Pizza. Pork. What else can a guy ask for?

A relatively new trattoria on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, Zero Otto Nove (the area code of the owner's town in Salerno) is serving these wonderful, wood fired pizzas. We had a Margherite and a Diavolo, adorned with spicy soppressata.





And then, off to buy some goodies for the trip back, at the Calabria Pork Store:







A lovely day in the neighborhood.

Can't say I like the looks of the pizza crust...looks a bit too black for me. Further, I prefer thin crusts. I like to taste the toppings rather than the bread. The ingredient list is tasty sounding. How was the crust for you?

Looks good. By coincidence, I was going to post the following leading pizza destinations yesterday. They were listed in a recent Wine Spectator. Has anyone tried any of these?

Al Forno; Charcoal-grilled. Providence, RI.
Antica Pizzeria; Neapolitan. Marina del Rey, CA.
Apizza Scholls; Neapolitan. Portland, OR.
A16; Modified Neapolitan. San Francisco, CA.
Caioti Pizza Cafe; California style. Studio City, CA.
Di Fara Pizzeria; New York Style. Brooklyn, NY.
Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana; New Haven Style. New Haven, CT.
Grimaldi's; New York Style. Brooklyn, NY.
Lombardi's; New York Style. New York, NY.
Lou Malnati's; Chicago deep dish. Chicago, IL.
Otto Enoteca Pizzeria; Flat griddle cooked. New York, NY.
Pizzaiolo; Modified Neapolitan. Oakland, CA.
Pizza Bianco; Modified Neapolitan. Phoenix, AZ.
Pizzeria Delfina; Cal-Ital. San Francisco, CA.
Sally's Apizza; New Haven style. New Haven, CT.
Serious Pie; Crisp crust, creative toppings. Seattle, WA.
Spago Beverly Hills; California style. Beverly Hills, CA.
Tacconelli's; New York style tomato pie. Philadephia, PA.
Tommaso's; Modified Neapolitan. Brooklyn, NY.
Una Pizza Napoletana; Neapolitan. New York, NY.

How was the crust for you?

It was thinner than it appears in the lousy cam phone picture I took - believe me, crust is priority one with me in pizza evaluation, and these rocked the house.
The black is just bonus charring from the wood oven.

Larry, from your list, I've been to:

Di Fara Pizzeria; New York Style. Brooklyn, NY.
Grimaldi's; New York Style. Brooklyn, NY.
Lombardi's; New York Style. New York, NY.
Sally's Apizza; New Haven style. New Haven, CT.
Spago Beverly Hills; California style. Beverly Hills, CA.

DiFara's was far and away the best.....

Wow!

Re the Wine Spectator list of great pizza joints, kinda interesting stuff on Caioti Cafe in Studio City. It's owned by Ed LaDou, the guy credited with inventing the BBQ chicken pizza and who Wolfgang Puck hired to devise the 'gourmet' pizza menu at the original Spago, and who later was hired to create the menu of pizzas for California Pizza Kitchen.
So it's a wee bit ironic that his own place, the Caioti Cafe, gets as many negative crits as it does, ranging from the pizzas aren't very good to disappointing, and that the service is slow, frequently gets orders wrong, is arrogant etc.
And lastly, the last time I was at the Caioti, several years ago now, my wife got food poisoning!
LOL, I know, not funny, but this joint is on the "best" list.

I've been to:

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana; New Haven Style. New Haven, CT.
Grimaldi's; New York Style. Brooklyn, NY.
Otto Enoteca Pizzeria; Flat griddle cooked. New York, NY.
Sally's Apizza; New Haven style. New Haven, CT.

Sally's and Pepe's compete head-to-head in New Haven's old Italian district. If you get to either one, try the white clam pizza. I give the nod to Pepe's, but by the slimmest of bivalves.

Otto is a yuppie joint. At those prices, it better be good 'za.

Grimaldi's is the coal-fired oven real deal, but impossible to get into. I go to Savoia, on Smith St, instead.

A16- very good. Mine is better. So is the pizza from several other Bay Area spots.
Spago BH- I really don't understand the fuss. It's good for what it is, but it's more pizza-oid than pizza. Pretentious. It doesn't make me dream of going back.

NB: My priorities are a flavorful basic pizza. Bland stuff with exotic toppings does not impress me.

We went back today. Did a repeat on the soppressata pizza. It was that good.
We also had a sliced potato, smoked mozzarella and sausage, and a quatro formaggio - gorgonzola, smoked mozz, provolone and fresh mozz.
For those keeping score - yes, I violated my no meat on Friday rule. See you in hell. This pizza was worth it.

I can hardly wait to get back home and stop eating.

For those keeping score - yes, I violated my no meat on Friday rule. See you in hell. This pizza was worth it.

Geesh, John, give yourself a break. It is not even Lent.

Great photos. Thanks.

Someone lent John a pizza??? They ain't never getting that flatbread back.

A16- very good. Mine is better. So is the pizza from several other Bay Area spots.
Spago BH- I really don't understand the fuss. It's good for what it is, but it's more pizza-oid than pizza. Pretentious. It doesn't make me dream of going back.

If there is one place that is off the mark and also pretentious it would be A16.

Sally's and Pepe's compete head-to-head in New Haven's old Italian district. If you get to either one, try the white clam pizza. I give the nod to Pepe's, but by the slimmest of bivalves.

Hubby and I used to go to Fig's (Todd English's "wood-fired pizza place") whenever we were in Massachusetts specifically for the white clam pizza. It made us swoon. We haven't been back since we learned they took it off the menu. Luckily, by then, I had figured out how to replicate it at home. There is nothing better--and coincidentally, Len asked me the other night when I was going to make it again.

[Robin Garr]

off the mark and also pretentious

Bear in mind that we're talking about Wine Spectator here ...

off the mark and also pretentious

Bear in mind that we're talking about Wine Spectator here ...

Very true.

We've been to the ones in New Haven and some of New York's best, but Ricetta's Brick Oven Pizzeria in South Portland, ME can compete with any of them.

Sally's and Pepe's compete head-to-head in New Haven's old Italian district. If you get to either one, try the white clam pizza. I give the nod to Pepe's, but by the slimmest of bivalves.

Luckily, by then, I had figured out how to replicate it at home.

Do tell. (I'd guess oil, clams, garlic, parsley....)

Question re coal-fired brick ovens like the one in Lombardi's for example, I'm assuming that it's now illegal to have new ones installed in NYC and that the places that have them operating, are 'grandfathered'. Anybody know for sure, just curious.

Yes. The existing ones are carefully managed. This includes not only pizza ovens but also coffee roasters (I think there are 2 left).

As to pizza........lawsy, lawsy, I do adore good pizza and following is a list of the ten restaurants that I judge to serve the very best pizzas in the world. By far the very best is the first on the list, where Chef Guido Rizzi offers 35 different
pizzas every day, all of which are superb. So famous is Rizzi and his informal little restaurant, which is situated in the hills overlooking Trento, in Northern Italy, that he has never even bothered to put a sign on his door. He is correct that visitors have to do nothing more than ask anyone they meet on the street for directions, for absolutely everyone in town knows where to find him.

1. Trattoria Pizzeria Laste, Via Camari, Trento, Italy.
2. Pizzeria de Vieux Vaison: Avenue de la Vallee-des-Baux, Paradou, (Provence), France.
3. Taverna La Fenice, adjoining the Fenice Theatre, Venice, Italy.
4. Osteria Lungarotti, Corso Vittoria Emanuele 33, Perugia, Italy.
5. Chesa Veglia: via Veglia 2. St. Moritz, Switzerland.
6. Al Forno Restaurant: 577 S. Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
7. L'orso Ottanta, Via dell'Orso 33, Rome, Italy.
8. Zum Roten Ochsen, Hauptstrasse 217, Heidelberg, Germany.
9. Bice: 7 East 54th Street, New York City, U.S.A.
10. Garga, Via del Moro, Florence, Italy

Best
Rogov

LOL Rogov, don't think it would be out of place to point out that your "best" pizza joint list is just a teensy-weensy Euro-centric!
Not denegrating Bice, but doubt it would make any American pizza lover/aficionado top ten list.
In fond memory of Paul Newman, perhaps "What we've got here is failure to communicate"!
Please Daniel, give us your definition of a "great pizza and let's compare it to a U.S. oriented version. Should be interesting.

Agreed that my list is somewhat Eurocentric, but c'est la vie......considering where I live and where I spend a good deal of my time, that's reasonable enough.

As to my definition of a fine pizza:

1. The crust should be tasty enough that if served on its own, with no topping whatever, it should give pleasure. That means of course that although the crust can be a wee bit charred, the charring should add to rather than detract from the flavor.
2. The dough for the crust should be made using nothing more than a wood rolling-pin and the hands. The use of machines for rolling out dough kills flavor as the dough is invariably overworked
3. If cheese is used as part of the topping, that cheese should be of the highest quality and should not dominate or hide the flavors of whatever other ingredients are in that topping. More than that, the cheese should have melted and then come together again in a non-sticky, non-stringy form.
4. As with the cheese, all others of the topping agents should be of fine quality and that regardless of whether we are talking about a white pizza with nothing more than cheese and onions or one with a tomato-based sauce.
5. The use of tinned tomatoes or tinned tomato-based sauces should be considered a felony offense.
6. When tomato sauce is in order it should be appropriately herbed and that primarily with Mediterranean herbs (e.g. oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc). Other herbs are perfectly acceptable but must be used in the correct proportion as they would with any other dish
7. As to thickness of crust, a personal choice, my own being for thin or moderately thin. I can understand the charm of deep-dish pizza but it isn't my cup of pizza.
8. As with a fine wine, everything on the pizza should be in fine balance, the flavors complimenting each other.
9. If I am elected president of the USA or prime minister of any country or if someone deigns to make me "king", one of the first things I will do is to ban the use of pineapple and guava on pizzas.

That's about what comes to mind. And, should anyone be en route to Israel, I have the address for the very best pizza here....Radio Rosco: Rehov Allenby 97. Open daily 12:00-02:00. Tel 03 5600334. For the record, and possibly to clarify my notes above, following is what I wrote about two of those pizzas on my last visit....

"We continued by sampling from two pizzas. Be there no question but that chef Mena Strum's pizzas have the thinnest, tastiest crusts of all of the pizzas in Israel and, by purposely not exaggerating in the quantity of ingredients that top them, among the best you will find anywhere. The first we tried, a pepperoni pizza, was a tribute to the Italo-American pizzas. When you order a pepperoni pizza in Italy you get a pizza topped with sweet green and red peppers; when you order one in America or here it will be topped as this one was, with slices of the spicy sausage that goes by that name as well as with just a dab of tomato sauce and just enough melted mozzarella cheese to complement the flavor of the sausage. In the second, the, equally good, the super-thin crisp crust had been coated lightly with a mixture of finely chopped spinach, ricotta cheese and dried tomatoes."

Best
Rogov

The use of tinned tomatoes or tinned tomato-based sauces should be considered a felony offense.

Have to disagree. Unless it's tomato season (only a month or two per year), a can of good San Marzanos is infinitely better than what is available fresh. I prefer LaValle.

[quote="Stuart Yaniger]Have to disagree. Unless it's tomato season (only a month or two per year), a can of good San Marzanos is infinitely better than what is available fresh. [/quote]


Ah, but remember that I was accused (albeit in the most friendly of manners) of being Euro-centric and it is largely to Europe that I refer. When fresh tomatoes are not in season in the north of Italy or in Saint Moritz, for example, they are most certainly in season in the south of Spain and are readily available from parts of North Africa, Israel and Lebanon. And, as European grapes have proven eminently transferable to other countries, so have at least thirty-two varieties of tomatoes.

A question (out of honest lack of knowledge) - are tomatoes not in season all year round in parts of Florida, Arizona and California?

Best
Rogov