THE BEST: Pizza in New York State (not City)

[Sneakeater]

You may like it cuz you're used to it, but believe me . . . .

[Sneakeater]

Well, wait. Maybe I'm wrong. What are some good Greek pizza places in Boston (at least for a start, please keep it just in Boston, not elsewhere in New England)?

Edited June 26, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[JohnL]

I believe a big culprit is the cheese. Not even the quality--the quantity.

For some reason far too many New Yorkers are in love with the notion that the more cheese on a slice (or pie) the more "value" they are getting.

I wonder how much pizza-eating you have done outside of the general Philadelphia-to-Boston area. I ask this simply because, although I agree with your basic premise that the pizza here is often burdened with too much cheese and toppings, I think this is much more prevalent around the country in general than it is in the Philadelphia-to-Boston area, where the pizza tends to be thinner and less copiously topped. Think of one of those disgusting Pizza Hut "meat lover's" pizzas. . . that's considered standard in most of the country.

To me the oven--coal or gas fired or whatever is last on the list of priorities (coal may be as FG notes, vastly over rated). The real starting point is the assemblage process--the proportion of ingredients.

I absolutely agree with your premise that the assemblage and proportion (and quality) of the ingredients is of primary importance. If you don't have that right, you can never achieve a superior pizza. However, it is fact that wood or coal fired retained heat ovens are capable of producing certain effects that stainless steel deck ovens cannot. So, for example, as much as I love the pizza at Di Fara, the actual crust itself just doesn't match up to, say, Patsy's East Harlem.

I wonder if anyone else has some thoughts as to why cheese has become the "key" ingredient in pizza. Why do we emphasize it so much???

I have a theory about this. From a post in the NYC Pizza Favorites thread:

I have a theory about the way people think about pizza. 

For some people, pizza is CRUST (with some stuff on top).  This is the way I think about pizza, and the way I think most Italians think about pizza.  For this reason, the idea of "bagel pizza" or "French bread pizza" doesn't make any sense to me.  Where's the crust?  For other people, perhaps most in America, pizza is PIZZA TOPPINGS (on top of something).  This is where the "piled to the sky = good" philosophy comes from.  I'm not making a judgment here... just pointing out that there are differences.

One thing that happened to a lot of Italian foods that came to America and became Italian-American foods is that they became more about the condiments than the base ingredients.  Take pasta, for example.  In Italy, pasta dishes are about the pasta and the sauce is there as an accent to enhance the pasta.  In America, however, pasta dishes have become much more about the sauce than the pasta -- the pasta is simply a vehicle for the sauce.  For this reason, the typical American pasta dish has around triple the amount of sauce compared to the typical Italian pasta dish.  To make another example about pasta, an Italian would never call a dish "lasagne" that didn't actually contain lasagne, whereas in America we would have no problem layering up sauce and cheese with thin slices of potato and calling the result "potato lasagna."

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I have enough experience outside the "corridor."

I agree that the farther one gets from the "old country" in both distance and time the less "authentic" the cuisine.

--the more likely that cuisine will be "localized."

(some of the best and most authentic Vietnamese food is to be found in Minneapolis--thanks to a large recent immigrant population).

I also agree with you that the crust is viewed as nothing more than a carrier of toppings.

So too pasta is less important than the sauce/condiment but I also believe that Americans in general, view meat or fish as main course items and have a hard time accepting pasta or rice (paella) as anything more than a "side" dish. Pizza crust is like bread--a carrier to facilitate the delivery of meat or to be slathered with a condiment.

I also agree to a point, that coal or brick ovens can add a dimension to a pizza --I am just not sure if that dimension is all that critical--or at least lives up to the hoopla.

I disagree a bit on your assessment of Patsy's. I have bought there by the slice numerous times and found the pizza good but "soggy." I probably need to try a whole pie.

There is probably a pretty good debate on how the cheese is handled--sliced vs shredded etc.

In the end, I think we both seem to agree that if the proportions are not there no pie or slice stands a chance of rising above mediocrity!

[StevenC]

There is (or used to be) a place on the corner of Burke Avenue and White Plains Road in the Bronx called Two (or Three) Boys from Sicily that, as I recall from 20+ years ago, made stunning pizza. I don't know if they're still there.

Much as I adore New York-style pizza, Pizza Fresca on East 20th between Broadway and Park Ave South makes a very good facsimile of the original Neapolitan treat. They even have a certificate from the Associazione Vera Pizza Napolitana, which certifies the authenticity of such things. True, the cheese is less tangy and the tomatoes less flavorful than in Naples, but on the whole the result is pretty impressive.

On an entirely separate note, someone in New York needs to import the white-clam pizza.

[raji]

There's lots and lots of great pizza places in Westchester. Most NYers know that the real Italianos have long since escaped the big city to the outer boroughs and suburbs. They probably use the same suppliers that the better places use in the city. The big difference is that a slice is just not a slice after it's been sitting around for even only 10 minutes - certain places in the city succeed simply by an extremely high turnover of customers...

[Pan]

[...]On an entirely separate note, someone in New York needs to import the white-clam pizza.

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Go to Arturo's. Their clam pizza kicks ass!