NYC | An Ode to the New York Slice (& Where to Get It)
Surprisingly enough, it’s a food with hybrid origins that screams “New York” louder than that guy manspreading on the Q-train or the 2.5-hour wait for brunch. Long before the invasion of cronuts and avocado toasts, it was the classic New York slice that has long reigned supreme in the city, where fads last just about as long as the ombre hairstyle you spent a fat hundred on.
My preferences of pizza followed the phases of growth through childhood, adolescence, and now, adulthood. As a perpetually snack-hungry kid whose life mantra was “more is more,” I gobbled down thick-crust pan pizzas, where the crust wasn’t crust, but a pillowy slab of bread. Bonus points if it was filled with cheese. When I reached those angsty teenage years of foolishly caring about things like body fat (but not willing to totally forgo life’s joys), pan pizzas were swapped for their thinner cousin, the Neapolitan pizza. And now, after having lived in Manhattan for five years, I’m a convert devoted to the art that is the crisp-on-the-bottom, gooey-on-top New York slice.
Though pizza originally hails from Italy, New York took the dish and made it its own (as it so often does with many things). In 1905, an immigrant pizzaiolo — Italian for “pizza maker” — by the name of Gennaro Lombardi opened the city’s first pizzeria in Little Italy. Flouting the Italian tradition of using a brick oven, Antonio Totonno Pero, a Lombardi’s employee who later opened his own pizzeria, baked large pies in an industrial coal-fired oven, giving them a crisp exterior with a lightly blackened char. Most people back then, however, couldn’t shell out the 5 cents needed to buy a whole pie, and instead offered whatever they could for a proportionally-priced slice. And thus, the New York slice was born.
While the sauce and cheese are both important components to any pizza, the real soul of the New York slice lies in the crust — which any self-respecting New Yorker knows to fold in half. While the true Neapolitan dough consists simply of type 0 or 00 dough, yeast, salt and water, the crust of a New York pizza uses heartier, high-gluten bread flour, and adds sugar and olive oil for extra depth in flavour. Some claim that the true secret to the characteristic taste and texture of this hybrid slice lies in the minerals of its tap water, dubbed “the champagne of drinking water.” Some out-of-state pizzaiolo’s apparently even transport the water cross-country for the sake of authenticity of their pizzas.
In a golden review he recently wrote of a pizzeria on the Upper West Side, Pete Wells celebrates the New York slice: “When it is praised, we don’t talk about its artisanal roots; we call it the humble slice, the street-corner slice, the slice of the common man and woman.” The sheer number of places selling pizza — from your late-night drunken snack shack to rustically decorated sit-down restaurants — are a clear indication of this. But this doesn’t mean you need to settle for a mediocre slice.
Classic crowdpleasers are Joe’s Pizza, Juliana’s, and Grimaldi’s (they’re obviously proud of their pizzas, if they’re all so willing to slap their names on them). Artichoke Basille’s is another go-to: Their namesake artichoke pizza is basically globs of carbonara sauce on a giant slice of flatbread, and is perfect after a night out. If you don’t want to feel like you just downed a vat of cream, the Sicilian or meatball parm slices are great, too. Though not strictly a New York slice, a personal favourite of mine is Gristmill way out in Park Slope, where their unique, sourdough crust lends a tangy chew to the crust. It was also where I tried squash, caramelized onions, and ‘nduja on a ‘za for the first time, and fell in love. (For those who don’t know, ‘nduja is a spicy, spreadable sausage. It’s also notoriously difficult to pronounce.)
All things said and done, there’s nothing quite so classic and universally loved as pizza. After all, what’s not to love about baked bread topped with herby tomato sauce and melted cheese? Each iteration, though, from deep-dish to thin-crust, has its own unique story hidden in its doughy depths — it’s just a matter of diving in to discover their slice of history.
