Anselmo's Coal Oven Pizza Finally Open in Red Hook

After a few hiccups, Anselmo’s opened in Red Hook on Friday afternoon. Keeping it simple, the pizza place will serve only pies and calzones baked in its brick oven.

Namesake pizzaiolo and co-owner Anselmo Garcia has taken up fiery command at the coal burning pizza oven’s uncontrollable burning hell gate of doom and he won’t back down; available extra toppings include brie. As reported earlier by Slice in their pre-opening scoop, Garcia will “be the sole pizza-maker at the place. If there's no Anselmo, there's no pizza.” Some respite has accordingly been built in to the pizza shop’s opening hours: they’ll close daily from 5 to 6 p.m. in order to clean the pizza oven and to regroup. Pies come in two sizes—the small is around 8” and costs $4.50; large is 14” and goes for $14.00. That’s a little bit smaller than the average pie. Pizza with just sauce and cheese sampled on opening day happened to be delicious.

And in the end, pizza ovens are like the blast furnaces of the collective New York soul, and finished pizzas are a lot like the city’s real estate: It’s never the square footage that counts the most in the end, but what you’re able to do with the space.

354 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook; (718) 775-5386