NYC Pizza Survey

[Rachel Perlow]

Good sausage. BAD canned tasteless watery don't waste your money mushrooms. Decent pizza. I'd take a winning little league team there in a heartbeat.

[Jason Perlow]

I really liked this pizza, for whatever wacky genre it is. It certainly is not your typical type Sicilian pie -- a think layer of sauce (very zingy, great flavor) is on top of the cheese, on top of which a lot of finely grated romano/parmesan is shaked and then toppings. The crust is nicely seasoned and has a definite and pleasant olive oil flavor similar to a foccacia - the texture of which is somewhat spongier than your average Sicilian crust or a foccacia.

Its hard to compare L&B square pies to anything out there, so there is no basis for reference. But it is tasty and enjoyable, and we sure scarfed those 24 slices down between 8 people.

If you get a pizza with a topping, go with the sausage. As Rachel says, the shrooms are pointless and extra cheese would make it a gloppy mess. The slices need no enhancement (I.E. don't bother shaking any more parmesan on it, it has a ton already) although a shake of hot pepper was a nice tweak.

Other factoid: Spumoni Gardens has a decent sized parking lot, so if you go by car, it won't be a hassle.

[Pan]

I loved all the outdoor tables under a tent. The place has a real celebratory atmosphere, which I absorbed while waiting for the others to arrive, as I had gotten there something like 20 minutes early. Many kids were running around (more while I was waiting at a table and reading the Times than afterwards) and a birthday party was happening while we were eating. The kids can get out of hand at times, though, as when one lost control of a frisbee and, because of a crisp wind, it ended up skidding right through our table onto the floor. But no harm, no foul.

I enjoyed the pizza and feel like the Perlows pretty much covered it, but I'll add some of my own descriptions:

Tangy tomato sauce with cheese (notable taste of parmesan) over a moderately spongy, fairly thick but not overly dense crust. The outside of the crust was pleasantly crisped dough and cheese.

As enjoyable as the pizza was, I felt like the spumoni blew it out of the water in terms of something that was really worth a trip. I especially liked the "vanilla" flavor, which was described on the outside wall of the ice cream section of the building as "vanilla (cremolata)." It was really lots of crunchy small pieces of toasted almonds in a vanilla base.

This is a place I'd definitely go to if I have a reason to be in the neighborhood again. Otherwise, the trip was very enjoyable on a beautiful day like yesterday, but it's basically an hour or so for me to get there, even with every train showing up right away, so I can't say I'll make it a habit.

[docsconz]

I think their pie is probably more like a traditional Sfincione that one would find in Sicily than a typical NY-Sicilian style pizza. My experience with sfincione in Sicily is that the sauce is predominant and on top of any cheese that might be on the bread. In addition the crust tends to be a little thinner and less bready than NY-Sicilian style pizze.

[MobyP]

Just thought I'd let you know I carried the New York pizza survey To Napoli...

Hope you approve.

[alacarte]

Definitely approve. Great pictures, Moby. Thanks for furthering our pizza education!

[slkinsey]

Posted belatedly, because I thought I had posted my thoughts earlier. Oh well... better late than never, right?

So... L&B Spumoni Gardens

Just the exterior of this place is enough to tell that it's going to be different from all the other places we've visited thus far. Indeed, L&B isn't directly comparable to anything we've had up to this point, except perhaps Di Fara's square pizza (more on this later).

L&B specializes in a very specific, perhaps unique kind of pizza. It has a thick, dense, almost doughy crust and is topped with copious amounts of wet toppings that are not "gourmet" by anyone's definition. In addition, the cheese is entirely covered with a generous layer of sauce. L&B is also primarily a slice shop, although they do such huge business that the slices do aren't reheated but rather are cut from pies fresh from the oven. The ovens are nothing special -- simply a row of relatively new gas fired stainless steel ovens. In many ways, it is the exact opposite of the style of pizza we have explored up to this point. But, in many ways it also works.

We had two "full trays," as they are called at L&B -- one sausage and one mushroom.

This is the sausage pie. As Jason previously mentioned, we were sitting outside under a translucent red "tent" -- so this is fairly heavily color corrected. The sausage was clearly the better of the two, and this is the one we were actually able to finish. Rather than putting on raw pieces of sausage to cook in the heat of the oven, like they do at Grimaldi's, or putting on thick rounds of sausage, like they do at Totonno and many other places, L&B fully cooks/cools their sausage and slices it the long way into thin strips on a commercial slicer. Rather than cooking in the oven, the sausage strips are placed on the pizza after it is baked and cut, with a little portion of sausage places in the center of each square.

How did it taste? The sausage was nicely spicy and gave a lot of flavor to what was otherwise a fairly pedestrian pizza. As I said before, using the best ingredients is not part of the L&B aesthetic. Still, though, it wasn't bad.

Here's a closeup side view of a slice. As one may note, many of the descriptors we have used thus far do not apply to this slice. There is no lightness, no "oven spring," no little pockets of air, no elusive combination of crispness and pliability. This is one monolithic chunk of pizza. This view also affords a fairly accurate idea of just how much stuff was heaped onto the top of the crust -- that's around a quarter-inch of sauce there. Thankfully, it's not a gooey overabundance of cheese, but that's got to be a quarter inch thick layer of sauce. Indeed, the pizza at L&B is more about the sauce than it is anything else. As you can see, so much wet topping has had its effect on the crust. Right around 2/3 of the crust is soaked down with moisture from the crust. Another, less charitable way of putting it might be "not fully cooked."

Others have likened the L&B style to sfincione, the thick "pizza" from Sicily (they do not consider it a form of pizza). While I agree that the American "Sicilian pizza" concept evolved from sfincione, I think the relationship is a fairly tenuous one at this point and mostly indicates a thick, square pizza. A sfincione is more like what we might consider a focaccia with a bit more topping. This is to say that the toppings are often pressed into the dough, they are more often topped with things like anchovies and onions rather than tomato sauce and mozzarella, and they don't tend to be soupy.

Here is a picture of the crust. No "char," of course, but nicely crisp and a bit of a surprise. It's good that the bottom is so well-cooked, because the crispness provides a needed contrast to the otherwise uniformly soft texture of the pizza. A good contrast to L&B's pizza is the "square pie" at Di Fara:

Di Fara's square pie shares the thicker crust and copious toppings with L&B, but there all similarities end. The ingredients at Di Fara are far and away better in quality, there is more cheese, the cheese is on top, and the toppings are all cooked together in the oven. Significantly, Di Fara's pizza is much more thoroughly cooked. There is nothing doughy or soft about Di Fara's square pizza.

Here is a picture of the mushroom pizza. As you can see, my meager post-production skills were much less successful in correcting the overall red cast imparted by the light filtering through the tent (edit: Phaelon56 was able to fix it as much as it can be fixed -- definitely better than mine). What's important to see here is that the mushrooms, clearly from a can, are placed in neat little piles in the center of each piece after the pizza is removed from the oven and sliced. We all laughed about that.

All in all, we had a good time and I'm glad I went there. In the end, one had to throw away old conceptions about what makes good pizza and experience it on its own terms. Is it worthy of its quasi-legendary status as one of NYC's go-to pizzerie? Probably not, in my opinion. We might have been there on a bad day, but I just don't feel that the quality is there. It's a unique style and worthwhile considering on that basis alone, but I was still left with the feeling that they could be executing their style at a much higher level.

Edited July 15, 2004 by slkinsey (log)

[Rachel Perlow]

Just to clarify, those were (2) half trays.

[docsconz]

Sam, I enjoyed the report, but I think your discussion on sfincione is slightly off the mark. My experience making sfincione with Ana Tasca Lanza at Regaleali came out not too dissimilar to what your picture showed of the pizza at L&B minus the cheese. Is it the same thing? Certainly not exactly, but the influence is clear as you point out and a very strong indication as to how the square pizze in this country (or at least in NYC) came to be regarded as "Sicilian". Insfincione as with current american pizze there are a number of variations. I think the biggest difference is that cheese is much less common an ingredient on sfincione, but when used is often used under the sauce as with L&B. L&B is probably the closest thing to a true Sicilian "pizza" that one can find in the city.

[slkinsey]

Oh, I don't disagree that the cheese may be most often used under the sauce. I just don't think there would be nearly as much of it, and to my mind that is a substantial difference as it affects everything else. If I were going to choose something in NYC I thought was most representative of a sfincione, it would be the "pizza" made by Sullivan Street Bakery, like these (this one in particular).

[docsconz]

This reminds me of the recent discussion on authenticity

[wannabechef]

I wasn't able to make it on this trip but I've been to L&B a number of times. Each time I go back I like it less and less. One clincher - and maybe this is partly mental - I was watching a FoodTV special and L&B was featured. I think Mario Batali was there. He was in the kitchen filming them making the pies. I couldn't believe my eyes when they proceeded to cut open a giant can of generic looking "pizza sauce" and lather it on the pie. So, as it turns out, L&B uses a canned sauce for their pizza.

People can judge this however they want, but it caused them to sink pretty low in my mind. I wonder if it always used to be that way there and if not, when did it change?

~WBC

Edited to add:

One other side note- has anyone here sampled any of the lunchtime pizza trucks around the city? I have tried two - one downtown and one in midtown (47th and Park) and IMO they are phenomenal. They are similar to L&B in that the cheese is under the sauce, but they are thin crusted pizza and have fresh basil leaves on top. This is great pizza and if you ever pass one by be sure to pick up a slice or two.

Edited July 18, 2004 by wannabechef (log)

[Mister_Cutlets]

I may have finally found the perfect method of ordering and eating a DiFara's pizza. Normally, I don't mind standing around waiting 20 minutes for Dom to notice me, and then waiting another 40 or so for my pie to come out (I only order whole square pies.) But it's too much to then wait 20 minutes for the pie to properly cool off; esp. in the heat of the place in summer. So I ordered a slice (one happened to be available) and the pie, and then walked up to Orchard on Coney Island Avenue. I spent half an hour or so or so there shopping for fruit, then went back and my pizza was coming right out of the oven. I got it to go, opened the lid, put it in the back seat of my car, and drove to a shady spot. By the time I was hope I got to eat it. I got to see the Master at work, got to get great fruit, got to eat the pizza the way it was supposed to be, and had great fruit for dessert. That's my MO from here on in.

Josh

[cupcake250]

had a fun night in brooklyn fri night....walked across the brooklyn bridge....headed to grimmaldis but ditched the line at and opted for take out..took it down by the water and sat and watched the skyline..then went to the brooklyn ice cream factory...fun...they only have about 6 or 8 flavors--we had chocolate chunk and strawberry --others are vanilla, chocolate, chocolate choc chunk...all the simple ones... but they use excellent chocolate and its just the right sweetness..a fun summer night activity for all you new yorkers...

[albie]

Incredible... as I slog my way through these pizza threads here, I marvel over the volume of words and depth of passions inspired by, and devoted to, this humble, elemental, universally adored product of peasants! Sublime simplicity; simply sublime .... that's pizza.

[alacarte]

This may be worth adding to our Pizza Survey. It's from the Village Voice's newly released Best of NY Dining Guide.

Bronx has always lagged behind Brooklyn and Manhattan in pizza of the old-fashioned sort, made in a coal oven rather than a gas-burning Bari. That was before the proprietor of TOSCA discovered an ex-bakery in Throg's Neck with the coal oven still intact and set about imitating the pizza masters like Giovanni Lombardi, who invented the thin-crust, cheesy, and charred style that became American pizza.      -Robert Sietsema

4038 East Tremont Avenue, The Bronx 718-239-3300 

[Blondie]

Newsday's Erica Marcus on coal-fired pizza.

[slkinsey]

Updated List:

Arturo's Coal Oven Pizza - Saturday, October 16, 1:30

106 West Houston St

New York, NY 10012-2529

Phone: (212) 677-3820

Attendees

bergerka

Blondie

Jason Perlow

JAZ

Jen Keenan

MHesse

MobyP

phaelon56

Rachel Perlow

SarahD

slkinsey

Suzanne F

tupac17616

[Suzanne F]

Yeah well, except for the first round, the pictures will be of a pitiful few slices left on the pan, because we all dove in before Sam could remember to get the camera out of his pocket.

My first time turned out to be as much fun and serious discussion as Burger Club, without the forms and scales and thermometers. Oh, and with excellent pizza. I was full, and left, by the time the roasted red pepper pizza came out, but if I had to rank the others, it would be:

1. Clam -- the cheese protected the shelled clam meat, and the brininess was bracing.

2. Sausage -- very lean sausage, so while it was a tad rubbery, it was NOT greasy.

3. Pepperoni -- again, not greasy, and not too much meat, so I could still taste the other elements.

4. Mozzarella -- the basic pie. Needed herbs (to my palate), but an excellent balance of crisp, charred crust, cheese, and tart tomato.

5. Calamari -- a little salt and pepper would have worked wonders, given the tang of the tomato and the tender calamari. But bland, bland, bland.

It was great to see friends again and meet some new people. MobyP, I apologize if my enthusiasm carried me away and I embarrassed you. And tupac, it looked as though you managed to force yourself to eat at that odd hour.

[MHesse]

The 'zas were quite good. I've missed the earlier stops on the 'survey' so these were my 1st coal oven slices in a while. It certainly makes for a tasty crust.

As Sam described the 'oven spring' these wereat the lower end of the spring scale, but still a much tastier crust than a gas oven place.

I particularly liked the sausage, the plain, and the roasted pepper, but we were a little too full for the pepper one. Clam was interesting too. Pepperoni was good, but added even more salt to the taste, and the cheese and crust already had plenty of salt.

After 2 hours I was happy to walk for a bit on the way to Otto for gellato. Ummm, gellato. I had olive oil, apple and ricotta. Very nice, but I still think I had asked for gorgonzolla. Too bad, because the gorg was awesome.

Good to see everyone. Good to take a day off from schoolwork.

[Pan]

I was glad to make it this afternoon. I found all the pizzas I tried to be pleasing. For novelty value, the calamari pizza wins. But the pizza that was awesome was the clam pizza! Man, Lombardi's claims to be known for their clam pizza? What blasphemy, after having some really good clam pizza at Arturo's.

[Jason Perlow]

I would concur with Pan and say that Arturo's is a very good representative of a good, classic NY pizza. No question in my mind that it ranks within the top 5 in NYC, and if it was located anyplace else in the US with the exception of perhaps New Haven, it would probably be the best pizza in that entire area -- a place like Arturos would be a constant mob scene in LA. Crust is excellent, perhaps somewhat on the thick side compared to other old-school neapolitan style NY pizzas, somewhat salty, nice chew to it while having a nice char from the brick oven, nice tangy and zingy sauce with a hit of sweetness to it, and an appropriate amount of low moisure mozzarella which was of good quality and had some nice saltiness. By far my favorite pizza though was the white clam pie, which although quite salty, had all the characteristics of a great linguine with white clam sauce, but on a pizza. Clams were fresh and were not overcooked, and they were a good match for the garlic and cheese.

[tupac17616]

This afternoon was a lot of fun. Thanks, Sam, for rallying the eGullet foodies for this trip. I was glad to come out and take part in the Pizza Survey for the first time (guess 4 pm is not such a weird time to eat after all. We all know pizza is good any time of day. Duh. ). I will definitely be looking forward to our future outings.

As for today's pizza at Arturo's, here is my 2 cents:

The crust ---> Flavorful is a little thick for my tastes. I prefer a more pliable crust. I thought this crust got too thick as you ate your way toward the edge of the crust. I did, however, like the chewiness of the crust, and the nice char on the pie. Overall, good crust, but not great.

The sauce ---> Very nice. Had a nice tangy zing to it. I agree with Suzanne F that some herbs might have helped the flavor along a bit more, but many times, simplicity is best when it comes to pizza sauce, and this sauce was a nice reminder of the delicious simplicity that tomatoes can impart.

The toppings ---> Very impressive. The mozzarella they used was very flavorful on its own. It remained moist without rendering the crust limp and lifeless, which is always a good thing. I was especially impressed with the tenderness of the calamari and the clams, two ingredients which many pizzerias can often mess up fairly easily. Both the sausage and the pepperoni were quite flavorful, while not being overly greasy. I was very pleasantly surprised by the roasted red peppers we had on our last pie. I found those to be the most flavorful toppings of the bunch.

If I had to rank the pies we had today, it would be something like this:

1) Clam --- salty, but in a good way

2) Roasted Red Pepper --- nice texture and flavor

3) Pepperoni --- nice large thin slices; not greasy as pepperoni pies often are

4) Sausage --- lean, yet flavorful sausage

5) Mozzarella --- good cheese, but nothing to write home about

6) Calamari --- Can somebody pass the salt?

It was very nice meeting everyone. And the gelato afterwards at Otto was a fitting cap to a nice meal. And mmmm....the gorgonzola gelato. Definitely the unanimous hit of the evening. I can still taste it now.

I am very much looking forward to the next Pizza Survey outing. I'm hoping it'll be Franny's, as I have not yet had the opportunity to try that place. But perhaps a combination pizza/gelato outing to Otto wouldn't be too bad either Once again, very nice to meet everyone today. I really enjoyed it.

[slkinsey]

Had a great time. Good pizza. Made some new friends. Reacquainted myself with some old ones. Finished the day with gelato at Otto. Hard to imagine how it could have been much better.

Arturo's is an interesting place. It's an old NYC coal oven pizzeria that seems to have fallen off the radar. And it's a shame, because they make a very respectable pizza, and one that's at the very least competitive with some of their more famous colleagues. It's not as good as Patsy's East Harlem or Grimaldi's at their best, but it's certainly better than Lombardi's and competitive, I think, with Totonno.

Arturo's has a nice old-school feeling. Lots of pictures on the walls, low lighting, several small rooms, and a quirky atmosphere. They even had someone playing a grand piano in the front room. Arturo's is also distinguished by the number of interesting and unusual (for a classic NYC pizzeria) toppings they offer: capers, clams, shrimp, calamari, broccoli rape, artichoke hearts (unfortunately canned), chicken and more. Thankfully, they did not seem to offer any weird "Wolfgang Puck" toppings that would not be in keeping with a traditional NYC pizzeria. So... the pizza:

Naturally,we started off with unadorned (low moisture) mozzarella and tomato pizza. To be honest, I was expecting something fairly mediocre and this turned out to be very good. The bottom was crisp, and the toppings were flavorful. There was also a substantially thicker layer of toppings than is found on some of the other places, notably Patsy's. This, combined with their oven management, had a few consequences on the quality of the crust, which I'll discuss in greater detail below. For now, suffice it to say that Arturo's makes a good "middle ground" pizza between those like myself who prefer a sparsely topped pizza featuring the crust and those who are more interested in tasty and plentiful toppings. This is to say that the crust is good enough to appeal to a crustophile, if not outstanding, and the adornements are good enough and present in sufficient quantity to satisfy a toppings enthusiast.

Here's a look at the char on the reference standard pie. This is not bad. It's nicely browned, and with a few carbonized spots here and there. However, there is a price to be paid for those thick toppings and their oven management.

Here's a view of an Arturo's slice from the side. See the light, airy texture from the oven spring? No? Neither do I. This is due to three things:

1. I don't think the oven is really as hot as it should be. When I went into the kitchen and asked the pizzaiolo when they fired the oven, he told me they had fired it at 3:00. 3:00?! They opened their doors at 4:00 and we were eating pizza by 4:30 (along with quite a few other people). There is simply no way the oven can soak up enough heat in an hour and a half to produce that mind blowing oven spring.

2. A thicker layer of toppings weighs down the crust, inhibiting oven spring. It also means that the crust has to be a little thicker, which also inhibits oven spring.

3. As a result of the two points above, Arturo's has to cook their pizze longer. At Patsy's and Grimaldi's, the pizze hit the oven floor and come out fully cooked in around 2-3 minutes. The pizzaiolo at Arturo's told me that their pizze bake for around 10 minutes.

Oven spring is what happens when a piece of dough hits a hot oven surface. Heat from the oven surface transfers into the dough. How much heat transfers into the dough, how rapidly and how thoroughly the heat transfers into the dough depends on the temperature of the oven surface, the heat capacity (i.e., the "quantity" of heat) of the oven surface, and the thickness of the dough. A very hot oven surface that has accumulated a lot of thermal energy is able to quickly and thoroughly transfer heat into a thin piece of dough. Water in the dough turns into gas and the air in the dough rapidly expands. When that happens, the tiny air bubbles in the dough rapidly expand, combine, etc. The dough "springs up" from the oven floor, and the result is a light, airy, pliable texture. If the oven temperature is too low, or the oven floor has not accumulated sufficient heat or the pizza is too thick, this mechanism doesn't work as well. Heat is not transferred from the oven floor throughout the pizza dough with sufficient rapidity or intensity, and the result is less than spectaculat oven spring.

As you can see, the situation at Arturo's is one where the temperature of the oven, the short firing time and the weight of the toppings conspire against a strong oven spring. In addition, since they pizze must be baked for a longer period of time in order to cook through and achieve a crisp, charred bottom, the crust dries out somewhat. This is a net loss with respect to the quality of the crust. A pizza that is baked with a good oven spring in a short period of time has a crisp bottom but also has an etherial lightness and pliability -- morbidezza -- due to the airy interior created by the expansion of the crust and also to the moisture that is retained as a result of the short baking time.

Ultimately, it's all part of the tradeoff: if you're going to have heavier toppings, you're going to miss out on crust perfection. Arturo's, to their credit, does an admirable job at having one foot in each world. Happily, the end result is a pizza where you notice what is there (i.e., plenty of tasty toppings and a decent char) more than what isn't.

Pepperoni pizza. Those bastards tore it apart before I could take a picture. This, for me, was probably the post pedestrian pizza of the outing. I'm just not crazy about pepperoni, with the sole exception of Di Fara's thick-cut product.

Here's a look at some of the sausage pizza. The sausage was crumbled rather than sliced, which I like. Hard to tell whether it was put on the crust raw to cook in the heat of the oven. Might have been, since it was juicy and flavorful. To-date, only Grimaldi's of the classic NYC pizzerie has better sausage.

Now we branched out into some of Arturo's more unusual offerings. This is a calamari pizza with sauce/no cheese. They put the calamari on the crust raw, and it cooks in the heat of the oven. The calamari was tender and perfectly cooked. I thought this pizza had real potential, but it was missing a few things that would have put it over the top.

As others have noted, the calamari pizza wanted salt. I salted my slice, and it was greatly improved. So it became quite clear that Arturo's uses salted mozzarella, because all the other pizze had plenty of salt. In fact, while we're talking about salt, it was also quite apparent that Arturo's uses salt in its pizza dough. This is something that I don't tend to like -- I prefer to have the salt come from the toppings or be sprinkled on -- but Arturo's made it work.

The other issue is that calamari doesn't have a great deal of flavor all by itself. The calamari pizza really could have benefitted from a dusting of parsley, maybe some extra garlic and perhaps a sprinkle of crushed red pepper. Then, I think it would have been really very interesting.

We also got a clam pizza with cheese/no sauce on the recommendation of our (very helpful and friendly) waiter. I have to admit that I was skeptical. Clams with cheese? But, as others have observed, it really worked. The subtraction of the fairly wet sauce also seemed to help the crus quite a bit. Most of us agreed that this was the best pizza of the outing, and this is the pizza I'd recommend to anyone visiting Arturo's. Infinitely better than Lombardi's unjustly famous clam pizza.

Here's our final pizza, with roasted red peppers.

Char on the red pepper pizza. It's pretty much the same as the char on the first slice. This reflects well on their consistency and oven management. The oven isn't getting any hotter, and it isn't getting any colder either.

Here is Arturo's oven. It's original, dating from the 1950s.

A closer look inside the oven door. Check out the pile of coals glowing over on the right.

A close look at the coal pile through the coal door. This is where they load the coal. As with most of the traditional coal-fired pizzerie, the coal burns in the same chamber as the pizze are baked.

There's a chalkboard in the bathroom. We tagged it, as you can see. Had to represent, yo.

A well-fed group of eGulleters. From left to right: Rachel Perlow, JAZ, MHesse, tupac17616, SarahD, phaelon56, Jen Keenan, bergerka.

After leaving Arturo's, the close proximity of Otto and its famed gelato was too much for many of us to resist.

Thanks for coming, everyone!!

[Suzanne F]

Ooh, the OVEN!!!! (sorry, but we haven't turned the heat on in my building yet, and seeing those pix really warms me up ).

Just one thing, though, Sam: I'm not sure what YOU mean by "oven spring" but in baking circles, that's the rise of the dough when it initially meets the heat of the oven, iirc. Your photo is of something else --plyabilty?