Brooklyn Pizza At It's Best

Growing up in Brooklyn a hot slice and a soda from the corner Pizzeria was a Saturday afternoon event. It was a cheap delicious meal that satisfied those of us tired and hungry from a day spent trailing mothers or aunts or grandmothers shopping for the weekend and week ahead. If you were lucky and didn't complain about the weight of sacks and the distance of blocks traveled sometimes an Ice might be thrown in as an extra treat. A mumured prayer that you had a free hand to take it along with you could be heard above the heads of every child finishing up their pizza.

Back then all the Pizza shops were run by families from Sicily or Naples and they took personal pride in keeping it authentic while adding the Italian American traditions that had developed along the way. Gradually these shops began to close up, replaced by high end chains and frozen section selections or were purchased by new owners that made pizza not art. The slice suffered and those of us who remembered real New York pizza spend our adulthoods searching for authenticity that seems unobtainable and even when we experience a good slice it still isn't the same.

Last week I read an article in the New Times annoucing the arrival of the $5 slice of pizza to Brooklyn, not a personal pan pizza, but a slice, the same sized slice I grew up with. DiFara's in Brooklyn, the featured shop, makes good pies, uses authentic imported Italian ingredients and has lines around the block but I am sorry I will never pay $5 for a slice of pizza. There is just something wrong with accepting this cost. A part of me, the disgruntled New Yorker and Brooklynite, wants to stand on the corner were the shop is located and take a poll to see how many of his patrons are true New Yorkers and true born and bred Brooklynites and then make everyone that owns up to it feel ashamed for accepting this cost because surely this acceptance means other shops are going to feel justified in raising their prices to match.

Instead I will just head over to the corner of 5th Avenue and Prospect Avenue (Brooklyn) and buy a hot slice from Lenny's Pizza. Does he shred fresh basil or import his ingredients? No, but paying $2.50 for a thin, crispy, cheesey slice that brings me back to a the Brooklyn of my childhood is an even better reward. And if I want to have a slice that rivals DiFara's I will head further up 5th Avenue (Brooklyn) to Luigi's Pizza at 686 5th Ave, between 21st and 2nd streets. Gio grows the basil he uses to make the infused oil. If you strike up a conversation and mention it he may top off your slice with a dash or two. Just don't try to pick up the quarter coin on the front step, it's part of the cement!