So... Patsy's! As Joe mentions,
huge difference in attitude between Patsy's and Grimaldi's. And, it must be said, an equally huge difference in decor and associated accoutrements. Patsy's dining room is dim and drab (making for some very dark photos), the plates are melamine, the oven is ugly and utilitarian. But, really... who cares? The pizza is amazing.
It was interesting for me to discover that several of the things I had heard from well-respected pizzaphiles turned out to be untrue with respect to both Grimaldi's and Patsy's. I have been told by more than one source that the pizza at Grimaldi was mediocre at best, and clearly inferior to Patsy's, and I had also been told that a side-by-side tasting of fresh mozzarella versus low moisture mozzarella at Patsy's would reveal the clear superiority of the latter. Well, neither of these things turned out to be true. The pizza at Grimaldi's was excellent, and in certain aspects better than Patsy's, and most of us seemed to prefer fresh mozzarella over the low moisture variety. Who knew? A lot of this comes down to personal preferences, of course, and I also suspect that most of the Grimaldi's detractors ate there during off-peak hours which were not propitious in terms of oven heat.
As Joe points out, Patsy's oven is fired earlier and more often than the oven at Grimaldi's, and I cannot help thinking that this goes a long way towards explaining why they do not suffer the same problems as Grimaldi's in this regard. When we questioned Victor about the oven, he first told us that the oven was hot pretty much 24/7. They stoke the oven at the end of the night, and there are still some embers remaining in the morning when the oven is stoked again. I can't imagine that the oven loses all that much heat during this time -- maybe 100 degrees F at most. And, since they fire the oven at around 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning to get ready for an 11:00 lunch opening, the oven has plenty of heat stored up by the time the lunch rush comes. Contrary to Grimaldi's, who claimed that they stoked the oven only a few times to maintain temperature between two major firings, Victor told us that the Patsy's oven is stoked continuously throughout the day. Of course, he told us in a much more colorful manner: "Look, if you're heating your house with coal and it's 20 degrees below zero outside... you're gonna put coal in only a couple times a day? You'll be freezing your ass off in there." I also wonder whether either Grimaldi's or Patsy's really knows what the temperature is inside those ovens. I am sure it's mostly done by tradition and feel. When we asked about the temperature, Victor showed us his hand and said he'd have a sunburn if he stuck his hand in the oven more than a few seconds. In fact, he claimed to have suggested to the police back in the old days that they use the "hand in the oven" method to interrogate bad guys: "I'll tell you what, if they don't want to say anything after 'one thousand one' I can guarantee they'll be telling you everything they know by 'one thousand two.'" Another thing I noticed about Patsy's in terms of oven management is that the pizzaioli never kept the oven door open more than a second or two. Very smart when you want to keep the air temperature as high as possible.
On to the pizze and the all important crust. As the pictures show, the crust is much more emphatially charred than previous examples. I think we can see a progression of char from Di Fara's gas oven to Grimaldi's coal oven to Patsy's coal oven. The char gets blacker, the bottom of the pizza is more completely charred and there is less "soak through" at the tip of the slice as one progreses towards Patsy's. It is also worthy of note that Patsy's was the first slice I could hold up without worrying that the ingredients would slide off (I didn't take a "hanging slice" picture in Grimaldi's as I was trying to be discrete following their unpleasantness about cameras).
Now, several tasters felt that Patsy's char was a little over the top and ventured into the category of burnt every so often. I have to say that this was not my own evaluation, but I like the smoky bitterness of a slightly burnt crust and it is also true that the degree of char varied between nicely charred and extra charred from pizza to pizza and especially from slice to slice.
Getting back to the main event, for me, which is the crust. There are, to my mind, some interesting comparisons to be made between the crusts at Patsy's and Grimaldi's. I found the crust at Grimaldi's generally chewier, "wheatier" and more flavorful than the crust at Patsy's. On the other hand, the crust at Patsy's is etherially light, thinner, features more charred flavor and, despite being lighter and thinner, actually seemed stronger than the crust at Grimaldi's. Patsy's was the first pizza where I never once thought of reaching for a fork and knife, as they always folded securely in half and never suffered from "soggy tip" (this is most apparent in the Di Fara slice above). Interestingly, it did not seem critically important to eat Patsy's pizza within 90 seconds of the pie hitting the table in order to get a "peak crust experience" as it had at Grimaldi's. In fact, the sixth pizza was mostly for the gluttons and several of us had a second slice which was just as good as the first. In conclusion, I can't say exactly whether I prefer Patsy's crust or Grimaldi's crust better when both are consumed at their peak. They are different, but both are excellent examples of the classic NYC style. After 90 seconds, Patsy's is the clear winner.
On to the toppings: Patsy's toppings are good, but clearly third place among the places we have visited thus far. For people for whom the toppings are the main show, Di Fara is still clearly in he lead. As Joe points out, Patsy's sauce is in the middle between Di Fara's strongly flavored cooked sauce and Grimaldi's uncomplicated fresh sauce. I'd probably give the nudge to Grimaldi's in this department. Patsy's sauce didn't reaslly make much of an impact, and seemed mostly to serve as a flavor vehicle that brought the crust and toppings together.
Again, the pizza was sparsely covered with cheese, which is to my preference, as opposed to Dom's more generous hand at Di Fara. The availability of fresh mozzarella made a big difference, in my opinion, for this style of pizza. I had been expecting the fresh mozzarella on the pizza margherita to be watery and rubbery as it is in most implementations. But at Patsy's the oven was hot enough and the cheese little enough that it worked really very well. The low moisture cheese was excellent in its own way, but I didn't think it had as much flavor as the fresh mozzarella which provided a clean "white" taste and a rich mouthfeel that contrasted nicely with the dark, earthy, slightly bitter flavor of the crust.
As for the other toppings... nothing to write home about. This is one area where Patsy's could really improve. In today's day and age, and in a city like New York, there is no reason to use insipid canned olives and merely acceptable pepperoni. There are many pizzerie in the city offering a markedly inferior pizza with much better toppings. I'd like to see Patsy's going a little more "gourmet" with their toppings -- using better olives, better sausage, and so on. I'd be glad to have them stay traditional NYC with the range of toppings offered, but it shouldn't be too difficult to roast their own peppers and acquire better sausage like Grimaldi's does. All this is to say that the clear choice for Patsy's is an unadorned cheese and tomato pizza. Although others felt it was too strong, I rather enjoyed the contrast offered by the marinara pizza with its hefty dose of garlic. But I would agree that it's not the pizza to buy if you're only getting one.
Sigh... one of these days I'll get the group to indulge me in an anchovy pizza. One of my favorites at Lombardi's is anchovy and capers.
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