Big Apple pies

Continued from E19

F&F Pizzeria

Carroll Gardens 459 Court St., Brooklyn; 718-407-6575; franks.pizza

If you couldn’t tell from the black-andwhite headshot of a young Bob Dylan on the wall or the sticker of a Grateful Dead skull on a stand for the cashier’s iPad, Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli are a little counterculture.

At F&F, the Carroll Gardens restaurateurs known collectively as “the Franks” offer a wholesome, 21st century take on New York slices: free of potassium bromate and baked in an electric oven at around 650 degrees.

“The dough and the ingredients are obviously way updated,” Falcinelli said, adding “Our goal is to make the most delicious, healthiest pizza” that still looks like a Disco-era slice.

F&F employs natural leavening techniques and sources as locally as possible, except for Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes (California) and their own organic Frankies 457 olive oil (Sicily). Hotter than gas, the electric oven toasts the bottom of airy Sicilian slices ($4.50), leaving a bronzed layer of texture that’s more shard-like than the pencil-thin layer. Pungent Sicilian oregano leaves a lasting impression.

The Franks are from Queens, but Falcinelli’s father had a taste for New Haven-style pizza, which explains the presence of a clam slice ($6) bolstered with breadcrumbs that act as a sponge for soaking up lemon juice and mollusk brine.

After being cooped up in tight, wood-paneled slice shops that absorb ovens’ heat, I exhaled walking up to the airy counter at F&F, where a triangular skylight looks down on the pizzamakers and real green grapes hang on the back of the building.

Slices at F&F Pizzeria in Brooklyn.