New York Pizza

New York Pizza

Pizza in New York is not a recent introduction, it did not arrive with globalization, but was born parallel to the city, a city that was formed with immigration and whose gastronomic tradition was therefore shaped around the various specialties introduced by a community of immigrants. Therefore, the link between the Big Apple and pizza has very deep historical and cultural roots and every traveler who visits the city must absolutely take the opportunity to taste the “New York pizza” in the authentic local style, that is eating a slice while walking, on the street, or in the park.

The origins of pizza in New York: the Neapolitan-American Pizza

The history of pizza in New York begins in 1905 with Gennaro Lombardi, who began selling the first slices of pizza in his grocery store on Spring Street, which later became the famous Lombardi’s restaurant. The pizza proposed by Lombardi was very similar to the Neapolitan one, except for the shape and cooking that in America was made using coal while in Italy in a wood oven. For this reason, Lombardi’s pizza was renamed Neapolitan-American. Some of Lombardi’s pizza chefs then opened their own pizzeria: this is the case of Anthony “Totonno” Pero, owner of Totonno’s in Coney Island, John Sasso of John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street, and Pasquale “Patsy” Lanceri, who opened Patsy’s in Harlem instead. These restaurants, still open today, represent the cradle of the original “NY style pizza”.

For a certain period, the ban on using charcoal ovens led to the spread of the cheaper gas oven, with the consequent birth of “low-cost” pizzerias in all the districts of the city. The cooking in the gas oven obviously also influenced the taste and texture of the pizza, developing a new type of pizza compared to the Neapolitan-American one.

What Makes Pizza a New York Pizza?

To influence the taste and texture of the pizza there are also the ingredients, including water, and in New York there is the “legend” according to which to make the pizza crust really good it is essential to use New York water and this makes the Big Apple pizza unique. The water of New York is in fact very sweet and “soft” and this probably partly affects the final result; for the same reason chains such as Grimaldi’s use special tools to alter the taste of the water in the branches around the country, trying to obtain the same characteristics as New York water.

In addition to water, there are two other elements that distinguish New York Pizza from all the other “imitations”: first of all the charcoal oven usually used to cook “pie” pizzas or whole pizzas in restaurants where the slices; these are the pizzas that you can enjoy sitting at the table sharing it with friends.

The “slice” is instead the slice of pizza, and that of New York usually has a triangular shape (only in some cases you will find the rectangular shape, called Sicilian): the typical pizza slice is, for example, that of Joe’s in Greenwich Village. The pizzerias by the cut use the gas oven to cook the pizzas and this makes them a little different for various reasons: the pizzerias by the cut use much more cheese than the restaurants that use the charcoal oven and instead of fresh mozzarella they use it a more “dry” type (like the one in blocks) since it is more suitable for low temperatures and longer cooking times of the gas oven. This also makes the pizza less soft than the one cooked in a charcoal oven.

New York pizza is usually thin, but not too thin, and with a slightly toasted crust and only slightly higher than the inside, so when you see it, it still looks a bit flat, unlike, for example, the classic Neapolitan with a high edge.