Friday, June 19, 2009

NY pizza versus Neapolitan pizza

What's the difference? I would like some feedback on this one. After living in Naples for 5 months, my standards for judging a pizza are probably very different from most New Yorkers. 

Yesterday, I ate at Lombardi's, New York's oldest pizzeria. My mind immediately started to criticize certain parts of it (a review is soon to follow) when I realized that I have no real basis for judging New York pies. What makes a good NY pie? a bad one? 

The big difference I noticed yesterday was the density of the crust. It tasted much heavier to me. After just two slices, I felt like I had swallowed a loaf of bread. Don't get me wrong. The crust was chewy, pliable, and salty enough to eat by itself. In a word, it was delicious.  But in Naples, I would have been able to eat three times as many slices without so much as a blip on my digestive radar. 

What's the deal?

If you had to describe your perfect NY slice, what would you say? Is it by the slice, by the pie? thicker crust? thinner?


1 comment:

Unknown said...

generally ny style is a bit thicker than naples, not soggy in the middle, and full sized instead of individual sized, leading to bigger slices. i think you are right about the density, the ny crust is never quite as fluffy/airy as neapolitan (i prefer the classic ny coal oven pizza personally).

i would recommend spending some time on slice.com. adam has written a lot on this and really knows his shit.