Today I’d like to pay homage to good pizza. There is a lot of history behind pizza which I won’t bore you with but there is a type of pizza that is somewhat a dying breed. It is the brick oven or coal oven pizza, not to be confused with wood oven pizza. The lore of New Yorkers tells of a great pizza made in a small corner pizza shop in downtown Manhattan named Lombardi’s.
Lombardi’s is a nice story too. Located in Little Italy at 32nd and Spring Streets. I first visited it back in 2005 when my son and I dropped in on the recommendation of my ex-wife. She had eaten their prior and who knows how she came about the place. But in the end, she told me how great it was and I wanted to know if she was right. I mean, I had to know if a Ukrainian woman really knew pizza! LOL Turns out she did. What she didn’t know to tell me was that I was going to what is rumored to be the oldest Pizza parlor in New York, and more specifically that I would be dining on “coal oven” pizza.
Although Gennaro Lombardi wasn’t the actual maker (pizziolas) of the pizza at first (an employee at his grocery was selling it and it became popular) he did open Lombardi’s Pizza in 1905. His employee later opened his own pizzeria on Coney Island. Thus Anthoney Tontonno stepped out from under the shadow of Gennaro Lombardi to open his own Totonno’s. While the Totonno’s location is still the original location opened in 1924, the Lombardi’s of today is not at its original location (not that either matters). The original Lombardi’s was a block off of 32nd and Spring Street. Totonno’s now has multiple locations and you don’t have to trek over to Coney Island to try theirs out. They have two locations in Manhattan, one in Midtown at 2nd Avenue between 80th and 81st Streets and a second location downtown also on 2nd Avenue between 26th and 27th.
While here in Delaware we don’t have “coal oven” pizza, we do have wood burning “brick oven” pizza. Two places stand out. The Chesapeake Inn located just over the Delaware line in the quaint town of Chesapeake City and Elizabeth’s Pizza located in the upscale and hardly down to earth part of Delaware ...Greenville. I enjoy both of these brick oven pizzas. However I will admit they do lack the final something that Lombardi’s offers. I have to say I don’t think the difference is in the coal or wood, despite the unique taste each oven produces. I put it down to texture and crispiness in the crust.
Meanwhile these pizza shops will swear it’s mostly the oven that produces the light inside texture with the crispy outside, I don’t think that is entirely true. Over the years, I’ve dabbled in pizza making at home and have done everything from bringing home dough balls from local pizza shops to make my own pizza dough from scratch. Just like you use more cane sugar in chocolate chip cookie dough to make them crunchy and brown sugar to make them soft, a similar principal is applied to pizza dough. I know… I’ve done it. Yet there are some other factors such as using malt in your dough, perhaps Lombardi’s and Totonno’s has yet a secret ingredient to accomplish this. I’m not merely speaking of flour high in protein. The wonders of working with gluten in baking is a complex art and to this end Lombardi’s brick oven or coal oven pizza is taste that literally smolders in your mouth.
What makes coal oven pizza’s special? The fact is the oven temperature is over 700 degree’s. It takes just a few minutes of pie turning to produce a finished pie.
Now you can’t compare brick oven pizza to its contemporary counterpart, the pizza we eat from local pizza shops with our Blogden Ovens.
I’ve tried St. Mark’s Pizza at 8th and 3rd. While it is damn good, I must confess the oven coal pizza at Lombardi’s makes for a better snack.
I don’t visit New York enough, but I have also made the pilgrimage to Patsy’s too. Oh… and if you don’t know… Patsy is a guy, in fact he’s a second Patsy. There is always a story to tell. You see, Patsy learned from his uncle Patsy, and that uncle learned from… did you guess it? …Gennaro Lombardi. The story comes full circle.
You won’t find any more “coal” oven pizza shop’s beyond this list below as New York law won’t allow any new coal burning pizza shops. These are grandfathered, if they close… you’ll have one less to choose from, permanently.
Angelo's
117 West 57th Street, New York NY 10019
212-333-4333
Arturo's
106 West Houston, New York NY 10012
212-677-3820
Carbone
331 West 38th Street, New York NY 10018
212-290-2625
John's (Greenwich Village)
278 Bleecker Street, New York NY 10014
212-243-1680
John's (Times Square)
260 West 44th Street, New York NY 10036
212-391-7560
Lombardi's
32 Spring Street, New York NY 10012
212-941-7994
Luzzo's (coal and wood combined)
211 First Avenue, New York NY 10009
212-473-7447
Patsy's (The Original: East Harlem)
2287 First Avenue, New York NY 10035
212-534-9783
Patsy's (Chelsea)
318 West 23rd Street, New York NY 10011
646-486-7400
Patsy's (Lenox Hill)
206 East 60th Street, New York 10022
212-688-9707
Patsy's (Upper East Side)
1312 Second Avenue, New York NY 10021
212-639-1000
Patsy's (Union Square)
67 University Place, New York NY 10003
212-533-3500
Patsy's (Upper West Side)
61 West 74th Street, New York NY 10023
212-579-3000
Totonno's (Second Ave. and 26th Street)
462 Second Avenue, New York NY 10016
212-213-8800
Totonno's (Upper East Side)
1544 Second Avenue, New York NY 10028
212-327-2800
