Big Apple pies

Brooklyn pizza crawl proves the superiority of the New York slice

BROOKLYN — Frank Pinello says we’re living in “a golden era” of New York pizza, and he should know. When asked to survey his home borough, he counts off names in rapid succession: Williamsburg Pizza, L’Industrie, Leo, Fini and an outpost of Joe’s Pizza from Greenwich Village. That’s just in Williamsburg, and it doesn’t include Pinello’s place, Best Pizza, a legitimate contender for the top slice in the neighborhood.

No one personifies the bridge between the first wave of Brooklyn pizzaiolos and the new school like Pinello, 41. An alumnus of both the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park and Roberta’s in Bushwick, he’s also an Italian American kid from Bensonhurst. Pinello, who hosted “The Pizza Show” on Vice, has long looked up to the slice shop operators from “the old country,” uncompromising guys like the late Dom DeMarco at Di Fara or Luigi Lanzo at Luigi’s.

“They would never cheap out. You had to do it this way. You had to follow the rules,” Pinello said. “People are back to using only the best ingredients,” he added.

I came to Brooklyn because I wanted to judge New York’s pizza superiority for myself. Living in D.C. for a dozen years, I’ve heard my share of snobbish complaints from New York City expats; it gets grating. I’ve spent years writing about food, and I was still skeptical the gap between New York and everywhere else could be so large.

Passionate pizzamakers like Pinello helped me see the light. This is convenience food, yes, but in many cases, it’s also a life’s work.

To plan my pizza pilgrimage, I read all the big NYC lists, then solicited input from pizza chefs in D.C. and New York. Restricting the crawl to Brooklyn would help me pack my tasting into a day. To further trim the field and minimize indigestion, I committed to only buy pizza by the slice (my apologies to Totonno’s, Lucali and Juliana’s). My list would feature a balance of decades-old slice joints and members of a contemporary class of dough whisperers.

After visiting six pizzerias in one day, I can say it: They were right. Consider this crawl my capitulation. If you want to take a Brooklyn pizza tour, there are a number of local companies you could hire to guide you. Or you could follow this list, ranging from South Brooklyn to South Slope to the high-pizzeria-density confines of Williamsburg.