Pizza Today - November 2017 - 18

Man on the Street
SCOTT WIENER

a couple notches, Scarr's mills their own
flour. The product is less consistent than
commercial flour, but active enzymes
in freshly milled wheat provide a new
universe of flavor and nutrient value that's
completely lost in most commercial flour.
It more than justifies the slightly higher
price of $.25 above the average.

Return of the Slice
Yes, you can still get great pizza by the slice

I

've got some exciting news: pizza by
the slice is not dead in New York
City! If you had asked me five years
ago, I would have predicted otherwise. At
the time, wood-fired ovens were being
installed by the dozens and slice shops
were falling victim to rising rents. The only
salvation for slice culture came in the form
of low-end dollar slice joints that catered
to broke students and late-night partyers who were willing to trade quality for
savings. But I'm talking about real-deal
quality pizza, readily available by the slice.
These new pizzerias aren't just carbon copies of the greasy slabs that came prior; they
present a fresh approach to a genre that

1 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 7

barreled to the brink of extinction only to
edge toward a bold return.
SCARR'S PIZZA LOOKS LIKE THE CLASSIC NEW YORK PIZZERIA. It's buried in
the Lower East Side, on a schizophrenic
street that adheres to no singular identity.
When you walk into the place, it feels like
you've flashed back to 1982. The walls are
covered with dark wood paneling and the
light fixtures are the same Tiffany-style
stained glass you find in a bowling alley.
Such was the style when Scarrs' owners
were just kids. But while their pizzeria
may be rooted in familiar decor, their pizza
is on another level. To kick their crust up

THEN THERE'S CORNER SLICE IN HELL'S
KITCHEN. This new pizzeria located in the
Gotham West Market food hall weighs
in at a skimpy 350 square feet. They make
a high hydration dough (80 percent) and
long fermentation (48 hours), leavened
with a poolish (a mix of flour and water
with a tiny pinch of yeast). This kind of
attention to dough might sound imposing
to the uninitiated, but it only requires a
change in technique rather than additional ingredients. It brings the concept
of pizza by the slice comfortably into
the discussion of foods that come with a
higher pedigree.
In the Upper East Side, a neighborhood most New Yorkers once thought of
as a pizza desert, Sofia Pizza Shoppe has
provided an oasis of classic slice service.
.;pUnlike its counterparts over the past
decade, Sofia treats their pizza as food and
not as a commodity. That means holding back on cheese to allow for a more
cohesive slice and taming fermentation
with temperature and time. It's a major
distinction that draws a line between the
things we eat because they're convenient
and the things we eat because we enjoy
their flavor.
It's interesting that the by-the-slice
format is picking up steam again in a market that's been bubbling with fast casual
concepts. New Yorkers are notoriously
slow to change, which might account for
our dedication to this increasingly difficult
business model. At the end of the day, it's
just comforting to see pizza by the slice,
the original fast casual food, returning to
its roots in the city that made it famous. ■
SCOTT WIENER is the founder of Scott's
Pizza Tours in New York City and
SliceOutHunger.org.

JOSH KEOWN
http://www.SliceOutHunger.org http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - November 2017

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