I love pizza and New York has better pizza than Florida, California, New Jersey, etc. I eat at places like Patsy’s, John’s, Arturo’s, and Nick’s which have good pizza but not amazing pizza, like the one I had in Budapest. (I’ve haven’t been to Italy yet…)
There are so many dimensions on which I rate pizza: the cheese, the sauce, the dough, sometimes toppings, and the ratio of those 4 things to each other. It’s important that each layer of the pizza is flavorful. Often the dough and crust leave that job entirely to the sauce, cheese, and toppings. Sometimes the sauce and/or cheese are just overly salty, and often toppings are in large pieces that you can’t bite through easily. With one bite, you end up pulling off the piece of eggplant meant for 5 bites. Yet other frequent mistakes are too little sauce, the wrong amount of cheese, or more toppings than pizza. That’s one of my biggest peeves: that toppings overwhelm the pizza, and so I end up just ordering plain most of the time.
I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally found outstanding pizza in NY – Numero 28. Lon and I came across it accidentally while walking around on a beautiful day. We had low expectations and just wanted a place where we could sit outside since we had Ice (our Jack Russell) with us. We ordered a 14″ pie, half plain, half sausage. We both loved it! The tomato sauce was full of real tomato flavor. The crust was chewy yet crispy with flavor in the dough. Yes, I just said flavor in the dough! The proportion of cheese to sauce to crust was just right and it came out piping hot. Lon’s sausage topping was very tasty and more importantly crumbled over the pizza as opposed to large, chewy chunks.
The family who runs the place was very friendly. It looks like it’s a husband and wife, a daughter (all with thick accents) and a teenage boy they hired and trained to man the oven. It’s a very low maintenance scene with the intent to focus purely on the quality of their food. We overheard the boy telling someone else that the boss built the oven himself and that the family was certified in Naples as pizza makers (a 250-year family tradition). I believe it. Lon and I, big pizza critics, left thoroughly happy. We complimented the small staff wholeheartedly and they offered Lon some pictures by the oven.
Good prices, friendly service, delicious pizza! Try it!
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