"Pizza hounds, take note: This chewy-crusted, tangy-sauced pie is definitely a contender. Some speculate that when Italian pizza chefs left Manhattan for the outer boroughs and 'burbs, they took the best slice spots with them. Thankfully, this Long Island pizzaman commutes into his cheery Greenwich Village pizza joint to repair that image. The brightly-lit takeout spot with a few non-descript tables and chairs looks like any other, but it tastes ten times more homespun. The secret to the superb "Nonna Maria" pie rests in the owner's grandmother's thin-crusted Tuscan recipe. Hand-pulled, yeasty dough, baked on a bed of crusty breadcrumbs with just enough puff around the rim, is slathered with tangy, garlicky tomato sauce, puddles of milky mozzarella, fresh basil and a sprinkle of real Parmigiano. For gooey cheese people, there's the "grandma," made with regular mozzarella... The behemoth ricotta-sausage calzone is excellent..." |
