Reflections on Ray's Pizza

[LPShanet]

3.  Many of the neighborhood pizza places have been supplanted by said chains, as there appear to be fewer of the "indies".

This hasn't been my casual observation. In the neighborhood where I grew up, the Upper West Side, there seem to me to be just as many or more single-establishment pizzerias as there were when I was a kid. Indeed, several of the same ones are around -- they're just not as good.

I agree with Steven here. Outside of the tourist areas I don't see too much of a presence of the national chains.

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Sadly, this isn't true any more. Starting with the Upper East, they're starting to move in. They've also invaded Grammercy and Murray Hill a bit. Seemingly all the places where young, post-college types are living.

[LPShanet]

Another thing I've noticed is that among the places that are frequently mentioned as having great slices, at least as far as tourists and B&Ters know (such as Joe's on Bleecker and Carmine, Ray's, Ben's, etc.), many will turn out a really decent slice one day and a terrible one the next.  Why are they all so inconsistent now?  I don't remember them being that way in the past.

I remember it always being that way. Even at the best pizza places in my neighborhood, you had to pick your time of day carefully, and there was plenty of variation day to day.

I wouldn't argue with this. The best by the slice places like Ray's were great because the high turnover always led to a fresh pie rather than one sitting under the glass all day. A re-heated slice can still be great if it is re-heated enough.

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I and many pizza geeks actually LIKE the reheated slices in some cases. While a fresh pie only has a crisp crust for about 10 minutes until moisture soaks in, the reheating of slices often adds a desirable char, even if the original maker failed to achieve one. Obviously, having them sit around for really long periods isn't good.

[LPShanet]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts. Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust. Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

As for the other ingredients that are being discussed, the introduction of Wisconsin cheese is certainly a major factor. However, the idea that canned sauce is a major problem doesn't compute with me. As I understand it, many places have ALWAYS used canned, it's just a matter of how good the canned sauce is. Outside the US, many countries don't share our disrespect for canned goods. The crappy quality of many American canned goods has fueled our distaste, but in other countries, canned stuff can be very good, and sometimes preferable. There are entire restaurants in places like Barcelona that are celebrated for serving nothing but canned stuff. Similarly, there are quite a few recipes whose original forms call for canned tomatoes rather than fresh. So I'd be surprised if a switch from fresh to canned sauce ever took place in the rank and file NYC pizza joints, and even more surprised if you couldn't make a great slice with the right canned sauce. Then again, they may be buying it from the same distributor as sells them their crappy cheese and spongy dough shells.

[slkinsey]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

I'll certainly agree that, to me, pizza has always been about the crust. But, leaving out the old school coal-fired places, I'm not sure NYC deck-oven by-the-slice pizza has been defined by a superior crust in a long, long time. There's only so good the crust can be with this style of pizza. Sure, there are some places like Di Fara and Sal & Carmine's that manage to turn out a better crust than usual (ableit radically different in the case of these two examples), but I wouldn't say even the best places have been head-and-shoulders above the norm.

...the idea that canned sauce is a major problem doesn't compute with me.  As I understand it, many places have ALWAYS used canned, it's just a matter of how good the canned sauce is.

The places that have always used canned "pizza sauce" have probably always had mediocre-to-crappy sauce on their pizza.

I would question whether there was a great deal of pre-made "pizza sauce" being sold in the 1970s, and almost certainly there wasn't in the 1950s. I would also question whether, in fact, there even exists a high quality "pizza sauce" sold to the restaurant trade in gigantic metal cans. Most likely such a sauce would cost more than it would cost a pizzeria to make its own sauce. Clearly most of them aren't doing that, and the huge leap in sauce quality at places like Di Fara that do make their own sauce is usually obvious. Of course canned sauce doesn't have to be poor quality, but unfortunately it almost always is poor quality. Personally, once I started making my own tomato sauce around 20 years ago, I've never been able to stomach any brand of commercial pasta sauce regardless of brand or cost. I have to assume there are even greater limitations on the quality of pizza sauce that comes in #10 cans.

Edited September 19, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

[docsconz]

I was a regular customer of the Rays at 6th and 11th, always considered it the "original" (and, judging by the press posted all over the walls, very much so considered itself the original), and 2 slices of theirs would constitute a full meal and gorging. They would pile on so much cheese that there really was no equal in the city; if you were looking for mounds of cheese. And it tasted great. Then, sometime around 1999, or 2000 or maybe 2002, they started posting up posters about how they were no longer able to offer their cheesy slices because of cheese pricing wars or the influx of the cheap stuff or SOMETHING, maybe someone remembers, and I had to stop going there, the slices were never the same. FG, judging by what you are saying, they've somehow returned to their former glory.

I do believe that well into the 90s, every NYC neighborhood had at least one reliably good to great slice shop and that time has since past. Joe's is no longer on the corner and I don't know if it will ever be the same, but I always considered them the best slice on the island. Ray's was a bit of an anomoly because it was a glutton's slice; the pile of thickly grated cheese that topped their pies was stacked in a huge mountain peak towards the center of them. Not a purist's slice but certainly delightful.

I have to agree with Doc; you will almost certainly enjoy a better slice when served by a crusty, angry old pizzaola like you still find at Fascati's in Brooklyn Heights. I know it's a bit racist but when I walk in and see Middle Easterns or Mexicans making the pies, even if they've been instructed well by the owner, something is just missing.

I think the hot dog shops have proved that if you put out VOLUME of a cheap product, you can still stay in business... so I'm sure the right pizza shop could still survive slinging a constant supply of plain slices...

I think the biggest factor, in my mind, is the end result of the Robert Moses-ification of the city - most of your Italian-Americans have since migrated out to Westchester, Long Island, Staten Island, New Jersey, where you can now reliably find the pizza slices of Manhattan past...

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BTW, I don't think that Italians have any particular genetic superiority for making pizze. I just think that the old Italians and Italian Americans had a knowledge of, ability to source excellent and respect for quality ingredients that may not be the case today for whatever reason. I write this now as I am about to go pick up a dozen or so mediocre pizze to help feed my son's H.S. varsity football team! BTW, I am in the outer NY diaspora

[Pan]

I think I've posted about this before somewhere, but I remember going to the Ray's in question in 1978, finding the pizza acceptable but nothing amazing (I went there many times and was NEVER impressed with it or the hype surrounding it), not liking their use of canned mushrooms for toppings, and being told by patrons that I missed out, because it USED to be really great years earlier.

Edited September 20, 2007 by Pan (log)

[docsconz]

I think I've posted about this before somewhere, but I remember going to the Ray's in question in 1978, finding the pizza acceptable but nothing amazing (I went there many times and was NEVER impressed with it or the hype surrounding it), not liking their use of canned mushrooms for toppings, and being told by patrons that I missed out, because it USED to be really great years earlier.

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Toppings at Rays? No wonder you didn't like it! Seriously, they were known for their cheese pizza at least to my circle. I don't think I ever had it with toppings other than perhaps extra cheese! It is/was a unique style that like for everything else is not to everyone's preference. I loved it.

[Jesikka]

As a kid, I remember hearing a rumor/urban legend that all the mom-and-pop pizza places were forced to buy their ingredients from the Mafia.  As members of the Italian-American community, the pizza place owners supposedly had to go along with this strongarm situation, and complied, which meant that all the seemingly independent pizza places were getting their ingredients from the same supplier(s).  I have no reason to believe this is true (or false), but it sure would explain a lot!  It might also explain why the pizza making business appears to have slipped away from its former glory.  And, if true, might be the one case I can think of where organized crime was a good thing, and needs to be brought back:)

Thoughts?  Somehow, I think I may have opened myself up for all sorts of attacks, but at least the discussion should be interesting.

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There are many who disagree, but I am certainly in a substantial minority (or perhaps majority) who have always felt that organized crime was/is a good thing for Providence, Rhode Island. Buddy Cianci is a cult figure in Providence (he even managed to get re-elected from jail once and may be elected again after his recent stint). Under Buddy, the city has absolutely thrived, the rivers were uncovered, the potholes in the street are filled in, etc. Of course, your car does get towed a lot and I'm sure there's all sorts of grime and violence behind the scenes. Of course, this is all unrelated to pizza, which is not particularly a Rhode Island specialty (except for Al Forno- which is a different type of pizza).

[phaelon56]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

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I'll give myself credit for having already raised this exact issue earlier in the thread (I didn't use the word "spongy" but I was complaining about the crusts - which generally suck).

I think the majority of the slice joints and neighborhood pizzerias in NYC most likely don't mix, knead and raise their dough from high quality ingredients. Pre-made ready-to-stretch-and-bake dough is common

And Nathan pointed out that the "Joe's" I referenced is actually at Bleecker and 6th. The weird thing is that although the place I mentioned (which I have not visited in the past four or five years) was just "Joe's" - not "Famous Joe's". I'm wondering if they really moved up form the corner or of the other place closed and the new guy can't use the name but settled on"Famous Joe's" so that people would assume a connection.

I'll be in the city for the last weekend of September and staying in that neighborhood - I'll walk over and check it out.

[Nathan]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

←

I'll give myself credit for having already raised this exact issue earlier in the thread (I didn't use the word "spongy" but I was complaining about the crusts - which generally suck).

I think the majority of the slice joints and neighborhood pizzerias in NYC most likely don't mix, knead and raise their dough from high quality ingredients. Pre-made ready-to-stretch-and-bake dough is common

And Nathan pointed out that the "Joe's" I referenced is actually at Bleecker and 6th. The weird thing is that although the place I mentioned (which I have not visited in the past four or five years) was just "Joe's" - not "Famous Joe's". I'm wondering if they really moved up form the corner or of the other place closed and the new guy can't use the name but settled on"Famous Joe's" so that people would assume a connection.

I'll be in the city for the last weekend of September and staying in that neighborhood - I'll walk over and check it out.

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for whatever reason, they moved...I'm pretty sure its the same people and everything's identical inside. meanwhile, a generic pizza place took over the old location...no doubt attempting to capitalize on confused tourists.

[Pan]

Toppings at Rays? No wonder you didn't like it! Seriously, they were known for their cheese pizza at least to my circle. I don't think I ever had it with toppings other than perhaps extra cheese! It is/was a unique style that like for everything else is not to everyone's preference. I loved it.

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Yeah, but their plain pizza didn't impress me, either. Like I said, as far as I was concerned, it was acceptable. Period.

[docsconz]

Toppings at Rays? No wonder you didn't like it! Seriously, they were known for their cheese pizza at least to my circle. I don't think I ever had it with toppings other than perhaps extra cheese! It is/was a unique style that like for everything else is not to everyone's preference. I loved it.

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Yeah, but their plain pizza didn't impress me, either. Like I said, as far as I was concerned, it was acceptable. Period.

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I think this speaks to the wide variability in preference for various pizza characteristics. Some hold the crust in highest esteem, others the sauce and yet for others, the topping is the most important item. Obviously, some balance must be achieved in order to have an outstanding pizza. Ray's was all about the cheese topping with a decent sauce, but little crispness to the crust by my recollection, which one would expect given all the moisture loaded on top. Nevertheless, I don't recall the crust being soggy. It was sufficiently supportive of all the weight resting on top of it.

[docsconz]

Just to add to my comment above: Ray's was not the best pizza I've ever had nor my favorite all-time, but it was great for what it was - a cheese bomb filled with lots of gooey, soft, hot and satisfying cheese.

[raji]

Just to add to my comment above: Ray's was not the best pizza I've ever had nor my favorite all-time, but it was great for what it was - a cheese bomb filled with lots of gooey, soft, hot and satisfying cheese.

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ditto. Given it's proximity to NYU, SVA, Parsons, New School, it was responsible for many a "Freshman 15"

[weinoo]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

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I'll give myself credit for having already raised this exact issue earlier in the thread (I didn't use the word "spongy" but I was complaining about the crusts - which generally suck).

I think the majority of the slice joints and neighborhood pizzerias in NYC most likely don't mix, knead and raise their dough from high quality ingredients. Pre-made ready-to-stretch-and-bake dough is common

And Nathan pointed out that the "Joe's" I referenced is actually at Bleecker and 6th. The weird thing is that although the place I mentioned (which I have not visited in the past four or five years) was just "Joe's" - not "Famous Joe's". I'm wondering if they really moved up form the corner or of the other place closed and the new guy can't use the name but settled on"Famous Joe's" so that people would assume a connection.

I'll be in the city for the last weekend of September and staying in that neighborhood - I'll walk over and check it out.

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I don't know that they "moved," per se. The current place was extant even when Joe's was down at the corner. Joe's closed, reopened as some other crappy pizza place, and the other Joe's (on 6th) is still there with the stand-up tables. FWIW, after a show at the Blue Note, a couple of friends and I went into Joe's. We asked for a large pie, half-plain, half sausage, thin, light on the cheese, and well cooked on the bottom. What we got was a pie that was almost the equal of any pie I've had from Patsy's in Harlem, Totonno's, Arturo's, etc. Delicious.

When I was driving a cab (a Checker, I might add, back in '74 - '76), other than the Ray's at 6th and 11th, we used to frequent the Ray's at 76th and 3rd... they made literally identical pies, though I don't know if they were related. Cheesy, gooey, etc. - just what was needed to fuel a night in the mean city! But in no way was it the equal of the pie of our youth, Carmela's in Franklin Square! Good, yes, but mighty different.

[LPShanet]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

←

I'll give myself credit for having already raised this exact issue earlier in the thread (I didn't use the word "spongy" but I was complaining about the crusts - which generally suck).

I think the majority of the slice joints and neighborhood pizzerias in NYC most likely don't mix, knead and raise their dough from high quality ingredients. Pre-made ready-to-stretch-and-bake dough is common

And Nathan pointed out that the "Joe's" I referenced is actually at Bleecker and 6th. The weird thing is that although the place I mentioned (which I have not visited in the past four or five years) was just "Joe's" - not "Famous Joe's". I'm wondering if they really moved up form the corner or of the other place closed and the new guy can't use the name but settled on"Famous Joe's" so that people would assume a connection.

I'll be in the city for the last weekend of September and staying in that neighborhood - I'll walk over and check it out.

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for whatever reason, they moved...I'm pretty sure its the same people and everything's identical inside. meanwhile, a generic pizza place took over the old location...no doubt attempting to capitalize on confused tourists.

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To help settle this, it is, in fact, the same Joe's. And it wasn't really a move, in that they were in the current space quite a while at the same time as being in the corner space. In other words, they actually had two Joe's a few dozen feet apart for quite a while. Then the landlord of the corner space raised the rent so exorbitantly that they felt they had to move out, as they wouldn't make enough money for it to make business sense. They kept the mid-block space, which then became their main (and only) focus. Then, as Nathan mentions, some chain place took over the corner space, which further supports some of the comments upstream.

Edited September 25, 2007 by LPShanet (log)

[LPShanet]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

I'll certainly agree that, to me, pizza has always been about the crust. But, leaving out the old school coal-fired places, I'm not sure NYC deck-oven by-the-slice pizza has been defined by a superior crust in a long, long time. There's only so good the crust can be with this style of pizza. Sure, there are some places like Di Fara and Sal & Carmine's that manage to turn out a better crust than usual (ableit radically different in the case of these two examples), but I wouldn't say even the best places have been head-and-shoulders above the norm.

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I'd say that's both true and false. While the best crusts come from a really hot coal (or wood, or similar) oven, you can achieve a pretty good result in a standard Bari deck oven by using the principle discovered by the best french fry makers: cook it twice. Some places still can get a pretty good crunch/chew going. A crust with good flavor that has the potential to get crisp will make a very nice slice, as I've had on occasion even recently at Joe's and occasionally Ben's on Spring. However, very often they mess this up, either with the cooking/reheating process or by making the crust sloppily (either by ingredient proportions or by not controlling the thickness, among other factors). The result: that spongy horror.

[LPShanet]

When I was driving a cab (a Checker, I might add, back in '74 - '76), other than the Ray's at 6th and 11th, we used to frequent the Ray's at 76th and 3rd... they made literally identical pies, though I don't know if they were related.  Cheesy, gooey, etc. - just what was needed to fuel a night in the mean city! But in no way was it the equal of the pie of our youth, Carmela's in Franklin Square! Good, yes, but mighty different.

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Nice...I miss the Checker cabs, too! (Although not the bumpy ride.) We used to frequent the Ray's at 76th and 3rd, and remember it being quite good, as you do. I seem to remember the sauce being one of the major attractions of that slice, which was critical when you're dealing with a cheese bomb.

[weinoo]

To help settle this, it is, in fact, the same Joe's.  And it wasn't really a move, in that they were in the current space quite a while at the same time as being in the corner space.  In other words, they actually had two Joe's a few dozen feet apart for quite a while.  Then the landlord of the corner space raised the rent so exorbitantly that they felt they had to move out, as they wouldn't make enough money for it to make business sense.  They kept the mid-block space, which then became their main (and only) focus.  Then, as Nathan mentions, some chain place took over the corner space, which further supports some of the comments upstream.

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Much more eloquently put than I was able to, LPShanet...absolutely correct.

And, I reiterate, a damn good pie can be had at Joe's.

[slkinsey]

All this talk has been surprisingly free of condemnation for the state of today's crusts.  Certainly cheese quality is important, and so it sauce, but the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust.  Death to the spongy stuff that is everywhere now!

I'll certainly agree that, to me, pizza has always been about the crust. But, leaving out the old school coal-fired places, I'm not sure NYC deck-oven by-the-slice pizza has been defined by a superior crust in a long, long time. There's only so good the crust can be with this style of pizza. Sure, there are some places like Di Fara and Sal & Carmine's that manage to turn out a better crust than usual (ableit radically different in the case of these two examples), but I wouldn't say even the best places have been head-and-shoulders above the norm.

I'd say that's both true and false. While the best crusts come from a really hot coal (or wood, or similar) oven, you can achieve a pretty good result in a standard Bari deck oven by using the principle discovered by the best french fry makers: cook it twice.

I think some places (e.g., Di Fara as I mention above) have come pretty close to the best of what is possible within the limitations imposed by a stainless deck pizza oven, and they seem to be able to do it without baking the crust twice.

I don't dispute that a "pretty good slice" can be produced in a deck oven... even a superior one. I do dispute that New York stainless deck oven pizza was ever particularly defined by having a superior crust or distinguished from other species and styles of pizza on this basis. The limitations imposed by stainless deck ovens mean that, in order to get a crisp crust -- never mind any "char" -- you need to bake the pizza for a longer period of time, which dries out the crust and makes it tougher (as opposed to the "crisp and charred yet light and pliable" effect higher temperature retained-heat ovens can create). This is especially true when the pizza is made with high gluten flour and even more true when the crust is laden with an overabundance of toppings, both of which are almost always the case with this style of pizza. Double-baking and other compensatory techniques magnify this drying/toughening effect.

This is not to say, however, that a superior pizza can't be made in this style and using these techniques. Most anyone would agree that Di Fara makes a superior pizza working in this style, and weinoo and others point out that other examples exist around the city. But superior pizza and superior crust aren't the same thing. I would argue that "acceptably crisp and functionally capable of supporting the toppings" just about represents the pinnacle of stainless deck-oven pizza baking. It's unclear to me that they're capable of making a crust so good you'd eat it on its own.

That said, I suppose I'd agree that NYC stainless deck oven pizza may have been distinguished from other regional stainless deck oven pizza by having a less common incidence of crappy sponge crust. One thing I note is that it's fairly common even in "slice shop level" pizzerie in NYC to bake the pizza directly on the floor of the oven rather than using a pizza pan, which does provide for a crisper crust. This does not seem to be the case in many other regional traditions.

Edited to add: I think it's interesting that, in order to get a great pizza at Joe's, weinoo had to specify "thin, light on the cheese, and well cooked on the bottom" -- in effect, mandating that they deviate significantly from their usual practices. I've employed similar ordering techniques at Lombardi's.

Edited September 25, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

[phaelon56]

the limitations imposed by a stainless deck pizza oven

Does this mean that the cooking surface itself - the floor of the oven - is stainless steel and not brick?

The two pizza shops in my city that I consider to be very good both use gas fired ovens but with a brick deck that gets cleaned periodically and replaced every once in a rare while. And the quality of the results resembles - but in most cases is superior to - what the best slice joints in NYC offered 20 or 30 years ago when they mixed and proofed their own dough from scratch, made their own sauce and used high quality whole milk mozzarella.

I could get pie like that in Rutherford NJ when I lived there (and still can when I visit) and I'm told that Staten Island still has good extant examples but in Manhattan it seem that I have to jump to coal oven places to get pie I really like.

[Fat Guy]

I think the capabilities of the standard stainless pizza oven, e.g. the Baker's Pride Y-series deck oven have not seriously been explored by a significant number of New York City pizzerias. A Baker's Pride Y-series (or the equivalent Blodgett) can maintain 650 degrees F, which should be sufficient to bake a terrific crust (you can even get one configured with fire-brick hearth decks). That's a bit lower than what the coal- and wood-fired ovens do, but it's in the ballpark. So I don't necessarily think it's a simple limitation of the oven. Rather, I just think most pizzerias aren't bothering to turn the ovens up to that temperature. I think they're working down in the 500 degree F neighborhood. There's a place on the Upper East Side, called Pintaile's, where I noticed they do fire the oven to the maximum temperature setting, and they form the thinnest crust I've ever seen in a slice shop. I won't go so far as to say the pizza is fabulous -- there are other flaws that come into play like a fundamentally poor dough -- but there are fabulous elements. It's a good demonstration of some of the possibilities.

[slkinsey]

The main deal is temperature. Even with a seriously tweaked oven maxed out at 650F, they're still a few hundred degrees F below what you can get in a wood- or coal-fired oven. It's possible to reach these temperatures with gas, but it takes a very specialized setup (I've seen one at Fornino in Williamsburg -- the gas jet is the size of my torso).

Even though it's a few hundred degrees below the retained heat ovens, when a gas deck oven is cranked up to 650F, it's not going to be a very comfortable working around it. Those big doors let out a lot of heat. Dom Demarco has the ovens at Di Fara cranked up to the maximum, and it can be quite uncomfortable standing near the oven. Retained heat ovens, on the other hand, are purpose-built and designed in such a way that the pizzaiolo's exposure to the intense heat is minimized. I also have to assume that it can be quite expensive to maintain a stainless deck oven at high temperature.

The result, as Steven points out, is that the vast majority of stainless pizza ovens are maintained more like around 500F (I also wonder how many NYC pizzerie have ovens that are capable of safely sustaining 650F). Consider this: How long does it take to bake a pizza in a typical stainless deck pizza oven? 10 minutes for the places that have the oven cranked up, and more like 20 minutes at most places. I've stood in front of the oven at Patsy's East Harlem and timed their pizza baking time, which averages between 90 and 120 seconds to bake a pizza. That gives some idea as to the difference in temperature.

[Fat Guy]

Plenty of wood- and coal-oven places are baking in the 700s or even lower. Here's a newspaper piece on wood-oven pizzerias in the Seattle-Tacoma area that lists the temperatures and cooking times for each place under review. If the information is reliable, Trattoria Grazie on that list is baking pies in two minutes at 650 degrees F. I assume there are some issues with wood beyond just the temperature reading -- for example the top-down heat from the roof of a curved oven -- but these numbers nonetheless indicate to me that there's a lot of potential with a 650-degree stainless oven. Here also is a page from Forno Bravo, an oven manufacturer, that indicates temperatures in the 700s are common ("There are many VPN-certified pizzerias baking in the 700ºs.")

[slkinsey]

There are plenty of "brick oven" type pizzerie turning out mediocre pizza baked at lower temperatures. Just because it is a retained heat wood-fired oven doesn't mean it's going to be fired high enough or turn out great pizza.

The NYC wood- and coal-fired pizzerie are baking at least as high as 750, and optimally in the very high 800s or even low 900s. The lower temperatures would coincide with pizzerie that are lacking in overall oven management (e.g., Lombardi's) and times when otherwise extellent pizzerie may lenot keep the oven fully fired during the non-rush hours (e.g., Grimaldi's at around four o'clock in the afternooon). Both conditions result in a notable drop in quality.

What Forno Bravo (which is trying to sell pizza ovens) says is:

Do you have to bake at 900ºF to make VPN-Certified pizza?

No. The VPN Americas web site specifically says you should cook at 800ºF. Other Pizza Napoletana sources recommend different figures, with some recommending 750ºF, and others recommending a range between 750ºF-825ºF. While the VPN Naples web site does recommend 900ºF on the cooking floor and 825ºF in the cooking dome, it is important to note that here are many VPN-certified pizzerias baking in the 700ºs. There is a lot more to Pizza Napoletana that a single temperature, and what really matters is reaching the wood-fired heat necessary to bake pizza in the 90 seconds that everyone agrees is the right amount of time. Any longer than that, you you pizza will dry out and become tough and chewy.

I note that the Italians recommend "900ºF on the cooking floor and 825ºF in the cooking dome" and also that the text says there are "many VPN-certified pizzerias baking in the 700ºs." The rest of their text would indicate that they're talking about at least 750F when they say "in the 700ºs." That's a far cry from 650 degrees.

As for the News-Tribune article, I'm not entirely sure how much I believe all those temperatures and baking times. Did they measure the temperatures, or did they ask the owners? And if they did measure, how was the temperature in the ovens measured? Was it with an infrared thermometer or did the ovens have a temperature indicator? If it was an oven indicator, that's problematic because different ovens can show radically different temperatures depending on the way the oven is constructed, where the temperature is measured, and the nature of the temperature probe. Depending on construction/location/method, it 's certainly possible for a temperature readout to show 675F and for the floor of the oven to actually be 750F. I also have some questions as to those baking times, but will note that the pizzeria with the shortest baking time and the most rhapsodic description of its crust was the place with the highest reported oven temperature. It's also interesting to note that, in the article, good crust quality was highly associated with the higher oven temperatures (and secondarily with austere use of toppings).

The best thing in the Forno Bravo site is that they point out the importance of fully cooking the pizza in 90 seconds for an optimal crust that is both crisp and pliable as opposed to tough and chewy. It could be theoretically possible to do this at 650F, but the pizza would have to be paper thin with minimal toppings.

Edited September 26, 2007 by slkinsey (log)