Given how close my office is to Don Antonio by Starita (a five-minute walk), I don’t know why I don’t eat here more often. The pizza is great. Like Kesté, its sister pizzeria in Greenwich Village, this place is über Neapolitan. (Though I will say that the topping choices are a lot more expansive than … Continue reading Weekly Pizza Lunch: The Pistacchio e Salsiccia pie at Don Antonio by Starita
I’m combining two Weekly Pizza Lunch outings into one here. That’s because they’re practically the same place. —The Mgmt.
There’s a pizzeria mini chain in the heart of Manhattan that I think doesn’t get enough attention or praise.* Part of the blame may lie in its unusual naming convention. I mean, did you know that the pizzerias Gruppo, Posto, Spunto, Vezzo, and Tappo are all related and are pretty much the same thing? I know! You’d think they would have settled on one name and stuck with it. (Think of the efficiencies gained by maintaining one single website!)
Then again, avoiding the appearance of a chain has a certain advantage as well. Continue reading “Weekly Pizza Lunch: Vezzo and Tappo”
I’ve been thinking a lot about bar pies since last week’s pizza lunch. Bar pizza, and its close cousin, Chicago thin crust,* to me are primally satisfying pizzas. Despite the thin base, these styles are often LOADED with cheese and toppings. Now, that kind of imbalance would typically raise alarm bells for my elevated pizza snob persona, but go and tell me what’s wrong with a bunch of gooey cheese and salty, greasy pepperoni or sausage.
That’s why I wanted to try Nicoletta again. Chef-owner Michael White is originally from Wisconsin, where he first started working in a pizzeria serving quintessentially Midwestern-style pizza.
*Note: I often use the terms “Chicago thin-crust” and “Midwestern thin-crust” interchangeably. Chicago thin-crust is easily more recognizable as a style, but I feel that this type of pizza is served all over the Upper Midwest, not just the Windy City. Continue reading “Weekly Pizza Lunch: The Calabrese pie at Nicoletta”
You know, you’re not going to go wrong adding toppings to a Totonno’s pizza, but when the joint is firing on all cylinders, like it was when I visited yesterday, you only need a plain pie for a satisfying meal.
Of course that didn’t stop me and my dining companion from getting another pizza topped with sausage. Continue reading “Weekly Pizza Lunch: Coney Island’s Totonno’s rises from the floodwaters”
Did you know you can get some of the best pizza in NYC (and therefore THE WORLD) for a mere twelve bucks? Oh, and it comes with a salad, too. Continue reading “NYC’s best lunchtime pizza special: Motorino’s prix fixe pizza-and-salad meal”
After my previous attempt at 60% hydration Detroit-style pizza, I did some grousing about the result on Facebook. Dmcavanagh and Norma saw my complaining and gave me some advice. First, that this style really does have to be made at a higher hydration, and, second, that all-purpose flour works best. You want a lower protein count for a softer crust that she says, “almost melts in your mouth.” Anyway, tonight? SUCCESS! Continue reading “Detroit-style pizza, 75% hydration, all-purpose flour”
I made this pizza tonight largely as an excuse to keep seasoning my Detroit-style pans. Also, I wanted to try a more faithful rendition of the genre.
This is a 60% hydration dough. The pans’ instructions say to use a relatively dry dough for the first couple of pizzas, as anything above 65% will have a tendency to stick. Continue reading “Detroit-style pizza, 60% hydration”
I made pan pizza last weekend but wasn’t happy with the thickness. I thought it was too spongey, too doughy, too much. What would happen if I halved the dough amount?
Well, even at 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick (as opposed to more than an inch), I’m still not that into it. Don’t get me wrong, the recipe I used makes a great-tasting pizza and is successful in its mission of re-creating Pizza Hut pan pizza. It’s just that I’m still unsure it’s a style I’m wild about. Continue reading “Thinner-crust pan pizza”
It’s no picnic trying to do Pizza Night with a baby in the house. The diaper changes, the rockin’-her-to-sleep sessions, the walks around the neighborhood—all those things tend to interrupt the two to three hours I like to set aside for pizza prep, baking, eating, and clean-up.
All that’s a long way of saying I was jazzed to try J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s “Foolproof Pan Pizza” recipe on Slice. It’s basically about 20 minutes of active work—if that—and the rest is just letting the dough rise. Continue reading “Experimenting with pan pizzas”
I’m dropping this here because I get this question all the time. Most recently via Twitter, where I don’t have the space to properly answer. So, if you’re coming to NYC and have time to eat at only one pizzeria, here’s a good list to choose from. My frame of mind for this was, “What … Continue reading If you’re visiting NYC and have time to eat at only one pizzeria
Cook date: November 18, 2012
Dough used: basic Lehmann dough mixed lean and with low sugar and yeast (58% hydration)
Number of pies cooked: 2 (Brussels sprout, bacon, and Parmigiano; “frozen-pizza-style” pizza
Cooking surface: Quarter-inch-thick Baking Steel, bottom rack; half-inch Baking Steel and Emile Henry Flame pizza stone placed on rack above
I used my quarter-inch-thick Baking Steel for this pizza. This time I put it on the bottom rack of the oven. On the next rack up, I had my half-inch-thick steel AND my old pizza stone arranged to cover the entire rack. (Longest edges of each running front-to-back in the oven, with stone overlapping steel by a couple inches.) Essentially they created an artificial low ceiling for the oven right over the pizza. This had the effect of blocking a significant amount of heat from rising to the thermostat. That in turn meant the oven stayed on, constantly trying to hit 550°F. This would be good if I had a broiler element above the pizza to cook the top as quickly as the crust. What actually happened, though, was that the bottom steel sheet got insanely hot and almost incinerated the dough. Well, not really. But the bottom crust was done in about 1:50. The top, not so much: Continue reading “Basic Lehmann dough, Baking Steel on bottom rack”
I usually use one of two recipes when making pizza at home. This Cook’s Illustrated Thin-Crust Pizza dough or The Pizza Lab’s New York–style pizza dough. Both have worked well for me (although I usually go with the Cook’s recipe because it’s a smaller load for my 11-cup food processor, which already strains to mix this amount). Continue reading “Basic Lehmann dough pizza”
[This photo is part of my 2011 Picture a Day project »] I’m trying to perfect my recipe for chile-infused honey before posting it on Slice. Credit where due: It is 100% inspired by Mike’s Hot Honey, which is available online or from the bar at Paulie Gee’s. I’m playing with the spice levels. The … Continue reading Experimenting with chile-infused honey
