Tag: nyc

#39 Mama’s TOO!

September 27th, 2018

Manhattan, NYC

Every year, there’s a new slice shop (or two) in NYC that make it on the list. We could have guessed that Mama’s TOO would have been the new addition this year, which is why we went to it LAST year to try it out.

Mama’s TOO serves squares and regular slices. It’s maybe most famous for it’s pepperoni square, which is a mix between a Sicilian slice and a Roman al taglio slice, with a crunch Detroit-style-like cheesy edge. It’s also probably most famous for it’s crust, which is much thinner than a Sicilian or Detroit style slice. The owner, Frank Tuttolomondo, took his favorite parts of other styles of pizza and combined them to make his own take on a slice.

We tried a few slices, including the vodka slice, the bruschetta, a sausage and pepper, and a slice of the four cheese. Most of their toppings are made in house. All were excellent, and lived up to the hype.

The slice we had may have been a little charred, but we don’t usually mind a little burnt edge on our pizza.

Pete Wells at the NYT gave Mama’s TOO one star, ranking it up with other sit-down pizzerias in NYC. We think it’s worth a trip to the Upper West Side, and it’s a trip that we need to do again soon.

To visit:

Mama's TOO
2750 Broadway
New York, NY 10025

BarbaraLeave a comment

#85 Emmy Squared

July 21st, 2017

Brooklyn, NYC

If you follow our instagram at all, you know that we are frequent visitors at Emily, in Brooklyn. Well, recently, the owners of Emily decided to test out Detroit-style pizza in NYC.  They opened Emmy Squared. “Squared”, we assume, because of both the style of pizza and because it is the second installment of the Emily brand.

We first went to Emmy Squared with a friend, getting there soon after it opened. It didn’t have much of a dinner crowd when we went on a weeknight, but I imagine that the crowds have picked up since then. The focus is obviously on the Detroit-style pizza, although they do also serve sandwiches and the famous Emmy Burger.

**Side note: we’ve just recently tried the Emmy burger. Yes, it is worth $26, and yes, it is massive. It really is hard for us to tell you   to get a burger at a restaurant as famous for its pizza as Emily is, but you really should get the burger. Get one for the table and split it, if you want. The fries are good as well, but you won’t have room for them.

So, you may be wondering: how does Emmy Squared’s Detroit-style compare to other Detroit-style pizzas that we’ve had. Well, you may notice one thing right off the bat – the size. The pizzas at Emmy Squared are SMALL (and there is only one size). They are cut in 6 slices. If you go with a group of 3 people, and all get a burger, than one pizza is enough for you. But don’t go with 3 people and order only 2 pizzas and think that you will have enough food (telling you this from experience).

The pizza here is also EXPENSIVE. Think of it as artisan Detroit-style. You wouldn’t find these topping combinations in Detroit, but you also wouldn’t find pizzas costing half as much. Via313 comes close to Emmy Squared, but isn’t quite as creative.

We’ve tried one of the white pizzas (the Marn Blanc), a meatball special, and most recently, the Colony at Emmy Squared. They all taste delicious. The crust is spot-on to what a Detroit-style pie should be. We just wish the slices were a bit bigger.

If you didn’t hear – Emmy Squared should be opening a second installment in Manhattan, in the East Village. Emily also has a new location in the West Village, which means that we can go there more often! West Village Emily also serves the Detroit-style pies, but I’m not sure if this will continue with the opening of the new Emmy Squared? We will have to wait and see!

To visit:

Emmy Squared
364 Grand St
Brooklyn, NY 11211

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#23 Prince Street Pizza

December 16th, 2017

Manhattan, NYC

One of our favorite slice joints around Manhattan is Prince Street Pizza. We stumbled upon Prince Street pizza back when we started working our way around NYC, even though it wasn’t on the original 2015 Daily Meal list that we started working from. We kept coming across the name on other “Best of” lists, so we knew that we had to make it a stop, especially because it was within walking distance of our offices. AND THEN it made it on the 2016 list, and again on the 2017 list. It was about time.

If you are walking around SoHo/Nolita and looking for a slice of pizza, this is one of the best. (Williamsburg Pizza would be another good bet.)  It has an old-school charm, even though it is a relatively new establishment. It’s location, though, is pizza history: it is half of the original location of Ray’s Pizza (of traditional NY pizza fame). These days, you may find a “Ray’s Original” on a number of NY street corners, but the “original” Ray’s no longer exists, having given in to a rent/lease dispute back in 2011.

Prince Street Pizza is known mainly for their square slices. THE slice to order is the spicy square pepperoni slice with a fresh Fra diavolo sauce. You just have to do it. And not just because those little tiny cups of pepperoni are so darn instagrammable. It just tastes amazing (and this is coming from someone who is not the biggest fan of pepperoni).  The plain cheese slices and margherita slices are also good. You could get one of those too. We would never just stop at one slice!

The crust on the square slices here isn’t thick and heavy like some Sicilian slices. It is pretty light and airy, making it easy to eat more than one slice.

You won’t get a seat to eat in Prince Street, especially if you come for slices during the lunch or dinner rush. You should be prepared to take your slices to go. There is a small counter inside, but it is pretty tight to sit if you aren’t by yourself.  This isn’t a place to linger – get in, order, and move on.

Eric has recently recruited a bunch of people from his office to take trips over to Prince Street for lunch. It makes me really sad that my office has moved out of SoHo and I can’t regularly join them.

I mean, just look at those ronis! Right?

To visit:

Prince Street Pizza
27 Prince St
New York, NY 10012

BarbaraLeave a comment

#87 New Park Pizza

March 30th, 2016

Howard Beach, Queens, NY

By now, you probably know what a good NY slice of pizza looks like. This week, we are going to show you a couple more. New Park Pizza is over in Queens, right near JFK. We note this because it would make the BEST stop going to or from the airport. We chose to take the subway out from Manhattan, which took about an hour.

We just ordered a couple of slices here, nothing too special or fancy. A couple of cheese slices, and a Sicilian slice. For all the time we spent on the subway to get here, the slices were gone in about 10 minutes and we were back on the subway going back to NJ. These are definitely not the best NY slices that we’ve had, but they are solid. We’ve also read that you should order the slices “well done”, which we didn’t try, but have noted for next time.

The crust here is also salty, but not overwhelmingly so. We read that this is because they throw salt into the oven as the pies bake. We’ve only had salted Neapolitan crusts, so this was a little different.

So I guess our take-home message here is, don’t go out of your way for these slices because you’ll find slices that taste the same, if not better, in Manhattan (although, you may pay a bit more for them). However, if you are anything like me and find yourself tired and hangry after any flight into JFK, you may want to consider stopping here on your way home. (Eric is making a mental note of this right now.)

To visit:

New Park Pizza
156-71 Cross Bay Blvd
Howard Beach, NY 11414

BarbaraLeave a comment

#16 Patsy’s

 March 23, 2016

Manhattan, NY

Patsy’s pizza is ranked pretty high on the list, and we do love a good NY slice, so we headed up to Harlem one day after work, and ordered this plain cheese pie.

We ALMOST went to the wrong restaurant, and finding the “original” Patsy’s took a little bit of digging. The problem is that there is a sort-of-related chain of Patsy’s Pizzerias around NYC, and several are in locations closer to our office. The original Patsy’s opened in Harlem in 1933. The original Patsy learned the ropes making pizza downtown at Lombardi’s (another example of how all the great NYC pizzerias are connected). When he died (in the 90’s), the restaurant was sold to a franchiser and a new chain of Patsy’s was started. We haven’t been to any of those, so we can’t say how they compare to the original.

 

After some online searching and reading too much about the feud over the name “Patsy’s”, we figured out that we had to head up to Harlem to the original location, which was exciting because we had never had an excuse to go to that area of the city before. We got a table and ordered our pizza, which came out hot and bubbling. The crust was thin and crispy and held up to the sauce and cheese perfectly, just as it should. We know that we usually try interesting topping combinations on our pizzas, but sometimes you just need to go with a traditional cheese slice.

Patsy’s is one of the few remaining coal oven pizzerias still operating in Manhattan (I talked a bit about this here), so for that reason alone, it is worth the trip uptown. The slices reminded us a bit of Joe’s, which makes sense since they are ranked near each other on the list. We probably liked these slices a bit better, but they are both as true to New York slices as you can get.

Fun fact: Patsy’s claims to have originated the idea of “selling by the slice”. Although in all our online searching, we weren’t able to verify that this is actually true.

To visit:

Patsy’s Pizza
2287 First Avenue
New York NY

 

 

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#63 Williamsburg Pizza

September 14th, 2016 and April 3rd, 2017

New York City

This is a new addition to the 2016 list, and we’ve already been here twice. Williamsburg Pizza has three locations, two in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, and we’ve been to two of them.

      

The first time we went out to Brooklyn. We figured we should try the original location, since it is called Williamsburg Pizza. Once again, we walked there from Manhattan, and once again, we got caught in a downpour. I think I mentioned that this happens to us fairly regularly on our pizza treks. By the time we got to the pizzeria, we were drenched. And hungry.

We ordered a wide variety of slices because the selection here is amazing. We tried a regular slice of the Brooklyn and one called a Sophia Loren, which had fresh mozzarella and sliced tomatoes and basil. We also had a few Grandma slices, including one with kale and sausage (the Kale Tallegio), one with sausage, mushrooms, roasted red peppers (Paesano), and one with wild mushrooms (Tartufo).

   

This past Monday, we went to the Lower East Side location, which was a much shorter walk from our office. Both locations have the same feel to them, and both had the same great variety of slices. Here, we got another slice of the Brooklyn. We also had a margherita slice, and again tried the Tartufo and Paesano Grandma slices. We forgot to check what we got last time and ended up with almost the same exact order.

The Tartufo slice here is really good. We think it’s our second favorite mushroom slice, right after the pizza we had at Antico in Atlanta, and right before the one we had at Pizza Moto in Brooklyn. I think the Sophia Loren slice would be our next favorite, but they didn’t have that one at the LES location this time around.

We’ve found our new favorite slices place in NYC. (Sorry, Bleecker Street Pizza.) At only a 20 minute walk, it is a perfect lunch date location. The slices are everything you’d expect from a New York slice, with fresh cheese, interesting toppings, and sort-of-sweet tomato sauce, with a crispy crust. We have yet to try a slice here that we don’t like.

To visit:

Williamsburg Pizza
265 Union Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211

OR

277 Broome St
New York, NY 10002

 

BarbaraLeave a comment

#41 Nick’s Pizza

March 19th, 2017

Forest Hills, NY

We had a free weekend, so of course, we spent Sunday afternoon driving to get pizza up in Queens. It’s really great how an hour drive now doesn’t even feel so long. We decided to go to Nick’s Pizza in Forest Hills. Nick’s is known for its thin-crust pies, and for its calzones, which Adam Kuban highly recommended.

We went with a normal cheese pie, a large, and because we can’t leave anything just plain, we added spinach to half. The toppings are pricey, but we were glad to see that the spinach was fresh. We really dislike frozen spinach on pizzas (we should add that to our list of “pizza pet peeves”). We also got a small calzone to go with the pizza since Adam Kuban had told us to “just order both”. We thought that we’d just take home any leftovers, but of course, we didn’t end up with any leftovers to bring home.

The pizza was good, and the crust was nice and light. We really like when pizza doesn’t make us feel heavy because that means we can eat more of it. We were pleasantly surprised that they were able to get such a good char using a gas oven.

The calzone was definitely worth trying, so we thank all of the reviews for suggesting that we order one. It is almost like a grilled cheese pita, and it was stuffed to the brim with ricotta and fresh mozzarella. The sauce was SO GOOD that we ended up dipping the calzone AND the pizza in it. We couldn’t get enough of it. Eric even said “we should always ask for a side of sauce to go with our pizza”. Not a bad idea…

 

We also really liked the splattering of fresh basil on top of the pizza. It reminded us of Di Fara, which reminded us once again that we need to go back there ASAP.

ALSO: Eric didn’t get us lost this time! We are finally figuring out how to drive around Queens. (It didn’t hurt that Nick’s is pretty much right off of the highway, though).

To visit:

Nick’s Pizza
108-26 Ascan Ave
Queens, NY 11375

 

BarbaraLeave a comment

#81 J&V Pizzeria

March 8th, 2017

Brooklyn, NY

We tried to go out to J&V Pizzeria last week, but we ended up getting stuck on the N for a while, and ended up just getting off earlier and heading to Franny’s instead. We were hungry. This week, we tried again, taking a different combination of subways and walking to get down to Bensonhurst (south Brooklyn). It took us about an hour from our office, with Eric only taking us on a few minor detours. I did suggest that we walk there and avoid the subways altogether – but Eric wasn’t in the mood for a 3 hour walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J&V is a new addition to the 2016 list, and it is always exciting to venture to a new area of the city that we haven’t been to before. Of course, we had to get the biggest variety of slices that we could, so we went with two veggie slices, one cheese, one Sicilian, and one chicken slice.

I thought that the cheese slice was the best, mainly because the sauce was so fresh and tomato-y. Eric would probably agree with me, but I didn’t let him have a bite. So he said that his favorite was the chicken. The other slices were also decent, but nothing we’d trek out to Brooklyn for. But that cheese slice, well, I’m still thinking about it.

Eric was also fascinated by the rotating metal pizza oven they had. After some searching around, I’ve determined that it’s one of these. Eric, should we add one to our kitchen?

    

On the way home, we got interviewed for the local news! Not about pizza, about traffic and speeding in Brooklyn. Eric made me do all the talking. It only aired in Brooklyn, though, sorry everyone!

To visit:

J & V Pizzeria
6322 18th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11204

BarbaraLeave a comment

#19 Motorino

December 30th, 2015

New York City, NY

One of the great things that came from telling everyone we knew about our pizza goals was that we ended up with a few gift cards for various restaurants for the holidays! One pizzeria that we kept hearing about in NYC was Motorino. We didn’t waste any time in heading to their East Village location one cold night last December.

      

Like most Neapolitan pies, Motorino’s pies are all about the crust. It was perfectly chewy, and so light to eat. The toppings weren’t bad either. We ended up with the famous brussels sprout pie with smoked pancetta and a traditional margherita pie. Yes, we know brussels sprouts are so trendy, but we really love them, and we had to see what all the fuss was about.

The original Motorino is still located in Williamsburg, but we were too tempted by the much closer location in the East Village. There’s also a shop on the Upper West Side, as well as in Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, and Malaysia, if you find yourself traveling to those locations and need a pizza fix. Also a plus – they deliver!

We didn’t have any problems getting a table here right after work, although it was pretty busy by the time we left. They also have a nice wine list, and the East Village location has a cozy, café feel. I hear the Williamsburg location is a bit bigger and has a more traditional pizzeria feel to it.

And if you are looking for dessert afterwards, we’d recommend walking a block south for ice cream, or a block west for a cake or cookie treat. You may not know this (because we figure that you are tired of hearing us talk about pizza and don’t want to bore you even more), but we also have a running list of ice cream places to hit in the city.

 

 

To visit:

Motorino
349 E 12th Street
New York, NY 10003

BarbaraLeave a comment

#18 Co.

December 18, 2015

New York, NY

We started to tell our friends about our pizza travels, and naturally we got many volunteers who wanted to join us eating pizza around the country! We never minded the company, because it always meant that we could order more pies to try!

A perfect example of this is when we went to Co., which is in Chelsea in Manhattan. We met up after work one night with our friends Jen and Paul, who both live in Midtown.  Co. is relatively new to the pizza scene in NYC, having opened in 2009. We loved the large, communal and rustic tables (family style seating) and the wine list.

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You can see here that we ordered a great selection of pizzas to try. The left photo has the Charred Broccoli pie and the Boscalola (sausage and mushroom), and the right has the the famous Popeye pizza, and a plain Rosa to round it out.  I’m not sure which was the favorite of the night. The Popeye was definitely a good choice, with spinach, pecorino, gruyère, mozzarella, and a heavy hand of garlic, but the Charred Broccoli (which was a special pie) was also very tasty.

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We didn’t know that the owner of Co. is also the original owner of Sullivan St. Bakery, but it makes sense given that the crust on these pizzas was so good. We’ve never tried the pizza there, but this pizza is entirely different from the square slices served at Sullivan St.

 

We’d come back here for pizza, or just appetizers and drinks. It’s up there with the best (non-slice-joint) pizza in Manhattan, and we would really like to try some of the other seasonal pies.  It also  looks like they have an awesome brunch.

 

 

To visit:

Co.
230 9th Ave
New York, NY 10001

BarbaraLeave a comment