Stop #5: Luzzo's

August 22nd 2009 3:15pm
Excited about the high rating of Luzzo's in New York Magazine, we crowded into the pizzeria only to be disappointed by our least favorite pizza.
The group scores were as follows:
Cheese to Sauce Ratio: 3.1 out of 5
Crust: 4.25 out of 5
Taste Per Price: 2.28 out of 5 ($17 for small pie)
Assorted Comments: "No likey cheese; sauce was in globs." -Andrea Waters "The crust makes it edible." -Naomi Huth

Rated #6 by New York Magazine: Luzzo's, 211-213 First Ave., nr. 13th St.
Owner-pizzaiolo Michele Iuliano, while Naples born and bred, is unafraid to flout the rules. Sure, he flies in the buff mozz from Caserta like a good Italian pizzaiolo. He brazenly cooks in the coal-and-wood-fired oven (instead of the regulation wood-only) he inherited from Zito’s East. He puts sugar in his dough, which among puritans is something like the equivalent of Alice Waters crop-dusting the Edible Schoolyard. Shocking, apocalyptic stuff. The result of all this roguish behavior is a crust that’s somewhere between the Neapolitan and Roman ideals. Like the Roman, it’s uniformly thin and crisp with only a modest cornicione, yet it has the silky, tender, inviting mouthfeel of the Neapolitan minus that style’s puffy, sometimes heavy chew.