“So, just what is New York style pizza?”
If we have heard this once, we have heard it a thousand times since announcing our plans for Sal & Mookie’s. Simply put, New York style pizza is known by its:
1. Size (big!)
2. Sauce (San Marzanzo tomatoes – low acid, sugary flavor)
3. Cheese (fresh mozzarella)
4. Crust (thin but not crackery-crisp)
5. Cooking technique (coal fired ovens, wood fired ovens, deck ovens)
Like most things in life, there are opposing views on who has the best pie, what attributes a perfect pie should have, what type of oven should be used, etc.
In preparation for opening Sal & Mookie’s, Dan, along with Jon Pixler (Sal & Mookie’s chef and “Head Pizzaiolo”) have performed countless hours of research and development all in the hopes of recreating the perfect NYC pie. They have tested dozens of recipes for dough and sauce. They have tinkered with different hydration ratios for the dough. They have played with varying retardation times for the dough (the amount of time the dough sits before being formed and baked). Jon has made so many batches of red sauce we have lost count! They have polled friends and acquaintances who have lived in NYC or are currently living in NYC. They have spent hours on the internet.
After all this, we decided that now - with just a few months to go before opening – now is the time to go to New York and compare and contrast all the styles. And so we did!
This past weekend (Jan 12 – 15th), Dan and Jeff (along with Jeff’s wife Debbie, and Dan’s little sister, Susan, who joined us from her home in Boston) took a trip to New York in search of the perfect pizza. You may wonder why Jon was not included? All we can say is that we did everything in our power to get our #1 man to board the plane with us, but the simple fact is this: JON WON’T FLY. PERIOD!
We found this out the first time last spring when we went to the huge National Restaurant Association trade show in Chicago. Jon wouldn’t fly, so he drove the entire distance… even picked us up at the airport!
This wasn’t an option this time, so Jon stayed behind, but we kept him in the loop with daily e-mails with pictures of the food, movies taken in the various kitchens, and a full carry-on cooler of pizza slices from every pizzeria we visited! (13 slices in all! And no problems at baggage check! It would have been only 12 pieces, but we met some very nice natives at Lombardi's, who, after hearing the story of our quest, offered to donate a slice of their meatball pizza to the cause! What great luck!)
Below, you will find a sampling of the pictures and videos we took during our three-day gorge-fest. We hit a minimum of three pizzerias each day, and broke up the cycle by eating Vietnamese one night and some Chinese in Chinatown one afternoon. Other than that, it was nothing but pizza, pizza, pizza for the four of us!
Where did we go?
Lombardi’s – Little Italy, Manhattan
Full Moon Pizzeria – Arthur Avenue, The Bronx
Giovanni’s – Arthur Avenue, The Bronx
Grimaldi’s – Directly Under the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn
Joe’s Pizza – Carmine Street, Manhattan
John’s on Bleecker – Bleecker Street, Manhattan
Una Pizza Napoletana – Manhattan
So, what did we discover?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What we found was that each place has its own character and its own following. It’s almost like professional sports; everyone has a favorite team! From the black turtleneck crowd at Una Pizza Napoletana, to the working class folks at Grimaldi’s, the one constant was the quality of the pie. All were excellent in their own ways and all were worthy of the acclaim.
Now, our work is cut out for us… it is OUR job to recreate that New York Pizzeria experience for our guests here in Jackson, Mississippi. It will be tough, but we think with the right ingredients, the right equipment, and the right attitude, we will pull it off. After all, we were successful at getting those 13 cold slices through the X-ray machine at Newark!
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