Results tagged “pizza”

   

Click on the images for more on Bar Pleiades, pizza at Numero 28, and dining at Juliet Supper Club.

Say goodbye to boring old one-trick pony pizza boxes, and hello to the Swiss Army knife of cardboard pizza receptacles! It was 20 years ago that William Walsh, 42, ripped off a piece of a pizza box to give to a college buddy to use a plate. Now, after two decades of tinkering, necessity (or laziness) has become the mother of invention: Walsh has created GreenBox, which he hopes will revolutionize how Americans consume pizza.

After earning the adoration of the hipster masses with his killer Neapolitan-style pizza, Belgian-born chef Mathieu Palombino has recently opened his second Motorino location across the river in Manhattan. The East Village spot (49 East 12th Street) is cozy compared to the spacious original, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in charm and legend: It's the former home of beloved Una Pizza Napoletana, and with the lease Palombino got his hands on the restaurant's prized Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples.

Last night, Madonna made another visit to the Late Show With David Letterman. After making a grand entrance on the shoulders of Rangers players (who read the Top Ten list) and parrying questions about her marriage while cracking jokes about the Bush administration, she also deflected her relationship with A-Rod skillfully: The Material Girl pointed out that Letterman nearly got arrested for his last comments about A-Rod, referring to the comedian's remarks about Sarah Palin's daughter. And then Letterman took Madonna to have her allegedly first slice of NYC pizza.

Just when we thought we'd have to go all the way to New Haven for the best slice of pizza pie, the 5 Borough Pizza Tour declares the best slice can be found right over in Staten Island. Salvatore of Soho (of Staten Island) came out on top; however, our resident pizza and Staten Island expert, John Kuhner, tells us "My favorite is Nunzio's, but the most famous is probably Denino's." Either way, it sounds like a good amount of our city's top slices are over there, so let's steal their recipes before selling the borough off to New Jersey.

A new list picking 50 foods and naming the best spots in the world for them finds that various locales around the five boroughs have the top burgers, ravioli, pork belly and pastrami sandwiches (at Katz's, natch). But if you're looking for the best slice, you're in the wrong town.

Motorino: This top-notch thin-crust pizzeria was an instant hit in East Williamsburg, but will it compete in downtown Manhattan, which is now flooded with "artisan" pizza options? Anyone who's eaten at the original knows the answer's hell yes, and chef Mathieu Palombino is confident his authentic Neapolitan pizza will make its mark. He has the added advantage of inheriting a space already known for pizza excellence; it was previously the home of Una Pizza Napoletana, which left behind its Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples. Palombino's filled the 36-seat space with marble-topped tables and kept the vibe comfortably casual, with shiny subway tiling and wooden bistro chairs. Motorino's Manhattan menu is slightly smaller than the original, and includes seven classic pies, plus a variety of seasonal pizzas. 349 East 12th Street; (212) 777-2644

The "who has the best pizza in town" debate could, and likely will, go on forever. It'll be the End of Days and we'll all be sitting around, like, "Grimaldi's!" "DiFara's!" "Totonno's!" "Patsy's in East Harlem!" Anyway, there's a new blogger in town with an insatiable hunger for pizza pies, and he declares his mission is to "eat a slice of pizza at every pizzeria in New York City. I'm going by neighborhood, starting in Manhattan, getting a plain slice at every place." And just to clarify, he is not interested in your shark fin truffle oil flatbread gourmet non-pizzas, he simply wants to sample "every single plain slice in New York City to scientifically determine which is the absolute best one." This sounds amazing, but it'll be so sad when he finally finishes up with his 5-borough survey only to find his winning pizzeria has since shut down, and 150 more have popped up. This blog, like the debate, has the potential to never end... but it already has us craving a slice from Frank Pepe (yeah we said it: the best slice might just be found in New Haven). [via Slice]

Adam Kuban at Slice took this cute photo yesterday of pizza artisan Dom DeMarco plying his trade at legendary Midwood pizza destination Di Fara. We're sharing it as a reminder that, to paraphrase Zooey Glass, there are still nice things in this world of death panels and Espadas. The only way this little scene could be improved upon is if the portrait, by artist Andy M. Sachs, featured a little infinity mirror effect by including the same portrait hanging on the wall in the painting. Woah. Oh, and if we had some hot five dollar slices right now.

Last year Patsy's—the one in East Harlem (which some pizza enthusiasts consider to be the only "real" Patsy's)—celebrated its 75th Anniversary by rolling back their prices to 1933 levels, and the result was a total mob scene (heh). So many hungry roustabouts amassed that police were summoned to control the crowd, which turned ugly when the kitchen closed earlier than expected. Well, the restaurant's doing it again this year. An email announcing the 76th Anniversary promises "90¢ steak, 60¢ pizza pies, 1¢ sodas. The NYPD and the FDNY will have a pizza-eating challenge. 118th Street and First Avenue will officially be renamed 'Patsy's Way,' and many other surprises." The email ends with an entreaty to "CALL TODAY (Limited Seating)," leading Slice to speculate that owners are trying to avoid a repeat of last year's pandemonium. But we called the restaurant and were told that's "definitely a mistake. We're not taking reservations. It's going to be the same as last year." [With the discounts for take-out only.] Yes! Notify the riot police; the big day is August 26th, with discounts from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

John Schnatter, founder of the Papa John’s pizza chain, wants his Bitchin’ Camaro back, and he’ll even give you $25,000 if you’ve got it. The 47-year-old delivery pizza company’s creator apparently exchanged his gold, double racing-striped 1972 Z28 Camaro (seen here) in 1984 for $1600 in seed capital. He's been a little down about that since, but the rest is history: Papa John’s bloomed into a worldwide franchise with more than 3,400 locations, including one in Flatlands that’s currently basking in the glory of an immaculate 5-star Yelp rating. According to Wikipedia, all Papa John’s locations are linked together through Skynet “the advanced dynamic resource control infrastructure in the fast food industry,” modeled on NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. Ah, dual-use technology. Schnatter has embarked on an ultra-promotional road trip to find his long lost wheels; the man will be in NY on June 16th or 17th and for whatever reason, may personally deliver your order during that time. Unless the Rise of the Machines happens first.

A "food fight" has erupted between rival organizers of two Brooklyn-based competitive eating events! "This year's contest is going to be intense," says Joe Loccisano of Rocco's Pizzeria, referring to his slice eating competition which takes place Sunday in Bay Ridge. Loccisano suggested his contest has more credibility because pizza is more authentically Brooklyn than hot dogs, prompting a Nathan's rep to actually say "Brooklyn is the crucible by which the hot dog was transformed into the most American of foods." Loccisano, strengthening his argument against the famous, ESPN-broadcast July 4th Nathan's contest, said, "And let's be honest, dipping hot dog buns into water and rolling them into balls while ramming those precooked artificial meat sticks down your throat is just disgusting."

Remember that $25,000 sundae that Serendipity 3 was selling back before the stock market parked itself in the garage with the engine running? Needless to say, they haven't been selling too many of those lately, and even their down-market $1,000 sundae hasn't had any takers since last November.

Today Frank Bruni at the Times bestows two out of four stars on the Upper West Side Fatty Crab (photos/menu), an impressive rating for a casual restaurant. But Bruni just can't get enough of "the Fatty spirit, the culinary equivalent of a stoner’s foggy contentment...Are its flavors in fact too big, too unrelenting? What qualifies as a bold deployment of chilies and aiolis, and what’s just indiscriminate overkill? Many a meal at Fatty Crab raises those questions and walks a fine line, but pretty much every time I began to doubt the kitchen’s care and skill, something came along to restore my belief."

Slice has an update about legendary Coney Island pizzeria Totonno's. The establishment, whose coal oven and excellent pies make pizza aficionados swoon, had to close its doors in mid-March after a fire broke out in the coal storage area. Owner Lawrence Ciminieri originally thought the restaurant would be back open by now but now he tells Slice's Adam Kuban, "It took four weeks just to get the permit to start work. We'll start May 1, and hopefully it'll take four weeks to rebuild. So early June" may be a reopening date (Ciminieri suggests that people call first, just to make sure it is open; 718-372-8606).

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.

Jim Lahey— the effervescent, no-knead dough guru and chef/owner of Sullivan Street Bakery and pizza joint Co.— has some advice for Frank Bruni following the single star Times review of Co. earlier this week. "If you want your cheese and sauce, you can get it [at Ray's]," he told the Observer’s Daily Transom. "They'll actually put extra shit on for ya!" Lahey’s working pizza philosophy at Co. (megawatt chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is an investor) adheres to a principle that pizza should not be laden with toppings and it is best cooked in a 900 degree oven. “The driving force was to change this genre of food-making so it's not falling into the same stupid cliches,” Lahey told the Observer, “like, the thick crust on the edge and lots of tomato sauce and cheese.” Lahey conspicuously sports a “Consume Less” t-shirt on the Sullivan Street website; Bruni’s admonishment that Lahey “needs to sweat the cheese and the rest of it a little more” seems to have specifically irked the chef. The Observer article, with more expletives, is here. Expect a Diner’s Journal rebuttal to Lahey’s rebuttal, which veers sharply into self-deprecating territory, sometime today. (photo courtesy Adam Kuban/Slice)

Thanks a lot, New York Times. The gay crowd in Carroll Gardens was having a fabulous time partying it up at their regular Monday night "Fondle" party at South Brooklyn Pizza, but then the City Section had to come along write about it. Now the fuzz wants to know whether party organizers violated cabaret license regulations by enlisting musclebound guys in thongs to dance on the bar. According to Brooklyn Paper, on Monday night Captain Kenneth Corey of the 76th Precinct told the Neighborhood Association, "That [Times article] was the first I heard of it. We’re going to determine the legality of it. If they’re outside of it, then we’re going to take action." The party, which co-organizer Evan Siegel named "Fondle" only "after rejecting several others that sounded too gay," seems to have perturbed some locals in a community that's just not as Guido as it once was. 80-year-old Buddy Scotto, owner of Scotto Funeral Home, tells the Times, "We’re a lot more tolerant than we used to be. Maybe we can live with this, but we’re going to watch closely." We bet you will, honey!

After two young women refused a Brooklyn man's advances during a late night pizza stop last month, the failed pick-up turned into a violent assault, leaving one women with a fractured jaw and another nearly blinded. One of the victims, a 26-year-old student who would only identify herself as Christine, tells the Post she was eating pizza with her friend at 3:50 a.m. at John & Tony's Pizzeria on First Avenue at 60th Street on March 20th, when they were approached by 31-year-old Dzemal Kolenovic. Christine (pictured) says that after she responded to his advances by asking him to leave her alone, he became abusive, yelling, "F- - - you, bitches. You whores."

After a ten-month investigation, NYPD narcotics officers busted John's Pizza & Heros on Westchester Avenue in the Bronx on Tuesday, charging six people with participating in cocaine trafficking at the restaurant. According to prosecutors, manager Benigno Burgos and his associates moved hundreds of thousands of dollars of drugs through the joint, with customers coming from as far as Connecticut to pick up their take-out orders, which were actually pizza boxes stuffed with up to $40,000 of cocaine at a time. The place also delivered. Of course, this story calls for some fun wisecracks, which DEA Special Agent-In-Charge John Gilbride has clearly been polishing. He tells the Post, ahem, "This gives a new meaning to the phrase 'slice and a Coke.' " On Tuesday cops also raided four nearby drug supply houses, finding nine kilos of cocaine, four handguns and approximately $20,000 in cash. They discovered the coke stash at Burgos's house hidden under a child's mattress, where no one was ever supposed to find it!

Keste Pizza and Vino: Just because everyone's broke doesn't mean restaurateurs are pulling the plug on their new projects. But it does mean we're seeing more mid-range eateries popping up, and three new pizza restaurants are open for business this week. Let's call it a trend! The most hotly anticipated is the Neapolitan-style Keste, co-owned by Roberto Caporuscio, a former mozzarella-maker who trained in Naples at the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana school, which sounds like a big deal.

Serious Eats' Ed Levine called Totonno's owner Lawrence Ciminieri to find out how the pizzeria is doing after yesterday's fire. Ciminieri said, "Everything is going to be fine. The fire broke out in the coal storage area when we were closed. It must have been ignited by something backed up in the oven. The back two rooms are gone. The dining room is fine. The oven will have to be re-bricked, but that is something we do every few years anyway. I think we'll be back open in a month. Tell everybody thanks for me, Ed. Everyone's been so supportive." Totonno's opened in 1924; one upset customer told NY1, "When you hear about it it hurts because it's been a tradition for years. I grew up going here and my kids, and probably their kids will grow up having that pizza. "

Not too long ago a reader sent in this photo of weapons being sold from behind the counter of Williamsburg's Eden Pizza, located just off Bedford on North 7th. The reader told us: "I was rather pissed off too see this display of knives and brass knuckles for sale in my neighborhood at a local pizza joint." The establishment gets a 3.5 on Yelp, with mentions of a sweet staff, so it's likely they're not going to slice you up when you order up your slice—but still, this can't be legal. (A call to the NYPD about this yielded some confusion and we're still waiting to hear back about the legality behind selling brass knuckles.) Either way, it's sort of unsettling given the gang activity in the area. On the other hand: $1.25 slices!

This week Frank Bruni at the Times bestows two stars on chef April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) for their new high-end seafood pub The John Dory (pictured), in the Meatpacking District: "In what is clearly a labor of not just love but also vivid (sometimes too vivid) imagination and real guts, [they] have fashioned a place that doesn’t look like any other and that doesn’t taste like any other, either...But experienced in aggregate, too many dishes are too blunt. The overall flavor spectrum is too narrow, a wallow in buttery, creamy and salty effects. I sometimes left feeling overwhelmed — maybe I should say capsized — in a way I seldom do." Still, Bloomfield's menu is full of "nervy surprises."

Butcher Bay: This new seafood pub, opening in the former home of popular burger den Seymour Burton, is the talk of the town this week, and with good reason: if these gorgeous Eater photos are to be believed, it's quite the charmer. The wood-paneled vibe was perhaps best summed up in this baroque Urban Daddy blurb: "Butcher Bay is the kind of dilapidated sea shanty that you would pull up to on a schooner on the Chesapeake or wander into barefoot on the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD—just, you know, in the East Village (so please, wear shoes). It's the kind of easy after-work or Saturday afternoon spot where you'll get lost in a tidal wave of beer and finger food. And when we say finger food, we mean handheld comforts: hush puppies, littleneck clams, oysters, Maryland blue crabs, po' boys, seafood pie and, naturally, housemade chili dogs." And come spring, a raised backyard garden will provide the restaurant will fresh vegetables and herbs. 511 East 5th Street, 212) (260-1333

This week Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice reviews Motorino, the wood-oven pizza place in Williamsburg named after a Vespa-like scooter. He says the prices are reasonable and the pies first rate: "Stippled with char, smoky, and slightly doughy, the marguerita ($10) stands up to any other I've tasted...Even more amazing is the Pugliese pie, name-checking the southern Italian region where many Brooklynites came from. This pizza deploys broccolini and sweet sausage, and who'd imagine bitter greens would make such a fab topping? These pies might be called 'back constructions' by a linguist: They re-import the true pies of Naples to New York 120 years after they first arrived, and then slap Italian-American ingredients on them."

With the price of flour down so low that even PETA activists can afford to hurl the stuff at Lindsay Lohan, you might think bagel and pizza costs might drop a bit. But most pizzeria and bagel shop owners in NYC—who raised their prices earlier this year in response to skyrocketing flour cost—have not been passing the savings along to their customers. Vinny Camporeale, owner of the East Village pizzeria Vinny Vincenz, tells the Daily News, "Our rent goes up every year—customers aren't aware of that." Who knew!? Now Camporeale's "seriously thinking" about raising the price a third time this year, from $2.50 to $2.75. At least at Montague Street Bagels in Brooklyn Heights the bagel price has reverted to 90 cents, down from the summer price of $1. Assistant manager Preston Joseph declares, "It's the right thing to do. We're not con men." Hear that, Vinny, you rapacious pizza fleecer?

Mark Bello wants to teach you how to make a perfect pizza at home. With fresh dough and carefully selected local and Italian ingredients, Bello makes delectable thin-crust pies using his standard home oven in Chinatown, or, through his catering and cooking class company, Pizza a Casa in your home oven as well. He spreads the pizza gospel throughout the city teaching classes at the likes of Murray's and Astor Center and at private events.

Ten of the world's most competitive eaters faced off in Times Square yesterday for the Famous Famiglia pizza-eating contest, and Joey Chestnut, the reigning hot dog-eating champion, emerged victorious by consuming a record-shattering 45 slices in 10 minutes. Chicago's Patrick Bertoletti, who held the previous record at 22 slices in 10 minutes, placed second yesterday with 43 slices. To win the $5,000 prize, Chestnut ate nothing but protein supplements for two days and drank a gallon of water to stretch his stomach muscles before the contest, during which he took in an estimated 11,700 calories and 450 grams of fat. The Daily News was on the scene and reports that "he never appeared to chew." Contestant Adam Gertler hailed Chestnut as "truly a god among eaters. He could probably put an entire work boot in his mouth."

The eyes of the Competitive Eating world (all two dozen of them) will be fixed on Times Square this Sunday for the first-ever World Pizza Eating Championship, set to kick off sometime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at Military Island. Trumpet flourish! Competitors will include Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, the 2008 Hot Dog Eating Champion; Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti, "a mohawked chef from Chicago" (according to the press release; Tim "Eater X" Janus, the 4th-ranked burrito champ; and his roommate, Crazy Legs Conti. Victory Sunday (and a cut of $14,000 in prizes) will go to whoever forces down the most slices of Famous Famiglia pizza—but save your snobbish wisecracks about that chain's dubious quality; we all know how excited you'd get whenever the office would buy Famiglia for everybody, back in the Gilded Age when such breathtaking extravagance was the norm. [Via Slice.]