Fornino

[bpearis]

Fornino in Williamsburg finally opened last night. They are certainly aiming to make serious pies, as below their name on the window reads "The art and science of pizza," which is a little goofy if you ask me. Chef Michael Ayoub, formerly of Park Slope's Cucina, isn't a slave to authenticity like Una Pizza Napoletana is. But he certainly cares about the ingredients and uses organic ingredients, San Marzano DOP tomotoes, artisanal cheeses, house-made sausage and grows his own greens and herbs in a greenhouse behind the restaurant.

The restaurant looks great, warm and inviting. Rustic wood, butcher-block style tables, nice lighting (with hand-blown fixtures by Ayoub himself, so I'm told). It's hard to believe this place was The L to-Go [a bagel place] only a few months ago. It's a little smaller than Franny's, maybe about 40 seats total. The wood-burning oven is in the back of the main space. It looked to me as if it may be augmented by gas, but I didn't ask so I'm not sure.

I forgot to bring my copy of the menu with me for this post so I may screw up some of the names of things... but the pizza section is divided into three sections:

• Pizza Classica, which offers a margherita, marinara and a third which escapes me (probably a white pie of some sort)

• Second Generation - Italy, with funkier pizzas that include sausage, soprasetta, roast eggplant, guiancale, a quatro formaggi, clams, etc. I think there are maybe seven pizzas in this category.

• Fiorno specialties (maybe this was called Third Generation). These are even funkier pizzas -- Wolfgang Puck-esque -- with surprising cheeses (goat, bel paese[!]), a clam-and-mozzerella pizza, and other modern creations.

The pies are different from Franny's and Una Pizza Napoletana in that a) they slice them, and b) they come in two sizes -- 10" and a 16". Prices are lower too. Smalls are $8 - 10, large's $14 - 16. There is one exception, a pizza with fresh black truffles that is $35.

They also have anitpasti and a few salads, as well as a daily pasta special.

For being on Bedford and North 7 -- right where the L train lets out -- and being blurbed in the Times yesterday, as well as Time Out NY and the Daily News over the weekend and in just about every other local rag, it was surprising not hard to get a table at 8:15. It was crowded but not insane and the staff seemed to be handling things in stride. My friend and I got the margherita and the Rustica (which was a margherita with mushrooms and guiancale [i'm a sucker for the jowl]), as well as the classic arugala/pear/gorgonzola salad.

Both pizzas were very good, though I think the oven could have been hotter as there wasnt' enough char on the crust (or puffy pockets) for my taste. But the toppings were first-rate, with the edge going to the pizza with guiancale -- the meat was nice and crispy and there was no shortage of it on the pie. (Franny's guiancale pizza was still better, though.)

We also got desert -- three ice cream sandwiches made with various cookies and gelato. The cookies were a little too hard to easily bite through, they need to work on this one in my opinion. You need soft ones so you can sort of tear it instead of sending your front teeth through the freezing ice cream. But it wasn't bad.

They don't have thier liquor liscenesce yet, so there was complimentary red wine with the meal -- not sure what kind. We ordered a Napoletana pizza (margherita with anchovies) to go (no delivery) for some friends and our whole bill before tip was $48. I spied Adam from Slice, so expect a more detailed report from those guys soon.

On the downside: many of their pizzas had so many toppings it was a bit of a turnoff. I'm a less is more kind of guy. But they're inexpensive enough to warrant giving them a try. I may go back tonight. If they can improve the crust, Fornino is going to be a serious contender. Given it's prime location and reasonable prices, you can't really complain. I don't see how this place won't be packed every night.

Fornino

187 Bedford Ave (btwn N. 7th and N. 6th)

718.384.6004

[bpearis]

There's a report on Fornino, complete with pictures, on Slice contributor Tien Mao's website.

[joyvan]

Some quick Fornino notes so far:

I loved Cucina and had high hopes for Michael Ayoub in this new venture. So far, I'm a little disappointed. I had the Pugliese last night -- mozzarella, broccoli rabe and sausage. The crust was good, but not excellent, and suffered a bit in flavor and texture -- at least two rungs below Franny's in my opinion. The toppings were also a bit bland and were definitely sparse. I'm spoiled by DiFara's generous rabe pizza, but my large pizza had only six small stalks of rabe and a minimal number of sausage chunks.

One more complaint: my friends ordered the vongole (clam), which came with the clams still in the shells. The kitchen sliced the pizza after the clams were on top, and several sharp clam shell fragments ended up on the pizza. They complained, and the staff didn't respond -- a major service issue, in my book.

All that said, we need good pizza on the Northside, and I'll give them another shot before my final verdict.

[Fat Guy]

Thanks for the excellent reporting.

I've got to say, this thing of serving the clams in the shells is just about the stupidest ergonomic decision I've ever seen in the restaurant world. They also do it at Otto, where I was a few weeks ago, and I was just astounded at the idiocy of the process. It takes more time to get the clams out of the shells than it does for the pizza to get cold.

[slkinsey]

As pointed out in the thread on Una Pizza Nappoletana by bpearis, Robert Sietsema has an article in the Voice about artisinal pizza in NYC, specifically Fornino and Una Pizza Napoletana -- mostly about Fornino:

Fornino makes a formidable contribution to the neighborhood, and its wood-fired oven casts an eerie glow over Bedford as you exit the L train. That oven imparts a faint smoky smell to the pizzas and produces heat around 700 degrees, midway between cooler gas and hotter coal ovens, allowing a denser layer of toppings than New York's earliest coal-oven product.

[flinflon28]

Three friends and I dined here on Saturday. First things first...for a Williamsburg restaurant this place had very friendly service. The hostess was very welcoming and the server was a pleasure. We didn't even mind moving to another table when a large party showed up because she was so professional. The restaurant itself is incredibly dark so it was difficult to see your dining partner. I have read other reviews where people have complained about this at other establishments and I have thought it was a bunch of hoohey, but it becomes very real when you contemplate using a lighter to read your menu.

We ordered four small pies to sample as much as possible and only one was a real winner. One of us had the gorgonzola pie and it was excellent. Even though the crust was a bit soggy, I found the mix of gorgonzola and carmelized onions to be delicious! My pie felt like an exercise in excess...I had the mushroom pizza which I think is called th "fungi". While the mushrooms were excellent the pie was loaded with way to much cheese and I think it was also drizzled with truffle oil which was simply overkill because the pie was already heavy and oily with too much cheese. It made for a pizza that was almost like wet carboard. One of my dining companions found a hair in his pie. He chose not to bring it up to the server. For that reason only I will not count his pizza in the final tally. I'm sure this can start another thread on things we choose not to bring up at restaurants but he just chose to let it go.

The fourth pie had arugula and other greens and it was decent but not exceptional.

I'll be the first to say that I am thrilled to have a restaurant in Williamsburg where the staff are not hipsters and are eager to please...and I also think that the quibbles with the quality of the pies we sampled are growing pains. I think this will be a longlasting establishment. The line as we were leaving is evidence that things should work out there. And their current BYO policy is a beautiful thing!

[bronihk]

first off, i must note that, although they may be of the hipster breed, a ton of restaurants in the burg have great staff (DOC comes to mind right away; sweetwater has always been great, etc etc)...i find a lot of places to be a bit laid back but generally accomodating and friendly.

that said: we ate at fornino last night and had a wonderful pizza. i think for some purists the crust could be a bit soggy and not quite charred enough but i found that this really didn't detract from our pie as the toppings were excellent. the rustica, which is what we had, was one of the pies that did have tomato sauce; i'm glad we got it because it was just the right mix of acidity to sweetness...the guanicale (i think its called..bacon-like) didn't overpower as it easily could have but rather added the right salty/meaty-ness to the pie; the mozzerella was creamy and applied with not to heavy a hand. fresh basil and fresh mushrooms topped it off quite well.

i'll go back anytime.

[dknywbg]

We went to Fornino last night and really liked it. Neither of us was interested in eating a whole lot, coming off of Thanksgiving and all, so we decided to share a salad and a large pie--the Siciliana, with eggplant, capers, red onions, olives, and sauce. No cheese, which neither of us had noticed while reading the menu, but in the end we didn't miss it (though we were hungry again a couple hours later--the lack of fat/protein, perhaps?).

The arugula salad with pears and gorgonzola was pretty damn good--the greens were baby, I assume because they're grown in their greenhouse, heaped in the center of the plate, with the pear slices on one side and the cheese on the other. The olive oil/lemon dressing was just right, tart and light but still intensely flavored. The pears were ok, but didn't appear to have been roasted as promised on the menu. Chopped pistachios on top were a pleasant surprise.

As for the pizza, we loved it. It came very close to having too much going on, but in the end the mix of tastes was ideal. By the third slice the center was getting soggy, but overall the crust was charred and crispy and flavorful.

We'll definitely go back and try more when we've got bigger appetites. To be honest, though, I'm not sure if we liked it enough to turn our backs on Brick Oven Gallery on Havemeyer--it's closer to our apartment, and the menu there has more to choose from.

[slkinsey]

As pizza is much on my mind these days (more on this anon), bergerka and I ventured out to Fornino last PM for a look-see and had a delightful meal.

Compared to the other Brooklyn pizza outposts, it is ridiculously easy to reach from Manhattan. Just one stop into Brooklyn on the L train, and Fornino is litterally ten steps around the corner from the subway entrance. I think it may also represent a happy medium between the minimalism of the Neapolitan traditionalist crustophiles and those with more American minded topping-centric approach. It's also a lot closer to Patsy's, et al. in terms of price.

One thing no one seems to have mentioned is the oven. After our meal, I went over to have a peek at the oven and watch Michael Ayoub at work. I saw a strange empty space underneath the level where the pizze are baked, and was just about to ask Ayoub what that was all about when a blue gas jet the size of my torso kicked. It turns out that Fornino's oven is actually heated by gas, regulated by some kind of computerized system. I'll have to ask Ayoub more about this the next time I'm there for more details. According to him, they can fire that baby up to 1100 F on gas alone! The wood is only there for flavoring purposes, kind of like putting wood chips in an electric smoker. He also said that the oven took around three months to "break in" and "season up" (which is typical for a pizza oven), and that it's only just now that it's starting to consistently produce the kind of pizza he's truly happy with. I wonder what temperature he's shooting for.

This accorded well with our impressions. He's turning out a great product and we didn't fine any of the defects, such as an overloaded, soggy or insufficiently charred crust, that others have mentioned upthread. Most likely this is due to making some production tweaks as well as the evolution of the oven.

The pizza... we had three of the smaller "Neapolitan size" individual pizze (they also come in a larger "American size"): A standard margherita with tomato, mozzarella, basil and evoo; a "rustica" with guanciale, shitake mushrooms, parmigiano, tomato and mozzarella; and a "patate e salsiccia" with fennel sausage, fingerling potatoes, fontina and cherry tomatoes.

The high quality, flavorful toppings are applied with a more generous hand than they are at Franny's and Una Pizza Napoletana. While this will surely please toppings fans, it does effect the crust somewhat. While Fornino's crust doesn't quite reach the heights of Franny's and UPN, it is thin, crisp and nicely charred, with a raised cornicione. Only the last slice we ate began to suffer noticably from the influence of the wet toppings, but by that time it had been on the table for quite some time.

The margherita was excellent, with a slightly sweet sauce and creamy fresh mozzarella. Against this canvas, it was easy to taste the wheaty crust and appreciate all its variations from fully baked to caramelized to slightly charred.

The rustica we ordered based on our waiter's recommendation, not that it's rocket science to know I'd pick something with guanciale anyway. This pizza was also excellent, although in a slightly different way. While the margherita allowed the focus to be primarily on the crust, the volume and intensity of the toppings on the rustica shifted the crust into a supporting role. Shitake mushrooms and guanciale are a match made in heaven, with earthy funkiness and funky earthiness reacting to create a synergistic magnified impression of earth and funk. Is it funktastically earthological? Or earthriffically funkaceous? I leave that to the philosophers to decide. It's good, that's the point.

Alongside the rustica, the patate e salsiccia, while very close, didn't quite measure up. Due to the less intense flavors, the crust was more of a presence. The fennel sausage was very good (although not as good as Grimaldi's -- where do they get that sausage?), and the cherry tomatoes roasted in the oven made an interestingly rewarding alternative to the usual tomato base. The potatoes... the potatoes were sliced paper thin, and to be honest I'm not sure the pizza would have tasted any different had they been deleted. I'd like to try this pizza with more potato (perhaps thicker slices) and less cheese.

Fornino will definitely be added to my pizzeria rotation.

In terms of my own personal preferences, I'd rather have them a little more austere with the toppings and a little less busy as well. Some of their offerings -- like the siciliana with tomato, oregano, fresh tomato, anchovy, onion, eggplant, capers and olives -- just have too much going on for my taste. Even the rustica, which I enjoyed very much, I wouldn't mind trying with about half the volume of toppings. But, on the other hand, this is something that could be very attractive to those who find the Neapolitan crustophile approach too austere. I'd call Fornino something like the "Di Fara of the artisinal pizzerie" and would encourage fans of that approach to give it a try.

For those who are counting, we had two beers, three individual pizze and a generous dish of pistachio gelato for $45 before tax and tip. That's right around what I spend when I go to Patsy's, and I left Fornino no less full than I do Patsy's.

[bpearis]

In terms of my own personal preferences, I'd rather have them a little more austere with the toppings and a little less busy as well.  Some of their offerings -- like the siciliana with tomato, oregano, fresh tomato, anchovy, onion, eggplant, capers and olives -- just have too much going on for my taste.  Even the rustica, which I enjoyed very much, I wouldn't mind trying with about half the volume of toppings. 

←

This is pretty much how i feel about Fornino, a little too much topping. And those pizzas in the third category, I can't bring myself to order one there's so much going on. It seems like Fornino is on one end, and Una Pizza the other, with too little topping for my taste (thought the crust is great). It is certainly a great addition to the neighborhood.

Fornino delivers but the pizzas, somewhat unsurprisingly, don't travel so well. But if you're willing to pop them in a hot oven for five minutes they come back to life pretty well.

[slkinsey]

For me it's not just limited to the third section, either. The abovementioned "siciliana" is actually in the "second generation" section, while the slightly more restrained "melanzane" with tomato, eggplant, ricotta, mozzarella, parmigiano and basil is in the third "Fornino specialties" section. IMO the Siciliana is the more "out there" of the two.

That said, I think it's not so bad that they offer some more restrained and less copiously topped pizza choices for people like us while also offering opposite for those with different priorities. That makes it the kind of place where I could go with someone who had pizza priorities opposite to mine, and by choosing appropriately we would both be able to walk away happy.

Next time, I might try asking for a little lighter on the toppings. I'd like to talk more with Ayoub about his philosophies for making pizza.

[bronihk]

This is pretty much how i feel about Fornino, a little too much topping. And those pizzas in the third category, I can't bring myself to order one there's so much going on. It seems like Fornino is on one end, and Una Pizza the other, with too little topping for my taste (thought the crust is great). It is certainly a great addition to the neighborhood.

←

one to try in the third catagory that isn't overwhelmed by toppings and i love is the spinach. i'm a sucker for ricotta pizzas...this is one of my favorites at fornino (and i've probaby had 7-8 pies there). i really like the rustica as well.

[Jen Keenan]

Had another chance to visit Fornino yesterday. (What a shocker - it's two months later, and I needed another haircut!)

My instinct told me to get the Funghi Misti, which is from the 'Fornino' or 'Third Generation' section of the menu. This came with well-sized hunks of just-soft-enough mixed mushrooms, caciocavallo cheese (and I'm pretty sure ricotta as well) and a dash of white truffle oil.

That pizza was so stinky I was afraid to eat it and so worth the risk. Normally I whimper audibly at any pie without red sauce, but for once I didn't miss it at ALL. No char though; anyone care to comment on that? There seemed to be a decent amount of oven spring in this pie. Wish I could've photographed some of the cheesy crust bubbles.

[bpearis]

Slice NY and Gothamist threw a pizza party at Fornino last night. For $26 we got to try just about every pizza on the menu, including the Tartufo which featured generous shavings of truffles. There's a zillion blog posts all over the net about this, but the one's at Slice and Eat Drink One Woman are the most detailed. Also... tons of drool-worthy shots on Flickr.