Pizza - what is the Best Pizza in NYC? Wishing a NYC Pizza tour suggestions

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
41

You can’t remember if you’ve been there before? neener

How was it? My top ranked NY pizza place is Keste, combo of quality and ambience.

42

loved it, but was a unique experience as it was a wine bonanza and the entire place was taken over.

keste is solid. doesn’t hold a candle to roberta’s.

43

LOL, not sure how any pretty good pizza place couldn’t hold a candle to another pretty good pizza place. But I’ll definitely take your rec and put Roberta’s high on the list for my next visit.

Maybe it was the very good pizza, cool ambience, and the three piece jazz/old standards band in the corner that swayed me on Keste [wow.gif]

44

i don’t understand most of your posts, this isn’t an exception.

45

Just saying, it’s pizza, how much better can one good pizza be than another good pizza?

46

47

Yaacov, I’m confused. Earlier in this thread you write

i’d argue the best pizza in NYC now is Neapolitan style and the best examples can be found at (in no particular order):
Roberta’s
Keste
Motorino

Then you write

keste is solid. doesn’t hold a candle to roberta’s.

I don’t live there, so have a limited opportunity to try all the different places. I’ve tried several, so far Keste is my favorite, and I’m looking forward to trying Roberta’s, given that you put it in the same tier as Keste. How is that a troll?

Cheers

48

same category of best. keste is very good. excellent even. roberta’s is much better.

saying it’s (just) pizza isn’t really helpful in a conversation about pizza.

49

This is getting a little inane, but how does something get much better than excellent? Anyway, you have definitely persuaded me that Roberta’s should be top on the list for our next NY visit. Maybe we’ll do both Motorino and Roberta’s in succession.

50

I’m 92 points on Keste

I’m 94 points on Motorino

I’m 98 points on Roberta’s

51

it all makes sense now.

52

Well, now you’ve crossed the line. Because in my scoring system, nothing gets over 95 unless it has aged and developed its full potential. And I’m not sure I want my pizza with a lot of age on it neener

53

something about horse and water applies here.

54

LOL. You are far to serious about Pizza [cheers.gif]

55

Besides my advice upthread (if I posted, who remembers), I’ll go along with the advice Jay gave, but modify it. Take the subway to any stop in Brooklyn. Ask any stranger where the closest pizza place is. This slice will be better than anything you taste in Manhattan. I’m not referring to the ‘named’ and / or chain type places such as Grimaldi or Familgia. I’m talking about a good old fashion pizzeria.

It had to be said.

The 4th annual offline here in February 2016. > 3rd Annual - Di Fara's Pizza in Brooklyn - February 17, 2015 - Event Planner - Online or Offline - WineBerserkers

56

Forget all you’ve read in this thread, we hit the best pizza joint in NYC on our first night here. The name of the place is Ciao Vineria Con Cucina, located in Little Italy. Let me tell you a bit more about the place.

I arrived late from NJ due to traffic and met the wife at the appartment we rented in upper west side. Wife is hungry, so off we go. I’m in the mood for pizza, so I say “why not Little Italy?”.
Once there, we tour the streets a bit, but it’s getting a bit late and wife is getting hungrier (and angrier) by the minute. I tell her “Wherever you want to go, honey!”, so we take a sit in the front of the restaurant. This is when all hell breaks loose.

The waiter gives us the menu, trying to articulate a few words in Italian. All the dishes are pricy, with pizza starting at $16 for pepperoni topping. I don’t have any price point reference at this moment, we’re hungry and it’s pretty late, so we order pizza and gnocchi for my wife. I take a glass of house red wine. Wife asks for “regular water” (tap water was what she meant).
A moment later, the waiter comes and opens a bottle of water so fast we don’t have time to say we only wanted tap. My glass is served at room temperature, ie. 25°C/77°F. Great start.

Still a moment later, the plates arrive. My pizza has pepperoni pretty much only on one side, I guess the cook was drunk or something and had trouble with his equilibrium. He didn’t bother trying to fix it before serving. Some of the cheese on the other side is not even melted.
The tomatoe sauce on the gnocchis is so bland I think it came right out of a tin, and there is about half a teaspoon of basil to go with it, even though it was advertised as “basil gnocchis”.

A moment later, the waiter looks very worried and start saying something. “The cops are coming” he says… in Spanish! At that moment, we start to wonder if the two guys sitting right beneath us are not with prostitutes. Why we thought they were prostitutes you ask?
Well for starter, one of the girl has a neon pink leggins so tight you can see she has no underwear. I spot her coming out of the toilets with one of the guy still zipping his pants. Only when I went to the washroom a bit later that I realized there was only one toilet, no men/women rooms.
A bit later still, one of the guys made a call to a buddy of his using facetime, and when he says “Look what you’re missing!”, the girls start juggling their boobs like in the worst porn movie. Wife is horrified.
Yet the worst (or the best depending on how you look at it) is yet to come.

We get the check, and you guessed it, they made a mistake in calculation so we have to send it back. Also, “the house rule is 20% gratuity”, so there you go. Had a bit of a heated exchange with the manager, making sure other customers could hear us complain so that they are cautious with their own bills.

We leave in a rush, but still I’m able to hear the waiter tell the two guys “Man, this is the best price you will get!”, talking about the two prostitutes who were waiting in the back of the restaurant… [shock.gif]

So let me sum that up for you:

  • Bland food, warm wine at hefty price tag - check
  • Being ripped off on first night in the city - check
  • Fake Italian restaurant actually being a front for a hooker joint - check (I’m exagerating a bit here… or am I?)

Fortunately, the rest of the week was much better.
Sorry for the long post, I needed to vent a bit [cheers.gif]

Alain

57

you went to a random red sauce joint in little italy.

you could get a better meal at sbarro in the short hills mall.

58

on the upside, finally and very belatedly, checked out rocky slims in murray hill. add this to the list of really, really good pizza in the city. chef is ex-roberta’s. they have the good oven. and there’s more than a handful of really good veg smaller dishes that are much better than they need to be. i think the chef is going for a mini-roberta’s menu; a bunch of seasonal chefy small plates and solid pizza.

we only had one pie and i need to dig a little deeper, but from what i tasted, i’d put this on the map for sure. and certainly convenient for those in lower-mid town, gramercy, flatiron, etc.

what’s also totally unique is they basically have 2 pizza restaurants in one; Neapolitan style in the restaurant and then there’s a slice shop in a shared space around the corner that turns out more traditional NY-style pies and slices. Separate prep areas, ovens, etc. All the dough is made from natural starter and the ingredients seem top notch. the regular NY slice had a nice tangy funk to it very reminiscent of DiFara (something in the cheese blend?). The white NY pie (ricotta and mozz) had black and white sesame seeds on the edge of the crust which looked insane and very curious, but totally insanely delicious when tasted. one of the weirdest things i’ve seen and i’m dying to have it again.

so, being able to try two different style pizzas at one meal is kinda cool. especially when you just want one more slice.

wine list is tiny but all very geeky (cornelissen rose!!??). not sure of their corkage policy, but they all seem very laid back so i’m sure it’s workable. we brought a bottle of chablis and weren’t charged.

59

Alain, thanks for the report. Enjoyable read.

60

Many, many others have suffered the same or worse dining fate as you when they went with the same mantra.

I’m sorry you had to endure one of the saddest culinary side of NYC, but I hope that the rest of your visit turns out for the better. Fwiw, thanks for the report back.