Pizza and BBQ

[FoodMan]

To quote you,

as we all know there's no neutrality when it comes to both pizza and barbecue.

So who takes top honors when it comes to pizza and BBQ in your book? Who makes the best pizza? What is our favorite topping? What city has the best BBQ joint? Pork or Beef?

Thanks again,

Elie

[Peter Reinhart]

To quote you,

So who takes top honors when it comes to pizza and BBQ in your book? Who makes the best pizza? What is our favorite topping? What city has the best BBQ joint? Pork or Beef?

Thanks again,

Elie

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Uh oh--I knew this was coming. As I said in another post, Pizzeria Bianco (Phoenix) is definitely the most important and best pizzeria in America. Chris Bianco is the new poster boy for what I've been calling the emerging artisan pizza renaissance in America. Both Ed Levine and Jeffrey Steingarten have come on board with me on this one, so check out Jeffrey's recent Vogue piece about "real" food, and Ed's recent NY Times story on Bianco. The good news is that there are more great pizzeria's coming and even most of the great icon pizzerias like Frank Pepe's, Sally's, Lombardi's, Totonno's, etc., seem to be rising to the challenge to stay at a high level (some of them had fallen a bit a few eyars ago but seem to have caught a second or third wind). I'll know better when I get back to NYC next month and check some of them out. The challenge for the older places is keeping their staff on board and maintaining the passion of the earlier generations. Chris Bianco emerged in my book as the "hero" figure specifically because of the passion he embodies and transmits through his food, not just with pizza but now also focaccia and panini sandwiches at his new place, Pane' Bianco.

As for toppings, well I'm a real sucker for Frank Pepe's white clam, but now I think I can match it at home with the version I created for "American Pie.," using canned baby clams marinated in herbed garlic oil.

Passion is one thing that never seems to lack in the barbecue world, but I'd be premature to say I have a favorite place yet (Flints in Oakland was my benchmark when I lived in the Bay Area, but now that I live in the Carolina's I'm developing a real taste for shoulder and whole hog). Barbecue, like pizza, has so many variations and versions that I'd rather hear from some of you about where I need to go when I start my serious barbecue "hunts" for a future book. I should have some good stories to tell when I return from the Jack Daniels Championship in a few weeks. Of course, competition barbecue and roadside barbecue are usually (but not always) two different things. But, like pizza, there are really only two kinds of barbecue: good and very good.