The Big Pizza Pivot
As might be expected, pizza has boomed nationally during the pandemic. What that macrotrend looks like to the New York dough cognoscenti is not the rise of Domino’s or Pizza Hut but a bunch of canny chefs and restaurateurs launching virtual pizza parlors inside their existing restaurants and establishing new brands around their new pies.
1. Coco Pazzeria
307 Spring St.; cocopazzeria.com
some 30 years ago, Coco Pazzo’s Pino Luongo hired Ciro Verde to work the pizza oven at his pioneering Chelsea trattoria, Le Madri. Post Le Madri, they went their separate ways and fell out of touch. After Verde closed his Brooklyn restaurant last year because of the pandemic, he reunited with Luongo to open this Coco Pazzo spinoff, and the result is impressive. Verde’s thin-crust pies fall somewhere on the pizza-style spectrum between the Roman and the Neapolitan. And great new topping combos abound, like the ’ndujaspiked Comma Pica (“How spicy!” in Neapolitan dialect), and the Burrata pie (pictured).
2. Washington Squares
21 W. 8th St.; washingtonsquarespizza.com
the grandma pizza Dan Kluger introduced at Loring Place three years ago was so good you wonder why it took a pandemic for him to spin it off into a separately branded sideline. The pie that put Kluger on the pizza map, the tomato-mozzarella “O.G.” is here.
What’s new is a slew of clever toppings and fiery accents: There’s spicy honey on the Meat Lover’s pie, pickled jalapeño on the Spanakopita, and chili crisp on the Mushroom.
3. Black Seed Pizza
176 First Ave.; blackseedpizza.com if you already have a nice wood-burning oven churning out Montreal-style bagels by day, why not harness the residual heat, keep the oven humming, and bake pizza by night? That was the light-bulb moment that inspired Black Seed’s Matt Kliegman to contact his pal Bobby Hellen (of the late great GG’s pizzeria) and collaborate on this perma-pop-up.
The result is some stand-up Sicilian squares plus some equally puffy rounds.
4. Smillie Pizza by il Buco Alimentari
53 Great Jones St.; ilbuco.com pizza has always been part of this multitasking Noho shopstaurant, but it took pandemic dining habits to beget a separate identity for its pies. Chef Justin Smillie’s recipe has evolved over time into what he calls a “hodgepodge pizza.” The current incarnation combines the ancient Sicilian durum wheat timilia with whole wheat and bread flours, but what really distinguishes it is technique: Inspired by the cast-iron-pan pizza he made for his kids during quarantine, when he froze the “skins” to top and bake later, he now bakes his hearty, crisp-crusted dough “blank,” then cooks it again with toppings like kale and anchovy or mortadella and pesto.
5. Peasant Pizza
194 Elizabeth St.; peasantnyc.com
marc forgione’s pizza crust is a hybrid—part sourdough, part pinsa, the ancient Italian flatbread made with rice and soy flours. Last year, he began adorning pies with offbeat toppings like Brussels sprouts and Calabrian honey, and this January, he launched a pizza-delivery pop-up on the weekends to test the brand as a potential new business. “Trying to be a restaurant and a pizza place gets a little confusing,” says the chef. So while he’s still serving pies to stay or to go, he’s looking for spaces to house the new venture.