Your Favorite New York Slices

As part of our summer food series, we're diving into one of NYC’s most iconic eats: pizza. Scott Wiener, founder of Scott’s Pizza Tours, joins us to share some of the best slices and pizzerias across the five boroughs. Plus, listeners call in with their go-to NYC pizza spots.

*This episode is guest-hosted by Tiffany Hanssen.

Tiffany Hanssen: This is All of It on WNYC. Well, to celebrate Summer Restaurant Week here in the City, we've been rounding up the best food New York has to offer, from burgers to tacos to ice cream, and today we're ending the week with, of course, pizza. A classic New York slice is big and floppy and bendable. Everybody has their favorite spot, but with so many, it's really hard to try them all.

We have a guide here of the most underrated New York slices, and our guide to that guide is Scott Wiener. He's the founder and owner of Scott's Pizza Tours. He teaches people all about the science, which I love, the history, and the culture of pizza in New York City. Hello, Scott.

Scott Wiener: Hello.

Tiffany Hanssen: Of course, Scott and I would love you in this conversation. We want to hear from you about your favorite pizza joint. You want to shout out an underrated pizzeria, which in your borough has the best pizza. What makes a good New York slice? We know you have opinions. 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. You can call us. You can text us at that number. Scott, you address the history of pizza in New York City. Can you give us just the CliffNote version?

Scott Wiener: Well, it's really interesting history because it goes all the way back to the late 1800s when Southern Italians were coming over really in droves, leaving an area of Italy that was really mostly farmland and in a lot of trouble after Italy became a unified country in the 1860s. A lot of those southern Italian farmers came over to industrial cities like New York and New Haven, Trenton, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston.

It just so happened to be that in this part of the country, you could at that time, get inexpensively, anthracite coal to fuel your bread ovens or your pizza ovens, and so the earliest pizza in America was different from the pizza that came over from southern Italy, and that became the basis of what we still celebrate today, places like John's of Bleecker and Frank Pepe's in New Haven.

Tiffany Hanssen: This is the 1800s. Was it really an explosion in popularity at that point, or was there a moment in history where we can see the New York slice, the popularity of it, really, take hold?

Scott Wiener: Yes, there were two pops and then a huge explosion. The first pop was really late 1800s, early 1900s, then again after Prohibition was repealed. Then there's a little pop of bars adding pizza to the menu, and then the big explosion that you're mentioning is post-World War II, really in the 1950s.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it.

Scott Wiener: That's when access to being able to open these restaurants, the restaurant equipment, the ovens were not really available at the scale that they were after the Second World War, stainless steel ovens with embedded stone in the base.

Tiffany Hanssen: Yes, got it. All right, we're talking pizza, your favorite pizza joint. What makes a great New York slice? Listeners, we want to hear from you, 212-433-9692. We're talking with Scott Wiener, who leads Pizza Tours, and we have Scott. We have Lisa from Levittown. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. Hi. I just wanted to-- Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Tiffany Hanssen: No. You have a recommendation?

Lisa: Oh, yes. When I was a kid, I grew up in the Morris Park section of the Bronx, and then when I was 12 years old, we moved upstate to Orange County, New York. I was very upset about moving, and then we moved. I came back down here. I moved to Long Island to attend Adelphi University, but then I would visit the Bronx once in a while, and then after I had my family, we went back to one of those old neighborhood pizzerias, and it was called the Captain Pizzeria, right on Morris Park Avenue, and when I took that first bite, after many years, I cried. I literally cried because there is no pizza like that in the whole world.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, Lisa, thank you so much for that.

Scott Wiener: I love Captain's. Huge slice. Huge slice.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, also a benefit to that. What I will say, though, is that what I take from that is that no matter where New Yorkers go, one of the first things they do is find the pizza in their neighborhood. Do you think that's true?

Scott Wiener: Oh, absolutely. When you're moving somewhere, you always check on "Where's the nearest hospital? Where's the pizzeria?"

Tiffany Hanssen: I do. I do. All right, let's talk with Zach here. Hi. From Ridgewood. Hi, Zach.

Zach: Hi. How are you guys doing?

Tiffany Hanssen: Good.

Zach: Good. I just want to give a big shout-out to Mano's Pizzeria in Ridgewood, Queens, which is my new local spot. Nick's been doing pizza there for the past couple of years, and he makes a point to ferment proof his dough for five days, and he also makes a point to not include any chemical additives, including potassium bromate, which is a carcinogen in much of Europe and Canada, and his pizza is just simply the best New York style I've had in a minute.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. Hey, now, there's an endorsement, but I did see you sort of cheering for that recommendation, Scott. Is that because you just love it so much?

Scott Wiener: Well, as a professional pizza lover, when somebody starts to give a recommendation, I try to anticipate what they're going to say, and I nailed it. I'm so glad you said Mano's. I love it. I love Nick's pizza. He uses an Italian flour called Caputo Americana for his pizza, which is a product that I actually helped develop a few years ago.

Tiffany Hanssen: See, you are a pizza expert.

Scott Wiener: I'm a lover. I'm just a pizza lover.

Tiffany Hanssen: I'm a pizza lover. All right, we have a recommendation here by text. "The highest quality, but underhyped pizza has to be F&F Pizzeria in Carroll Gardens." Immediately, one of our producers says, "No, don't tell them."

Scott Wiener: F&F. So good.

Tiffany Hanssen: People really hold their good pizza joints close to their chest sometimes. Do you find that true?

Scott Wiener: I do, and I'm making this announcement to everybody listening.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. Let's hear it. Let's hear it.

Scott Wiener: Don't do that. Because then, when they close and you say, "Oh, I miss it. They used to be so good," you'll be the one to blame.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, okay. All right, well, we have another text. "Sal and Carmine on 102nd and Broadway. Best pizza in that area." Let's get in another call here, too. We were going to talk with Nicole, I think. Hi, Nicole.

Nicole: Hi. I was going to give a shout-out to my absolute favorite pizza joint all over the City. Paulie Gee's. That's G-E-E, Paulie Gee's in Greenpoint.

Tiffany Hanssen: Greenpoint.

Nicole: Because I lived in Greenpoint for 20 years, and that was the first real restaurant that ever opened in Greenpoint that completely changed the game for the rest of the neighborhood. Paulie makes, or made at least at the time, everybody wait online. Everyone had to wait for two hours. Even, God, I can't remember his name, the favorite, the famous restaurateur, he waited [unintelligible 00:07:06] two hours on a Saturday night, and Paulie's like, "Everybody, there's no reservations. There's no preference." That's where, believe it or not, Hot Honey started, because that was originally a side order, and then it was packed, and Mike was like, "You've got to bottle this." Mike Kurtz.

Tiffany Hanssen: Look, people are going to have to wait in line for a good slice sometime, don't you think?

Scott Wiener: Absolutely. Also, there's Paulie Gee's Slice Shop around the corner.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, okay.

Scott Wiener: The caller, I think, was talking about the one on 60 Greenpoint Avenue, the wood-fired sit-down place.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it.

Scott Wiener: You can get a by-the-slice version around the corner on Franklin.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right, let's talk with Matt in northern New Jersey. Hi, Matt.

Matt: Yes, good afternoon. I just wanted to say, besides recommending any underrated pizzerias, that I had the pleasure of having Scott conduct a tour about three years ago as a team-building exercise at work, and it was by far the most enjoyable because the only thing we had to do was listen, eat, and ask a lot of questions. It was a great day. It was a very warm spring day midweek, and Scott knew every pizzeria in Lower Manhattan. Nothing mentioning specifically, but just that Scott does an incredible job, taking people around and having many varieties and preparations in a matter of a couple of hours.

Tiffany Hanssen: Love it. All right, thank you so much. Let's talk with Matt in Hartsdale. Hi, Matt.

Matt: Hi. How are you?

Tiffany Hanssen: Good.

Matt: Excellent. Yes, man, I got some great recommendations so far. This is awesome. My kind of question/comment for your guest is about sourdough as pizza dough, and so my recommendation that goes along with that is also in the Ridgewood, Bushwick area, Ops.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. Do you know Ops?

Scott Wiener: I love Ops. I was mouthing it as you said it, Mr. Caller.

Tiffany Hanssen: Mr. Caller, let's talk about that, and thanks for the call, by the way. Let's talk about that sourdough crust because that's a thing.

Scott Wiener: This is the second time it's been brought up. F&F in Carroll Gardens is also sourdough.

Tiffany Hanssen: What makes it taste different/better?

Scott Wiener: Commercial yeast is just a singular breed of yeast. It's Saccharomyces cerevisiae. When you do sourdough, then you're using native yeast, yeast that's living in your environment. Plus, outnumbering the yeast by a factor of 100 are bacteria, and so it's the bacterial fermentation that end up giving you a deeper flavor. There's more enzymatic activity, and it also is a slower release of sugar when you're eating the product. It's not just really about flavor. It's also about texture, and then there's some health benefits to it as well.

Tiffany Hanssen: Text here. "Hands down, NoCo, St. Mark's NoCo's Tartufata Pizza and Emiliana are heavenly."

Scott Wiener: Love it.

Tiffany Hanssen: We have Nora in White Plains. Hi, Nora.

Nora: Hi. I love the show. I am not as widely versed. I haven't. I want to try all these, especially the Italian flour-based pizzas, but I did love the pizza at Bleecker Street Pizza. I think it's 7th Avenue South, and it's right around the corner from a club called-- It used to be Top Cat, and now it's Cellar Dog. They have lots of billiard tables and stuff, but up front they have live music, and if you get a chair up front, you can hear over this sort of rowdy racket, and they let you bring the pizza in or anything else you buy in the neighborhood in, and they also make old-fashioned, ginger soda right at the bar.

Tiffany Hanssen: Nice.

Nora: I thought the pizza was excellent from Bleecker Street Pizza.

Tiffany Hanssen: Yes. Nora, thank you so much for that recommendation. I'm wondering, Scott, the evolution of New York pizza, were there kind of hotspots that I could try to pick out, right? Like Brooklyn, like Arthur Avenue, like Staten Island, where it's not just so centralized to those locations anymore that obviously by all of these recommendations that obviously, by all of these recommendations, someone can find a good New York slice? Were there hotspots to start with, when you mentioned back in the history of this? Can you pinpoint a place?

Scott Wiener: Yes, in the early days, it was really those Little Italy neighborhoods. Like East Harlem was the first one, and then Lower Manhattan along Mulberry Street, the second one, and then you also simultaneously had parts of Brooklyn, like Red Hook had pizzerias in the 1890s.

Tiffany Hanssen: Wow.

Scott Wiener: Then the West Village, not far from where we are right now, was the Italian Quarter, where John's is, and those neighborhoods were really sit-down pizza, and then they'd buy the slice, which happened after the Second World War. That started happening in any part of the City where there was massive foot traffic.

[00:11:53] Tiffany Hanssen: Got it, got it. We got a text here. "Any recommendations for good pizza in the Jackson Heights area?"

Scott Wiener: It's a little rougher. I actually really like-- In Sunnyside, there's an amazing place called Philomena's.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, yes.

Scott Wiener: You're nearby.

Tiffany Hanssen: Why were we just talking about Philomena's? I don't remember. All right, another text. "Luigi's Pizza on 5th Avenue and Park Slope. Classic slice that's been around since the '70s." Another text here. "Grandma's Pie from Saluggi's East on Grand. The whole pie, only leftovers warmed up on the top of the toaster, are amazing." Pro tip. That sounds pretty good.

Scott Wiener: Yes, [crosstalk]

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, here. "Pizza Wagon in Bay Ridge. Best slice." What do you think? Another good question. "What do you think about pizza joints using double-zero flour?" What's double-zero flour?

Scott Wiener: Double-zero flour is an Italian flour that's highly refined. That means that when you mill down the wheat, you're sifting out the bran and the germ and leaving just the endosperm behind, the white flour. It's just. It's a great flour to use in high-temperature ovens, but it's not usually that great of a flour to use in slice shops.

Tiffany Hanssen: I see.

Scott Wiener: I think sometimes people hear that there's a special flour. They don't realize that it's dependent on your use.

Tiffany Hanssen: We've been talking a lot about flour, the crust, but are there people who get finicky about their sauce as much?

Scott Wiener: Everybody, come on. Everybody's finicky about their sauce, but the thing about sauce that I think most people don't realize is that in New York, most pizza sauces are just tomatoes and salt, and they're not cooked, and they're very lightly seasoned, if at all. If you're trying to reproduce a great New York-style pizza, really concentrate on dough and then let the good tomato do the talking.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. All right, shout out to Joe & Sal's in Crown Heights. Best slice in the neighborhood. Talking about crust, here we have someone who texts and asks, "Do you have any good recommendations for gluten-free pizza?"

Scott Wiener: I got a ton. Are you ready? Write this down.

Tiffany Hanssen: Yes, let's do it.

Scott Wiener: Kesté down on Fulton Street. Excellent, gluten-free. Ribalta, 48 East 12th Street, right by Union Square, excellent, and then Joe and Pat's does a really good cauliflower crust, but it's got a ton of cheese in the crust. If you're vegan, don't touch it.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it.

Scott Wiener: Those are the big three right now.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right, and we should just let our listeners know. There will be a transcript of this conversation that's coming. Yes, if you want to get it this weekend, probably write it down so you don't forget, but we will have something for you next week as well, so you can go back and review the whole list. All right. "I moved to Soho in 1984." This texter says, "Pretty much the only two storefronts that remain unchanged since I got there are pizza joints, Arturo and Ben's," and let's see, what's the other? Oh, we only get the one. "Okay. Arturo and Ben's has a coal oven. Tastes different from any other in the City." Talk about. You mentioned coal. How you make the crust is also an issue.

Scott Wiener: Yes, it is. I mentioned coal before because Arturo's correctly at Houston and Thompson, has a coal-fired oven since 1957, and it's really about how the dough is made and then how that dough interacts with the oven. Coal is very dry. That means that, as it bakes the pizza, it depletes moisture very quickly, and so you won't get the fluffy, light-crusted pizza. You're going to get the slightly dense, charred pizza. If you like that darkness in the flavor, you'll love coal-fired.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. All right, let's talk to Martin upstate. Hi, Martin.

Martin: Oh, hi. Good afternoon. Well, I'm upstate at the moment, but my whole life I've lived in the Bronx. I've been eating pizza since I've been 10, going to school, and eating pizza at 15 cents a slice. I'm always in search of the best slice. There's a nice slice at 231st Street off Broadway, the one train called Joe's Brick Oven Pizza. It's big and it's $2.50, and I wanted to pose a question to the guest. Currently, our slice pizzerias is the mozzarella cheese make-believe mozzarella. What are they using?

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. You're going to hear it here first, Martin. Are we about to do some myth-busting here, Scott?

Scott Wiener: Yes, sort of. It's not make-believe. I understand what you're asking about is, is this real cheese or is this fake cheese? The world of ingredients for any restaurant is vast right now, very high quality or you can get very low quality. The better pizzerias are the ones that are using this high-quality cheese that they're either shredding in-house, which is always nice.

If they're buying pre-shredded, there are a couple of companies that do a good pre-shred, but by and large, pre-shredded cheese is going to come coated with anti-caking agents and mold inhibitors. It's cheaper, and if it's closer to the expiration date, you're going to get a better price on it, and so you can tell when a pizza is shiny and has the orange sludge around the top. Come on, it doesn't take a pizza expert to know what that means.

Tiffany Hanssen: Thank goodness we have a pizza expert. We're talking with Scott Wiener, who directs tours all about pizza, the history and the science, and the culture of pizza here in New York City. Let's see. "You can't talk about New York City pizza here," says this texter, "without mentioning Lombardi's on Spring Street. Opened in 1905, it's the first pizzeria in New York State, fact or not?" Fact or not fact, Scott?

Scott Wiener: Lombardi's actually opened in 1898.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, well, there you go.

Scott Wiener: I know, it's weird. They have their own year wrong. It's older than they think it is.

Tiffany Hanssen: "Lucia's Pizza in Flushing, Queens." Yes. Another one you're glad that we're mentioning, is that right, Scott?

Scott Wiener: Yes, because I love talking about underrated pizzerias, and in Flushing, there's not a ton of pizza, but that's a classic 1960s slice joint. Hole in the wall. Something to celebrate.

Tiffany Hanssen: Let's bring Jose, in Long Island, into the conversation. Hi, Jose.

Jose: Hi. How are you?

Tiffany Hanssen: Doing all right.

Jose: Good, good. I just want to mention Lucia's Pizzeria. I've been eating there since I was attending school, Flushing High School, and every day after school, we would head over there, and it's one of the most messiest pizzas, and it drips. The sauce drips off the slice, but it was just amazing. The cheese and the sauce, and the combination between the cheese, the sauce, and the bread, it was just amazing. I just wanted to mention them.

Tiffany Hanssen: Thanks so much, Jose. Appreciate the call. Any recommendations here from this texter, a question for Bed-Stuy?

Scott Wiener: Oh, yes, lots of good stuff in Bed-Stuy. There's Saraghina. There's Speedy Romeo, one of my total favorites. There's Luigi's, which I guess that's closer into Clinton Hill, but Bed-Stuy has this place called Norbert's. I don't know if it's still open, but that was my jam when I lived over there.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. "Shout out to Nino's in Bay Ridge. They make a cup pepperoni square slice to die for." What is a cup pepperoni square slice?

Scott Wiener: You know how, when you get a pepperoni pizza, most of the time the pepperoni lays flat?

Tiffany Hanssen: Yes.

Scott Wiener: That's a version of pepperoni that became popular in the '70s, '80s, '90s. Before that, the original pepperoni came in a natural casing, and that means that when you cook it, the natural casing, like the intestinal lining, will shrink and the pepperoni will cup. It's an old-school type of pepperoni.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, I have seen that. I have seen that.

Scott Wiener: When you see a char, oh, it's delicious.

Tiffany Hanssen: Okay. All right. Now we're talking about toppings.

Scott Wiener: Oh, yes.

Tiffany Hanssen: Are there places that you can think of where here you can get a good crust, here you can get a good sauce, here the toppings are great, or is it really just about like it's the combo?

Scott Wiener: It's pizza. It's the combination of all of it. I really don't like the idea of isolating cheese from tomato from whatever, because you know what? Those are components. What you're making is the pizza, and it's the way that they come together that sings.

Tiffany Hanssen: "L&B Spumoni, the best." I don't know if you know that one.

Scott Wiener: Yes, on 86th Street. They're really known for their upside-down Sicilian pizza.

Tiffany Hanssen: Okay.

Scott Wiener: If you go there and get the round pie, I don't know what you're doing with your life. You've got to get the square.

Tiffany Hanssen: Got it. All right. "Best kosher pizza?"

Scott Wiener: That's a rough one. There's a place on Avenue J called Kosher Pizza Time. It's been open since, I think, '92 or '93, right next to Di Fara, which I'm surprised hasn't come up yet, but that's a pretty decent one.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. I'm going to shout out my neighborhood. I like Bono Trattoria. Do you know it?

Scott Wiener: No.

Tiffany Hanssen: Oh, I guess I know where I'm taking you for dinner. All right. We've been talking about pizza, the best slice in New York City, with founder and owner of Scott's Pizza Tour, Scott Wiener. He teaches all about the science, history, and culture of pizza in New York City. I think we've just inspired a whole bunch of people to get a slice on the way home. Scott, thanks for your time.

Scott Wiener: Thanks so much. I'm hungry now.