A crust above
Roman pizza master does wonders with dough on UES
IF you’re not overstuffed on funky, artisanal pizzas, make room for PQR’s Roman-style rectangular slices ($4 to $8).
The new spot at 1631 Second Ave. (near East 85th Street) is the only place in town that boasts the airy yet crispy pizza crust made famous by PQR partner and head chef Angelo Iezzi, who began tossing his signature dough in Rome in 1987. He went on to become a “pizza god,” according to PQR owner Fabio Casella, who also runs nearby San Matteo.
Iezzi, who first learned to make pizza at age 13, was regarded by Italy’s oldschool pizza masters as a dangerous renegade when he launched his contrarian style, which relies on a lighter dough, in the late 1980s. But it soon caught on, and he now heads a global pizza-making school called Associazione Pizzerie Italiane in Rome.
The Iezzi process starts with special flour. PQR uses taglio alla romana, a soft wheat variety that’s not as heavy as the ubiquitous “00” flour. It’s used to form a dough that ferments for 96 hours and is 80 percent water, 20 percent flour. That’s much wetter than typical pizza doughs, which have water-flour ratios of 70 to 30 or 60 to 40.
The dough is pressed into massive, 2-centimeterdeep pans, topped with an ever-changing variety of ingredients and cooked in a volcanic-stone oven for 13 minutes. The result is a crust that’s “soft but crisp, with air bubbles inside,” Casella says.
It ably supports toppings that range from the classic margherita to spicy soppressata with grape tomatoes to marvelously aromatic crema di zucca (squash) with pancetta and provolone.
I loved them all, except for one with black truffles and potatoes, a combination oddly without much flavor.
The lighter dough was something of a revelation. I’m bloated after a single slice of Ray’s, but after eating most of four different PQR slices, I only wanted more.