Introduction to New York City’s Pizza Culture
New York City, yellow cabs, the subway, Time Square. But did you know there’s also good pizza here? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I forgot that’s like the whole thing. Well, anyway, we’re going to be ranking the top 20 highest-rated, most famous, most legendary pizza slices in New York City. And we came all the way to this view of the Brooklyn Bridge to tell you about it. This is production value. We didn’t have to do this. I parked my car in a garage. It cost $18 for an hour. It’s so hot out. It’s 92° out. And I’m going to eat 20 slices of pizza. Why are we doing this? Let’s get started.
Defar Pizza: A Legend
Dare, one of the oldest and most famous slices in the city. The owner of Defar was stretching pizzas for 50 years. He passed away in 2022. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try a pizza made by him, but I’m excited to try a New York legend. You can see it’s super oily, and if you towel it off, let’s face it, you’re not a man. I’m kidding. Towel off your pizza. I don’t. I’m just trying to get those clicks, you know. Oh, man. That’s good. I mean, I love how oily it is. I love every bit of it. Super thin. Not as much of a char on there. You’re definitely getting some carbonized flavor. The top isn’t very charred. Makes me think that like they have a really hot surface of the oven and then the radiative heat is not as hot. Nice bright fresh tomato sauce. Like probably uncooked before they put it on the pie. My favorite, my preferred sauce application. There’s a reason it’s a legend. That’s the reason why I’m going to give it my first score of the day. I’m going to give it an 8.9. It’s not flawless, but what pizza is? Nothing’s getting a 10.0. Never say never.
Luigi’s: The Classic New York Slice
So, this is the first slice of the day and it’s going to be a little tricky to rate these because I need things to compare against. We want a tiered list. We want an actual list of number one to number 20. So, I’m going to give very specific scores that will allow us to create a tiered list. All right. So, now we have Luigi’s, which is another older joint. Much more classic New York slice. Still a nice bright fresh tomato sauce. Not much char to speak of at all, but the crust is really light and it’s blistered, too, indicating that they do some cold fermenting. I’m sure all these people do that to some extent. This one’s really fantastic. It is about as classic and perfect as New York style pizza gets. I’m going to give it an 8.5. It didn’t have the same, you know, big crazy flavors. It doesn’t have the thick pepperoni cups like Defar had, but it’s still really, really good. Just New York pizza.
FNF: The Big Slice
All right, so now we’re at FNF. This is one of my favorite places in Carol Gardens. They do a slightly oversized slice, which I love. I mean, New York style should be big, but this feels extra big for some reason. And they also char. They give it color. This rocks. This is the slice I’m going for. Oh, look at that. This might be one of my favorites. Like, I think this is going to rank hard. They also got the pepperoni just right in that they’re thin little pepperoni, but they’re also cuped. So, because they’re using a natural case sausage, they’re just slicing it really thin. And it ends up being little cups for sauce and herbs because they load it up with oregano and parmesan, but also they drizzle the sauce on top of the pepperoni. This is unique. Oh my god, that’s good. It’s just the best pizza. It just is. I have no Like we’re doing a lot of very similar food. Obviously, when you’re doing pizza, everything comes down to the subtleties. I mean, they nail the subtleties in every respect with this. 9.9. I love FNF. This is one of my favorite slices in the world.
L & Bumi: The New Location
Next up, we have L & Bumi. I’ve personally never tried L & B. This is not the original location. This is a new one that they opened up here in Dumbo. I think that it might be a case of second location ititis because you can see it’s not, it’s kind of a sad looking slice. It’s about half the size it should be, I think, in terms of New York slices. There’s a hair on it. Oh, it’s an eyelash hair, though, Steve. It’s fine. Floppy. That’s the New York way. Fold it in half like a piece of paper. You still end up with a dippy tippy. No. No. They have the unfortunate luck of being rated right after we just did FNF. The flavor profile is literally that of high school pizza. This is bowling alley pizza, laser-tagged pizza, trampoline park pizza, Discovery Zone pizza. They say there’s no such thing as bad sex or bad pizza. I just posit that whoever said that has only ever had bad sex and bad pizza. 6.5. We’ll see you guys at the next place.
Chrissy’s Pizza: Northern Brooklyn’s Hidden Gem
All right, so now we’re at Chrissy’s Pizza, a place I have not heard of up here in Greenpoint. This is the northernmost tip of Brooklyn. It’s a little bit of an undersized slice, but they only do whole pies here. They were making an exception because we didn’t know before we got here. Looks like they must brush the crust down with oil after it comes out of the oven because it’s shiny and bubbly. They must dust it with something, too. It looks like there’s dried garlic or something, but it looks like there’s something on the crust. Not as much charring as some other spots, but that looks still really fantastic. Looks like they went really heavy on the parmesan. That’s good. Really heavy on the parmesan. Very strong cheese flavor. The pepperoni tastes like Hormel. I like it. It’s nostalgic. It’s not as artisanal as some of the entries we’ve had thus far, but it’s still a really solid slice. It definitely has some unique flavors and characteristics to it. It’s different. It’s very interesting. I like it. I’m going to give it an 8.6.
Paulie G’s Slice Shop: The New York Classic
Next up, we have a Greenpoint favorite, Paulie G’s Slice Shop. It’s the second location for this pizzola maker. Man, don’t let the old vintage look fool you. They opened in 2018. It’s a lie. I’m kidding. It’s very cute and it’s a really cool aesthetic in there. I’ve had this before. It’s amazing. Old world style. As classic as New York pizza gets. You can see it’s just the right amount of charring on the bottom where even people who are like, “Ew, this food is burned.” Wouldn’t say. The pepperoni is in little cups and it’s thin. It’s not big thick pepperonis. The pepperoni is a little spicy. That’s nice. I mean, it’s just the most competently executed classic New York slice, which I think gets you 9.2. It’s a great slice.
This is a sample of how I’ve added headings and kept the flow of the blog. Let me know if you’d like me to continue or adjust anything!
