A Tale of Two Pizzas
One of my most favorite things about living in New York is all the wonderful food options we have.
One of my least favorite things about living in New York is all the pretentiousness you deal with on a regular basis.
I discovered this weekend that when you combine the two, food loses. Here is a tale of pretension, waiting in line, and two six pizzas.
the bad
A couple of my friends have been going down through Time Out New York Best Pizza in New York list. Which yes, is pretty subjective, but fun. Several of us had gone to a brewery tour and beer tasting at the Brooklyn Brewery and decided to tag along on their visit to Una Pizza Napoletana, a tiny little brick oven joint in the East Village. (They don't have a website, or I'd link to it so you can read the over-the-top philosophy.)
This place has earned my ire as the most obnoxious place I've ever been. Granted, it is very good pizza. But no pizza--no twelve-inch personal size pizza--is worth TWENTY ONE DOLLARS. Especially when they offer exactly four choices, no substitutions, no additions, not even hot pepper, and frankly, there's not all that much variation in the four types. And the prices are not listed on the menu that's posted outside, so we didn't know how much the pizzas were going to be until we had waited 20 minutes and were seated. To top off, they were very rude to my friend when she asked how long the wait was, and the service was lousy (rude host and server, they didn't refill our water, were very slow bringing change, etc). And they included a 20% gratuity on our party of six. I, and my friends, generally tip 20% as a default, but this was a place that we had already decided had service that actively didn't deserve it, so it was pretty annoying to have it included.
Also, in the age of global warming, I wouldn't be bragging about having my mozzarella flown in every week from Naples.
To sum up: 4 twelve inch pizzas, no drinks, six diners, $113 bill, six hungry diners. (Sure, that's about $19 each which is okay for dinner on a Saturday night, but I expect to at least be full afterwards.)
Have I emphasized that enough? Used enough bolding, italics, and caps lock? Is it clear what a ripoff this place is? Don't waste your time or money. I respect the idea of the place a lot. The fancy pants flour, the special Italian salt, the super fresh ingredients, the 36-hours-of-rising dough do combine to a delicious pizza. But it just couldn't cover the sour taste in my mouth left by the attitude and obscene overcharging for a minimal amount of food. Clearly others agree, because when we walked out of there at 7:15pm on a Saturday night, there were a few empty tables and no line.
the good
My friend Hilary was in town this weekend, visiting from DC, and so I felt that I really had to take her out for better pizza than that. On Sunday, she and I, along with Dave and his sister, went down to Fulton Ferry to Grimaldi's. We waited in line for an hour to cram in next to two other tables full of people (it was prime dinner hour), and couldn't have been happier. The pizza was fantastic, we got to pick what we wanted, the service was friendly and concientious, and we spent $54 for a large (18") and a small (14"), each with two toppings, and left stuffed and with leftovers.
And we got to go to Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory for dessert.
To sum up: Una Pizza Napoletana: BAD
Grimaldi's: GOOD
Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory: GOOD