never come here when you have an appointment or a plane to catch.” -- Dom’s daughter, Margaret DeMarco Mieles

411: 1424 Avenue J (at East 15th Street) in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn.  Tel. 718-258-1367.  Q train to Avenue J.  Map Di Fara. Hours: Wed - Sat: lunch 12 - 4:00 pm, dinner 7 - 9 pm; Sun: lunch 1 - 4 pm, dinner 7 - 8 pm; closed Monday and Tuesday.  Check Di Fara’s Facebook page for updated and last minute changes.

Photos by Scott Wiener, 2017

1.  Me
Pizza inspires passion.  Whether it’s a debate about which city has the best pizza or which neighborhood pizzeria serves up the superior slice, everywhere you go, opinions about pizza are legion, arguments are fierce, loyalties are lifelong — and everyone is an expert.

I witnessed that passion at my Uncle Charles’s restaurant.  In 1977, he opened Geppetto on M Street on the edge of Georgetown in Washington, DC.  His pizzas quickly became legendary, and not long after, so did the waits.  Geppetto maintained a no-reservation policy, and with no bar area, patrons had to wait outside on the street when the 60-seat dining room was full.  And whatever the weather, wait they did — sometimes for as long as two hours.  It didn’t matter whether you were a tourist or a native Washingtonian; whether you were a rock band on tour (Van Halen waited), news anchor (Charlie Rose waited), or politician (a young Senator Joe Biden and his family waited).  During one brutal evening, a manager reported that the King of Jordan was among the throngs hoping to get a table. Uncle Charles looked up from his work and with just a hint of a smile replied, “At Geppetto, even royalty waits.”

I still laugh when I recall composer Marvin Hamlisch’s unrelenting obsession.  In town frequently for shows at Constitution Hall or the Kennedy Center, he was often booked on local radio and TV programs to promote his gigs.  But as often as not, he’d veer off topic and rhapsodize about Geppetto — the mounds of pepperoni piled on the Neapolitan pie, or the perfect fontina cheese of the garlicky white pizza.  Befuddled reporters tried in vain to steer the interview back to music, but it was a lost cause.  Hamlisch was in the throes of pizza delirium and simply couldn’t help himself.  (I will admit that Marvin was the one person who never had to wait for a table at Geppetto).

I moved to New York City in 1987 for college and roamed the streets on foot, camera in hand, taking in the neighborhoods and the nuanced changes that occur block by block.  I also discovered what New Yorkers
already knew: really, really good pizza is everywhere.  

The Stromboli Pizza near my dorm was on University Place near 12th Street. This photo shows the other Stromboli location — at the time equally good and very busy — at Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place, c.1991.

The go-to joint near my dorm was Stromboli Pizza.  It was a bright, mirrored little room that was busy all the time: at night with college kids and tipsy drinkers who’d spilled out of the neighborhood bars; during the day with office and retail workers on lunch break.  I ate at the ages-old John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street, where the walls and booths were covered with scratchiti, and it smelled of dark toast and sweet tomatoes.  When I visited friends up at Columbia, I went to Koronet on Broadway where a single slice from a gigantic 32” pie provided fuel for the day.  One cold night, my girlfriend and I drove to Coney Island — desolate in the winter — where with the help of a friend, we downed three charred pies at the legendary Totonno Pizzeria Napolitano.  At Di Fara, where there was no discernible line, I waited and salivated and — mesmerized by the styrofoam coolers of buffalo mozzarella just flown in from Italy — I waited some more.  

The 32” pie at Koronet, on Broadway near 111th Street, in 2002.

Over the last dozen years as a photographer I’ve covered everything from club openings to crime scenes, sent on assignment by newspapers to neighborhoods in all corners of the city.  These forays also were personal pizza hunts — yondering quests to discover the best pizza wherever a job took me.  Though there’s always more “research” to do, I think I’ve compiled a good list.  If you name the neighborhood, I’ll name the joint.  Canarsie?  Original, on Avenue L.  East Harlem?  Patsy’s.  South Beach, Staten Island?  Lee’s Tavern. 

Perhaps no food is more personal and more intimate.  At many pizzerias, the guy behind the slice also owns the business.  Check out his hands and forearms — those calluses and scars tell stories: he wrote the recipe long ago and perfected it over the years; he made the dough and sauce that morning or the night before; and he is the one who reaches into that 700-degree oven.   If you’re a regular, he knows your name, knows what you like, asks about your kids, and tells you neighborhood tales.  It’s not unlike the local tavern: the bar is the counter, your bartender is the pizzaiolo, and instead of beer and booze and lemons and limes, it’s cheese and sauce and oregano and garlic. Pizza is the elixir.

My mission as a pizza documentarian is to explore the dynamic, unique and visual circumstances of pizza culture in New York. To show how a dish that first arrived in this country as a low-cost, largely improvised food for poor immigrants changed not only the eating habits of New Yorkers, but also the culinary landscape of this country.  In this era of repetitious chain restaurants and caesar salads, pizza boasts as many variations as the people who make it, and continues to galvanize communities and inspire innovation.

Dom DeMarco grating cheese the old fashioned way at Di Fara, in 2002.

Visually, the impact of New York City pizza goes beyond cheese and tomato pies.  At Di Fara, a hand-cranked grater clamped to a floury worktable reflects owner Dom DeMarco’s refusal to speed his process.  At Louie and Ernie’s, it’s the table of girls seen through the window out back — their sweatpants, long fingernails, low voices, and eye contact all about boyfriend gossip.  Balls of cloud white mozzarella neatly stacked atop the candle lit marble counter at Lucali highlight proprietor Mark Iacono’s calm demeanor as he assembles pies and manages his restaurant — both at the same time.  The piano and drum set, even when unmanned, take us back to the Village circa 1960s, where jazz clubs may have lined every block but even then, Arturo’s was the grooviest spot in town for coal oven pizza

It was the old one-slice-turns-into-two routine today at Tony's on Graham.  I followed up on the plain with a slice of fresh mozzarella. Wilted basil leaves blended with a floating pool of extra virgin olive oil and created a pesto effect ― but sans pesto.  I like!

Based on details I received from food writer Rachel Wharton, I pictured the Tony's guys as old school Brooklyn types.  They pretty much were, although I didn't engage them too much― since it was my first visit.  I noticed they did not pause conversations for customers.  Pretty awesome.  I don't remember exactly exactly how it went, but it was something like this:

Customer: "I'd like a slice of regular and ―"
Counterguy: "[conversation continued, I think it was about the competition pizzeria across the street, brief pause]"
Customer: "and I'll try that thick slice with the eggplant, to ―"
Counterguy: "[conversation continues, oh maybe he's talking on his phone via Bluetooth to someone, not sure about what, brief pause]"
Customer: "to stay."

Counterguy picks up the two slices from display trays, tosses them in the oven to reheat, and continues his conversation.

Excellent slices.  Next time I will pay amore attention to the words from behind the counter.  Future report possible. 

Map Tony's.  Call ahead for days/hours.  Tel. 718-384-TONY.

At some point during my unhappy junior high years ― I think it was 1980 or ‘81 ― my family visited New York for a weekend.  Aside from hitting certain predictable Midtown attractions (hansom ride in Central Park, Fifth Avenue, watching ice skaters) ― we went down to the Village for Ray’s Pizza ― ie. THE Ray’s Pizza ― the one at the corner of 6th Avenue & 11th Street, which served a stretchy, artery-clogging, oozy and indulgent slice of pie.  The cheese per slice must have weighed at least a quarter-pound ― it was disgusting.  And it was my favorite part of the weekend.

The Ray’s phenomenon ― dozens of New York pizzerias called Ray’s (or some mutation of the name, like Famous Rays or Famous Original Rays) ― has perplexed many a soul who’ve set foot in Manhattan.  In 2006 a reader posed a question to the New York Times’s “F.Y.I.” column: “The city is filled with Ray’s Pizzas.  Where was the first Ray’s Pizza and what’s the story behind it?”  The answer given was that Ray’s Pizza on Prince Street opened in 1959, but it otherwise did not offer much detail on the saga.  (Many articles and posts have since elaborated.  I like pizza historian Scott Wiener’s 2011 rendition.)

I would guess that the Ray’s at 6th Avenue & 11th Street must have garnered more fame and bigger crowds during the 1970s-‘80s than any other Ray’s ever.  (Its ascent may have begun when in 1973 a “Talk of the Town” piece in The New Yorker called their pizza “reliably and famously delicious,” and pointed out that while living in London, its owner had been second chef at the American embassy and head chef at the Italian and Greek embassies.)

In the pizza business, endurance and consistency are not guaranteed.  The last time I ate at the Greenwich Village Ray’s, I found the weight of the cheese unbearable and its texture like rubber.  Maybe it was an off day.  But, however it happened, that particular Ray’s ― famous in its past ― closed for good in October 2011.  According to the Village Voice, the owners faced a rent increase and lost their lease.  (Soon to open in its place: Famous Original Ray’s ― not kidding.)

The truly-true original Ray’s (at 27 Prince Street) also closed in 2011.  Its owner, who shares a stake in the building with family, told me that they voted  to raise the rent.  Her pizzeria couldn’t afford to stay.  (The space has since been divided in half and replaced with a new pizzeria called Prince Street Pizza and a soon-to-be spa.)

Of course it boils down to economics.  

The owner of a well-revered-but-small pizzeria on the Upper West Side told me that he must sell 300 slices a day to break even on the rent alone ($9,000/month).  That’s before all of the other costs ― like ingredients, gas & electric, salaries, and taxes.  Sure, in New York a good pizzeria can sell many pies, but at what point does high rent make a small (but worthwhile) business no longer viable?  If, as the owner fears, the rent increases $12,000/month when it expires in five years, the city will lose yet another valuable pizza asset.

We can’t fight this.  But we can elect to support good places.  Manhattan residents may have the most to worry about since that’s where rents are highest.  (Of course, the success of a business depends on more than the cost of rent.)

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It’s not just closings.  The upscaling of pizza has long been underway.  In the last five years, we’ve seen many new places opting to sell $14 individual pies rather than $3 slices.

A $14 margherita is made with imported (or fresh/local) mozzarella, naturally sweet tomatoes, and a dough made from premium flour.  It serves one.  Di Fara Pizza, deep in Brooklyn, charges $5 per slice for pizza made with generous portions of fresh mozzarella, Italian parmesan, and extra virgin olive oil.  $14, $5: these prices may seem high, but compared to non-pizza restaurants a cheese and tomato pie remains a budget-worthy fresh food option.

Occupying the middle price tier of New York pizza are artisanal shops that have ― sometimes for generations ― served homemade pies with a level of pride and class well beyond that of the cheap eats spots.  To me, these “old school” places define New York pizza ― an institution that has dominated the city’s affordable food landscape for over 50 years.  They include slice spots like Joe’s on Carmine Street and whole-pie-only restaurants like Totonno’s in Coney Island and John’s on Bleecker Street.  

At the bottom end of the spectrum, 99¢ slice spots move hundreds (or is it thousands?!) of pies a day, employing minimal craftsmanship and using low-cost, low-quality ingredients.  We should be concerned that as rents and costs continue to climb, these types of pizzerias could continue their campaign against quality.

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In an earlier post, I published data on New York’s mid-century pizza boom.  According to my count from old phone books, the number of pizzerias in Manhattan grew from ten in 1958, to 165 in 1970.  As the pace of city life increased over time and the array of quick food options broadened, fast food gained an increasing foothold in the city.  But unlike much of the competition in this category (for instance, hot dogs from a cart), pizza has long stood out as more homemade than most other quick food options ― a good pizzeria prepares its dough and sauce from scratch, uses a minimally-processed low moisture mozzarella (or fresh mozzarella), and cooks pies to order.

In a 1985 New York Times article entitled “Pizza Chains Toughest Turf,” the growth of national pizza chains was cited as a threat to established NYC pizza shops.  Godfather’s had opened a few branches in Manhattan and had promised to open more; and though neither Domino’s nor Pizza Hut had yet opened, plans were in the works.

Dennis Riese (of the Riese Organization, the conglomerate that operated Godfather’s restaurants in Manhattan at the time), said about the coming storm of chain pizzerias: ‘We will probably change the pizza industry in New York City.’”

As a response, the article quoted Vito Bologna, manager of The One and Only Ray’s Pizza in Greenwich Village: “‘They could have over 200 stores and it won’t matter to us,” he said.

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I haven’t yet gone to the pizzeria that replaced the 1959 Ray’s on Prince Street, but I’d venture to guess prices will be higher.  The city’s first slice was probably served at Patsy’s in Harlem, where owner Patsy Lancieri sought to bring pizza (and many other varieties of affordable food) to the Italians who lived nearby during the the Depression years.  Even Gennaro Lombardi, who may have been the first to make a round pizza big enough to cut into eight slices did so with economy in mind.  Pizza ought to be affordable.  When the price of pizza gets too high, it’ll be clear that it’s time to get out of Dodge.  That is, unless you can afford to stay in Dodge.

It’s no debate.  Pizza rules the New York cityscape like no other food.  Stand at any Manhattan corner and look around.  Chances are you’ll see pizza.  In the outer boroughs — places where people often have cars — density is a bit lower, but still: pizza.

And it’s not just magnitude.  The pizza you find is nearly always decent.  Even the 99¢ spots that have riddled Manhattan with snaking lines during the past few years of "economic downturn" produce edible specimens.  Of course, side by side with a slice of quality pizza, a 99-cent jobbie does not compare (doughy crust and cheap cheese: no thanks!), but for a buck who would complain?

It wasn't always this way.  Pizza first arrived in New York (and the US) sometime around 1900.  The earliest US pizza shop on record (Lombardi's) began as a small grocery whose owner (Gennaro Lombardi) topped scraps of dough (he was a baker by trade) with tomatoes and/or cheese.  For a couple decades, one could find pizza only in Italian neighborhoods.

In the 1930 eating guide "Dining in New York," intrepid food writer Rian James described the pizza at Moneta's (an Italian restaurant on Mulberry Street) as "an inch-thick potato pan-cake, sprinkled with Parmesan Cheese and stewed tomatoes."  Yuck!

On September 20, 1944, the New York Times's triple-row front page headline read

BRITISH NEAR RHINE IN 37-MILE SWEEP NORTH AFTER AIR ARMY JOINS IN                 CAPTURING EINDHOVEN; RUSSIANS 7 MILES FROM RIGA IN BALTIC PUSH.

and buried on page 19 amongst mainly stories of the war was a piece entitled "News of Food: Pizza, a Pie Popular in Southern Italy is Offered Here for Home Consumption."  In it, food writer Margot Murphy (aka Jane Holt) offered a thorough and enticing description of pizza:

One of the most popular dishes in southern Italy, especially in the vicinity of Naples, is pizza - a pie made from a yeast dough and filled with any number of different centers, each containing tomatoes. Cheese, mushrooms, anchovies, capers, onions, and so on may be used.  At 147 West Forty-eighth Street, a restaurant called Lugino's Pizzeria Alla Napoletana prepares authentic pizze, which may be ordered to take home.  They are packed, piping hot, in special boxes for that purpose.

Pizza had expanded beyond Little Italy to Midtown!

I romanticize New York's past, especially when it comes to steam rising from manholes, crisp metal skyscrapers, the endless shuffle of all kinds of people, and (of course) neon pizza signs outlined by flashing yellow bulbs.  But as fast as New Yorkers may hustle down sidewalks today, I imagine an even brisker pace in 1944 — fedoras and all. Murphy wrote that "after five to seven minutes of baking (the oven is kept at an extraordinarily high temperature) it is ready to serve, the whole operation having taken not more than ten or twelve minutes."  Two pies to go, please!

I spent some quality time in the microfilm room at the New York Public Library, thumbing page by page through old phone books.  "Pizza" as a separate category first appeared in 1958, but has never included certain full-fledged restaurants that happen to serve pizza.  (Lombardi’s, over the years, appeared under "Restaurants - Italian," but not under the “Pizza” heading.)  

The count is not definitive, but the results are telling: the greatest decade-over-decade citywide increase came between 1960-1970 (+231%).  Factoring in the two years of available data prior to 1960, the 1958-1970 increase was 735%. Wow!  (Click on the graph at the top of this piece for raw data, &/or scroll to bottom for count methodology.)

A number of factors contributed to pizza’s incredible ascent: celebrity enthusiasm, Americans' increasing curiosity in and willingness to try different ethnic foods, and a national trend toward convenience (eg. TV dinners, fast food).  But none had as much of an effect as did changes in pizza oven technology.

Leading the charge was Frank Mastro, a restaurant equipment shop owner who tinkered with ovens, converted them to gas, and together with a thermostat company developed the gas deck oven (the oven used by most pizzerias).

Gas made pizza-making much easier.  A craft that was limited to bakers skilled in working very hot, huge, and finicky coal ovens became a career for people without baking or pizza skills.  Instead of stoking coal, pizzaioli now had only to turn a dial.

In 1957 a Saturday Evening Post article entitled “Crazy About Pizza" asserted that Frank Mastro had “done [the] most to popularize pizza.”  It described a “model pizzeria [he had] in his store to show prospective pizzeria owners how to run their operations."  According to his daughter, Madeline Mastro Ferrentino, Mastro also financed oven purchases from out of his own pocket.  The dude believed in pie.

Fast forward to today, through decades of continued growth for pizza — more Italian immigrants, Greek-owned shops, the thick-crust Chicago-like craze, haute and pricey pizza, and the more recent surge in "new Neapolitan" restaurants (pristine ingredients, wood fired ovens, single-plate pies, and accomplished chefs as owners) — and yet the endless array of slice joints still dominates.  Thank heavens — who doesn't love a meal for under $10?

 The other day, I spent a little time during lunch hour at My Little Pizzeria — a good place located in a busy area of downtown Brooklyn, close to city courts and a number of office buildings.  I was there to document the preparation of their amazing "Supreme" pie for a future piece.  For a while, I zenned out on the long line and how the staff of five churned out pizza with such flair and efficiency.  And this sort of thing is going on all across the city, every day: people making pizza, people eating pizza, people loving pizza.  By the thousands.

I made a short video of pizza in action.  View it by clicking the above photo.

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Notes on the counting method:

I went page by page through Yellow Pages books from each of the five boroughs.  I counted every pizzeria listed under "Pizza" but avoided double counting any same-named listings at the same address.

On the "Yellow Pages" website, a search for the business type "Pizza" in Brooklyn today yields a list of 1,149 pizzerias — a number far greater than the 475 I counted in the 2010 print Yellow Pages.  I cannot explain the discrepancy because I do not know the criteria for listings inclusion with either resource.  The website may allow broader criteria (perhaps the keyword "pizza" is enough to merit inclusion); it may not have purged pizzerias that closed two years ago; and may include redundant or non-Brooklyn listings (#114, for instance, is Famous Rays of Greenwich Village in Manhattan).  The print Yellow Pages might be missing listings — I imagine that today its production is limited to a small staff — and in years prior, it's possible that many pizzerias were omitted.  Therefore, I've called the results of my count "unofficial."

The only way to tally pizzerias in the past is to use the print Yellow Pages.  If, over the deades, the Yellow Pages employed an even methodology to the compiliation of its listings, then the proportionate growth in the number of pizzerias should be statistically accurate.