Slicing Into New York's Pizza | 6

0:06Have you ever encountered a pizza slice so good you just can't wait for it to cool? You bite into it only to immediately burn the roof of your mouth? Yeah, it happens to a lot of us. It's hard to find a person who doesn't crave that hot, cheesy goodness. And while we can all agree that pizza is a source of comfort and a nostalgic favorite for Americans, after all, it arrived in the U.S. in the late 1800s, one thing we can't seem to agree on is which style of pizza is best. Last month, we traveled to Los Angeles to find out why burger shops are so plentiful and who makes the best patties. Now we're heading the other way across the country to New York City, home to some of the best pizza you can find in the nation.

0:48Well, at least according to our guests. We're joined by Dan Pashman. He's the host of the Sporkful podcast and a three-time James Beard Award winner. We're also hearing from Melissa McCart of Eater, New York. She's also the author of Bread and How to Eat It. So she certainly knows her carbs. Get ready for your mouth to water because all that's coming up.

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3:20From Wondery, I'm David Brown, and this is Slicing into New York's Pizza. Dan, tell us about the Sporkful podcast. Well, David, it's a podcast I started way back in 2010 in the stone ages of podcasting. Oh my gosh, wow. It's a food podcast. Our motto is it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm not a trained chef. I just really love to eat. And the show has grown and evolved over the years. And we like to use food to get into a wide range of topics, whether it's history, culture, science, more serious subjects some weeks, and then very silly subjects other weeks. So now we argue about the best way to layer the ingredients of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

3:57And then I'm also well-known for having done a series about my invention of a new shape of pasta, which is called Cascatelli. and that kind of exploded beyond my wire of the streams. This is the Pascatelli. This is from that very podcast that you're talking about here. This was part of the Mission Impossible series. Here's the clip that started it all, folks. And I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Spaghetti sucks. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. I said it. It's round on the outside. That means that it's a low surface area in relation to the volume. That means that sauce doesn't adhere to it well. It means less of it contacts your teeth when you first bite it.

4:39It's like, you know, there's all this romanticism around spaghetti, but spaghetti and meatballs isn't even an Italian thing. The lady and the tramp did a great disservice to American culinary history by romanticizing spaghetti. What we really should have taken from that movie is that it's a pasta shape that's only fit for dogs. That's a mighty bold claim. Tell us about your Mission Impossible. What's the backstory? So I set out to invent a new shape of pasta. I have these three metrics that I've come up with to judge all pasta shapes. So there's fork ability. How easy is it to get it on the fork and keep it there?

5:13Sauce ability. How readily does sauce adhere to the shape? And then tooth sink ability, which is how satisfying is it to sink your teeth into it? I think a lot of pasta shapes are good at one or two of these, David. Very few nail all three. And as I said, spaghetti barely gets one. You know, we're eating so much spaghetti in the world. It doesn't hold a lot of sauce. It's hard to get a good bite on your fork. So I set out to try to see if I could come up with something better. And it took me three years. It was much, much harder than I anticipated. Every person in the pasta industry who I talked to and my wife, who's not in the pasta industry, all said it was a terrible idea and that the world didn't need any new pasta shapes.

5:47But I persevered and came out with Cascatelli. It launched in March of 2021. It was a huge hit. It was named one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of the Year. The original version is made by a company called Sfolini out of upstate New York. It's S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I. It's in Whole Foods. It's in a lot of stores around the country. There's a version of Trader Joe's. And then there's also a version of Cascatelli made by Bonza that's in Whole Foods. It's gluten-free. Well, on behalf of pasta lovers everywhere, we salute you, sir. Thank you. Yeah. Now, Melissa, I know you're also a carb aficionado. Your book, Bread and How to Eat It, celebrates bread in all its forms.

6:22Right up my alley. Tell us more. How did you, did you get into pizza at all in that book, by the way? I've been living with my partner for over a decade. and he owns a Jersey City bakery called Bread and Salt. And when he first opened pre-pandemic, Pete Wells reviewed it in New York Times, even though it's in New Jersey. And so he wanted to write about bread and like mine some old Italian recipes about how people used bread and then move on to pizza. So the answer is not really. Pizza's coming next. Well, let's talk about a recent article that you wrote for Eater called New York Pizza is an Evolution in Four Acts.

6:58What are those four acts? So the oldest style of pizza in New York is the coal oven pizza that was pioneered by Lombardi's. And that's sort of the most recognizable style in New York City. And you won't see a lot of coal ovens anymore. It creates essentially a dense crust and is generally served as a whole pie. Okay. Then in the 1940s, a Baker's Pride deck oven was invented in the Bronx. And that pizza is a more chewy pizza. It's cooked at a lower temperature and it's designed to be reheated. That's the one that is most common in slice shops. For the third one, we have wood-fired pizza. And that's sort of like a neo-Neapolitan style.

7:46You're getting it as a whole pizza, generally with a 12 to 14 inch crust. And then we have a new wave style that's far more focused on the quality of the dough. It uses a lot of technique from bread bakers and there might be flour blends like, I don't know, einkorn and white flour or whole wheat crusts and things like that. We're in this like new school, new wave pizzeria boom. You know, what strikes me when you were laying those out is, number one, how much the technology is what distinguishes these four acts. You know, the kind of ovens and the style of cooking based on how you're cooking it, but also the bread, because I think that a lot of people do think about the toppings as the main event on pizza.

8:35And maybe it is. Maybe you can settle this for us. Does the East Coast actually have the best pizza, Melissa? Well, I think from East Coasters, especially New Yorkers, it's not even a question. Of course, New York has the best pizza. I'm surprised you waited so long. You know, a lot of suspense there. I was really going to say. But I think if you were to ask like a lot of pizza nerds, they might tip their hat to New Haven because essentially the Italian immigrants who landed there were better known as bakers than they were in New York. And so I think I would maybe lean towards the New Haven style as coming out stronger than New York initially.

9:24But now we have such severe competition in New York and such a demand for pizza. And it's so much a part of people's everyday diet that pizza can't help but be good in New York. Why do you think New York City has this reputation as a ground zero for pizza in the United States? Dan, what's your answer to that? Well, I think partly what Melissa said that it is quite literally ground zero. The first pizzeria in America, as far as we know, is Lombardi's. It was open in New York City. And the Northeast of America in general is where you have a higher concentration of Italian immigrants and Italian-American history.

10:01but like i i actually put a lot of thought in general and some research on the sporkful into why certain regional foods remain specialties in their home regions even in spite of technology and in spite of travel like barbecue or pizza i mean like if you know how to make great pizza you should be able to get that flour sent anywhere in america you should be able to get that oven delivered anywhere you should be able to make the same pizza anywhere yet why on average is it still better in new york and a few other places and as best i can tell based on my research is because A lot of people say, oh, it's the water.

10:32That's why bagels and pizza are better in New York. It's the water. I talked to a bagel historian who had water sent to the University of Kansas to get it tested and said there's nothing special about the water. It's not the water. What it is is that you have, first of all, you have a long - I love how you do everything halfway there. I mean, you know. That's right. But partly it's that you have a long history of a certain food being cooked in that place. You have a high concentration of expertise that is passed down from one generation to another in that place. you also have more competition so even if someone were to learn to make pizza in new york and then move to some other place probably their quality would fall off over time because they wouldn't have the same amount of competition and also the other factor is the customer base so if you're the customer base in a place where a food is very prevalent and where it's a specialty knows what it's supposed to be it has higher standards for it and so the over time the cream will rise so to speak and so that is generally why the best barbecue is still in the south and The best pizza is still in, I think, in the Northeast.

11:32And it's because of those those factors. OK, well, I mean, I was one of the reasons I wanted you guys to come to the fore with this was because, you know, we've already alienated Chicago and Detroit. Right. I mean, two other big cities. What other big cities are we talking about when we think pizza? What would you say if someone's handed just slice of Chicago pizza, that this is an authentic pizza or that ours is better? I lived in Chicago. I love Chicago and I love Chicago deep dish pizza. I just think that it's so different from what we think of as Neapolitan pizza, which is sort of the true history of pizza going back to Naples.

12:08So to me, yes, they're both called pizza, but like a lot of different things are called dumplings. You know, you can't necessarily compare them all. They can be great in their own way and different. It's like apples and oranges. I mean, I don't even consider that a pizza. It's almost like a casserole. it's just like soupy and dense and there's tons of stuff in it and there's lots of layers it just it doesn't feel like a pizza you cannot walk around and eat a chicago deep dish pizza without wearing it yeah and after you eat it you're not particularly portable good point like you're immobilized you like i live in chicago i can also tell you like people in chicago like you don't get deep dish pizza like for lunch like on your lunch break when you're working like you don't you don't just like grab it on the way home from work on a Tuesday night.

12:53It's an event and it is a fun event, but it's more of a special occasion. Pizza in New York is like embedded in the culture. Like I don't go a week without eating a slice of pizza. Wow. Well, now what do you look for in that perfect slice? And I guess this leads to the question we're going to have to just call it. What's the best place to find that in New York's five boroughs? Perfect slice. Where do you find it? Melissa, you want to go first? I would go between Scars and the new Roberta's R Slice as far as slices go. And what makes it perfect? I mean, I like Scars because he's milling the flour and it's a really flavorful crust.

13:29It has a little bit of crunch. It has some crispiness. You can smell it the way you can smell good bread. He's using good tomatoes. It's not a mess of mozzarella. That's like a blanket. It's a really great slice. Roberta's, that crust is a little crisper to me and feels a little bit more straight ahead. What about you, Dan? When you think Perfect Slice, what comes to mind and what's the place? I mean, I do really love Roberta's in New York. There's a lot of good pizza in New York. And I'm not, honestly, I'm not super picky. To me, the big thing is, and this may be controversial, I'm curious to hear your and Melissa's take on this.

14:09So, well, first of all, I don't like a pizza with a lot of toppings. Because most, if it's meat, it's going to release fat. If it's vegetables, it's going to release water when it gets cooked. And that's going to turn your crust soggy. Also, like if you're making, if you have great crust, great sauce and great cheese, you shouldn't need a whole lot else. You want to add a few things, that's fine. But like more is not better when it comes to toppings. The other thing that I'll say that's somewhat controversial is of the three canonical basic components of pizza, crust, sauce, cheese. To me, the most important and the one that sets great pizza apart is the sauce.

14:45Now that's controversial, especially among like, you know, bread aficionados like Melissa. I'm sure that, you know, you may not agree, Melissa, but to me, like, yes, some crusts are better than others, but fresh baked bread is always good. Even mediocre bread when it's hot out of the oven is really good. It might not be good three hours later, but it's always good when it's hot out of the oven. And melted cheese is almost always good, whether it's the finest cheese money can buy or something that came out of a plastic package in the supermarket. I love it. So those two components, they're always going to be good, but like I've had a lot of pizza, which is sort of an acrid sauce that tastes like dehydrated garlic and onions.

15:24It tastes like it came out of a can. And when you have that fresh, bright tomato flavor and the natural sweetness that comes with that to me, there's just a wider variation in sauce quality. And that's why, to me, the sauce is most important. Man, I hope our listeners are taking notes here. Dan Pashman hosts the Sportful podcast. Author Melissa McCart is with Eater New York. And when we come back, we asked our guests to go out on the street and do some reporting and taste testing on a New York pizza rivalry that's only getting hotter. Stick around.

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18:09Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. My guests are Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman and Eater New York's Melissa McCart. So, Dan, since you described the Sporkful as a podcast for eaters and not just foodies, I understand you went on a little quest yourself to taste some of New York City's trendiest slices. Thanks for doing that. I guess you were trying to get to the bottom of a rivalry between two hot spots that do different twists on the same kind of buzzy pizza, one with hot honey. That's right. So a little while back, this place Scars opened in New York, and I went to check it out, and I loved it.

18:43And that was the first time that I had some version of a pizza that has some combination of pepperoni, honey, and spiciness. This one had pepperoni, jalapenos, and Mike's Extra Hot Honey. And it was phenomenal. And I had not tasted that combination. Then I started seeing it in other places. Like even out here in the suburbs where I live on the island, my local pizzeria was like, hey, we now have pepperoni and hot honey pizza. And I'm like, oh, I guess this is becoming a thing. I talked to some friends and they were like, oh, Roberta started that. Roberta's was the first to do spicy honey pepperoni combo.

19:20So I decided to set out and try Roberta's and then go back to Scarra's and eat them one right after the other to see who does the version of this pizza better. All right. But before we get to the test, Melissa, maybe you can help us understand what's behind this whole hot honey on pizza thing. I mean, where did this come from with hot honey on pizza? I think we're in an era where a lot of people are seeking out or trained to enjoy different flavor profiles on each dish. You have your sweet, you have your spicy, you have your salty, you have your creamy. Maybe you have some kind of verdant savoriness.

19:55So whether it's a new American restaurant or the latest Chinese restaurant that is open, I think people are used to using more condiments or using condiments to enhance flavor profiles. Yeah, yeah. So adding hot honey to pizza seems like a natural thing. Now let's set this up. Dan, you sampled both Roberta's and Scars for this. Set the scene, then we'll play a little bit of your real-time reviews. So Roberta's, I mean, Melissa can tell you more about the history of Roberta's, but it started in Bushwick, which is kind of deep into Brooklyn. I had heard a lot of buzz around it, but then recently they've opened up outposts in other parts of New York City.

20:32And so I went to Roberta's near Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan, where they have slices, which is somewhat rare among a lot of the very upscale old school pizzerias. They won't do it. They don't do slices. They'll only do pies to order. So the fact that Roberta's has slices at all is pretty cool and special. So I wanted to go there. I knew that I wanted to get what they call the bee sting, which is, theirs is with soppressata, which is essentially, I mean, I'll call it fancy pepperoni. Slice thin and it has a greater diameter than what you would picture from a slice of pepperoni. It's actually probably twice as wide, but much thinner.

21:10A thinner slice, but takes up more of the pizza. Got a nice peppery flavor. They do it with honey and chili oil. That's how they put their spice together. So Soprasada, honey, and chili oil. Melissa, do you remember your first encounter with Roberta's and Scars? I mean, Roberta's was like the early aughts. And I remember going there was like a pilgrimage. You know, it had the tiki bar and the line at the door and it felt sort of punk rock-ish. So yeah, I remember it, but there were all these other competing things for my attention and Roberta's. But Scars, on the other hand, it was more recent.

21:49I went with my partner who makes pizza and he knows Scar and we saw the milling set up. And so that's fresher in my mind, I guess. All right. Let's put these slices to the test. Dan, here's a clip from your experience with Roberta's. All right, I got my Roberta's bee sting. Well, it's nice. You get the honey right off the bat. First impression is that it's sweet and salty and meaty. And then the chili oil, it sneaks up on you at the end there. At first, you're like, is this spicy? And they're like, oh, okay, yeah. There we go. The crust is really excellent. It's paper thin with a nice char on the outside, with a nice char on the bottom.

22:33still very crispy and chewy. And that's the tough thing. You know, you don't want your crust to be super doughy. You don't want it to be super thin and brittle. You want it to be crispy and chewy and delicate all at once. And this is that. This is very good. Oh, wow. That was a very thorough analysis. I felt like I was tasting it. That was so good. I'm so hungry now, you know. There's something about the sound of honking horns and shouting, you know, and construction vehicles backing up that makes the pizza taste better. The carbon monoxide. Yeah, right. Right. All right. The next stop on Dan's pizza tour was Scars to put their spicy slice to the test.

23:19Let's listen. All right. I'm at Scars ready to try the hot boy, which is beef, pepperoni, jalapenos and Mike's extra hot honey. So it's interesting. The Roberta's one, all the spice comes from the chili oil. The Scar's one, you get spice from the hot honey and spice from the jalapenos. So on flavor, I like Scar's better because the flavor of the jalapenos is just sort of like more spice flavor, not just straight up pepper spice. But on crust and crispiness, I give the edge to Roberta's. Their crust was lighter, crispier, chewier. This crust is still good, but a little bit soggy, ever so slightly.

23:55So flavor goes to scars. Overall crust and technique, I would give the edge to Roberta's. Oh, boy. Melissa, we heard Dan mention you like the crust better at Roberta's. As a bread connoisseur, how do you feel about the crust at this particular kind of pizza? And what are they doing with the bread? Are they adding some kind of special seasoning or something or what? They are using flour blends and milling it themselves, and you can taste the difference. You can taste the milling of the flour. That's amazing to me. I think bread as being the most important thing for pizza is a relative new thing.

24:32And I firmly am behind bread as the most essential part of pizzeria. Interesting. But it's actually, David, it's the same thing with pasta. You know, like you might not think you can tell the difference, but like if you have pasta that's made with a higher quality semolina, especially a more coarse grind. if it's ground very finely then a lot of the aromatics are going to evaporate from that flour before it ever gets a chance to get cooked where it's a coarser grind it's going to hold more of its natural components in there and then you know if you have really good pasta that's made with really good flour it should taste almost it should smell almost like fresh bread it should have that aroma it should taste good on its own with no sauce at all and i think if you buy cheaply made pasta you you don't really get that it's kind of rubbery because the way it's dried and it doesn't have that same kind of fresh bread flavor.

25:19Any other major differences worth noting on the Scars versus the Roberta's hot honey pizza? Dan? Look, I do want to say these are both really, really good slices of pizza. Like if you are in New York and only have a chance to get to one, you're not going to go wrong. They're both great. And, you know, I think I love jalapenos. You know, I want my spice to have flavor and not just spice. And to me, that was really what I was getting at with the scars, with the hot honey and the jalapenos. Jalapenos have flavor. They're not just about spice. So to me, I really loved that depth of flavor. And then you have the beef pepperoni that is a more traditional type of pepperoni.

25:58It's more the small, thick discs that you would picture with pepperoni as opposed to the thin Soprasada from Roberta's. And so it doesn't cover as much of the surface of the pizza as this Soprasada. It's an interesting, you know, I think people, reasonable people can disagree with whatever you really like is fine. But the scars, you're going to get fewer bites with meat, but those bites will be meatier bites. With Roberta's, you're going to have a higher percentage of bites with meat, but those bites will be more subtle meat dispersed throughout. OK, now let's hear Dan's final verdict on location from his Hot Honey Pizza tour.