[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]

For a pizza lover, even pizzas that are just ok can be a wonderful thing, especially in an area where the rest of the pizza is average at best. I suppose it's the pizza version of "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Of course, the reverse is also true. One-eyed men generally don't rule where everyone can see, and mediocre to good pizzerias are not going to shine when surrounded by great pizzerias.

I think you can see where this is going: The Gold Coast/Magnificent Mile, where Fornetto Mei is located, is chock full of great pizzerias. So to standout, pizzas have to be better than average.The restaurant, which features a nontraditional menu that is primarily pan-Italian but with some Asian options thrown in, has garnered some good press over the years, but as far as I can tell, it's largely the domain of guests at the Whitehall Hotel.

If the menu explicitly tells me I'll like something, who am I to doubt a reliable source like that? So when the pizza called "Our Signature Pizza" includes the words, "Try It, You'll Like It!" I was sold. The pizza comes topped with sausage, grapes, mozzarella, goat cheese, and "fine herbs." I've enjoyed every pizza I've had with grapes on it and this one was no exception.

The mozzarella and goat cheese were fine, but I would have preferred a topping with a little more bite to balance the sweet grapes (like the tallegio cheese and grape combo at La Madia—reviewed here). There was some Parmesan-like cheese sprinkled on top, but it was not particularly flavorful. The sausage, squares cut from a pre-made link, was loaded with fennel flavor but didn't add a ton of pork flavor.

The Pizza D'Asti, which has no apparent qualities that link it to the Italian city or province of Asti, comes with sausage, prosciutto, sopressata, fresh and aged mozzarella, tomato sauce, and some shredded basil. Unlike the Signature Pizza, nothing at all stood out on this pizza. None of the meats were particularly good and the sauce and cheese were fairly non-descript, though the fresh mozzarella was on the chewy side. Not bad, but not worth $15 given the multitude of options, pizza and otherwise, in the immediate area.

The crust continued the theme of "meh" for the evening. The soft crust was rolled out rather vigorously with a rolling pin before being put on a tray and put into the oven. The oven, incidentally, is touted on the restaurant's website as being wood-burning. While I'm sure it's physically possible for wood to burn in that oven, gas was the sole heat source on my visit. It's too bad; a little smoke (or, better yet, more heat) could have made something better out of the crust.

In retrospect, the Milanese pizza billing at Fornetto Mei should have tipped me off. I know enough about the history of pizza in Italy to know that's a meaningless phrase. But ultimately, it wasn't the silly marketing technique that did the place in. In an area with plenty of options (Due's, Giordano's, Cafe Spiaggia, Lou Malnati's, Pizano's, Bar Toma, etc.), there's just no reason to visit Fornetto Mei until it moves into a pizza desert where it can earn a "good for the neighborhood" designation.

About the author: Daniel Zemans is so devoted to Chicago that he covers pizza for Slice and burgers for A Hamburger Today. When he's not focusing on expanding his waistline, he works as a lawyer on behalf of employees and tenants.

Starting on Monday, Eataly's Rossopomodoro will be hosting a rotating group of NYC's best-known Neapolitan pizzamakers for a series of collaborative dinners called Pizza a Quattro Mani. Each Monday for the next 6 weeks will feature a different pizzamaker, beginning with Mathieu Palombino of Motorino on February 20. Luzzo's, Numero 28 Pizzeria, and Forcella will cook alongside Rossopomodoro's Rosario Granieri on subsequent Mondays. The Motorino-Rossopomodoro menu appears after the jump.

Looks like each pizzeria will make its signature pies alongside Rossopomodoro's selection. As you can see in the photo above, Eataly's pizzeria (a branch of the Italian Rossopomodoro chain) has two wood-fired ovens, making this possible.

This is a really cool idea. It's like a summit of star pizza-slingers. Here's the menu for the series debut:

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Meredith Smith]

The Diavola slice ($4.25) at Casa Razdora dwarfs a standard dinner plate. Each slice makes up a quarter of a 16-inch pie. And for the mouths in Boston's financial district long deprived of quality pizza, their mondo slices more than make up for the deficiency.

Silver dollar rounds of hot sopressata are thinly sliced so that they achieve a crackling crisp lip in the oven's heat. They give the slice a little kick and lot of porky, meaty flavor. Browned Parmesan cheese works its way into almost each bite and bright, fruity tomato sauce, applied with a light hand, offers just the right contrast to the flavorful dough.

The structure of the crust is thicker than a Neapolitan or New York slice, but is neither too dense or heavy. Despite being one-quarter of a whole pie, when lifted, the slice holds as if standing at attention without a hint of sag. And this blistered crust is not merely a vehicle for flavor; it has a character all its own. Wheaty, with a somewhat malt-y flavor, the bread is a tad on the salty side, but that's a minor grievance about an otherwise extremely satisfying slice.

Casa Razdora

115 Water Street Boston MA 02109 (map)
617-338-6700; casarazdora.com

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

While we think mom-and-pop shops make the best pizza in the nation, we'd be remiss if we didn't keep abreast of what the chains are up to. Suit up, it's time for another Chain Reaction, folks.

"Jet's Pizza is the seventeenth largest pizza chain in the nation..." That's straight from the company's own website. It struck me as strange; I don't know where the cutoff is for trumpeting your overall rank, but 17 would seem to be below it. That was the first thing that I found odd about my virgin experience with Jet's Pizza. The next came when I read the box. I'm sure what the marketing gurus for the Michigan-based chain meant was, "Eat Pizza That's Better Than the Crap You Ordered Last Time From Somewhere Else." But "Eat Better Pizza" could easily read as an apologetic, self-deprecating commentary on what you're about to consume.

Square deep dishes are what Jet's is best known for. The most celebrated of the bunch is their 8-Corner Pizza, where each of the octet of slices has its own corner crust. But wait, you say. Isn't that just a pair of small square pies shoved into the same box? Yes. Yes it is. But a name like that wouldn't look good on the menu, would it?

Their gimmickry (and my smart-assery) aside, this was pretty decent. The crust had a deep golden hue with a nice bit of crispness to the very bottom. The amount of oil used to achieve such a result, though, does leave a noticeably greasy residue; this is a multiple-napkin slice. Once you're past that crunchy exterior, the rest of the crust is airy and buttery, a welcome change of pace from the usual chain nastiness referenced in Jet's slogan.

The round pies are another matter. I opted for the New York Bold Fold, a large hand-tossed crust topped with "premium" mozzarella and "spicy" pepperoni. The quotation marks are mine, because neither ingredient seemed truly deserving of its adjective. The Bold Fold is cut into just six slices, as if a wider wedge is all it takes to figuratively whisk me away to the Lower East Side.

Personally, length does more for me than width (easy, gutterbrains, we're still talking about pizza)... but flavor trumps all. And the Bold Fold didn't have much. The crust was densely dull and overly chewy... and perhaps why Jet's will "flavorize" your crust for free upon request. Choices for your custom cornicione range from the basic (shredded Parm, butter) to the just plain weird (poppy seed, sesame seed, Cajun) to the extreme (butter + garlic + Romano = Turbo Crust!)... but I'm skeptical that any of these add-ons would help this lunchroom-cafeteria-style dough.

Maybe I'd add Jet's deep dish to my rotation of delivery pizzas when I just need dinner on the table and want something a bit different. But I wouldn't seek it out over Domino's or Papa John's or Pizza Hut or any of the 16 other chains that Jet's is staring up at. And with no shortage of independent shops in my ZIP code who'll gladly drive a pie to my door, I'd probably just follow Jet's own advice to "Eat Better Pizza."

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. He'll crawl out of his cave for a few hours on February 25, 2012 for International Serious Eats Day. He's normally very antisocial... but he'll make a special exception in order to meet you. Stop by Ormsby's (you can RSVP here) for a cocktail, a nosh, some lively conversation, and maybe a game of bocce.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

Now that some of the hubbub surrounding the 2010 opening of Artichoke Basille's Greenwich Village location has finally died down, we decided to stop in for a slice of their meatball pizza ($4.50). Maggie originally tasted this offering when she checked out the chain's Chelsea location a couple of years ago, deeming it "a hit" with her group of diners.

The slice we tasted today didn't disappoint either; perfect for a chilly, drizzly day, this pizza will fill you up. It's very rich, like eating a lasagna or spaghetti and meatballs in pizza form—this is a slice for when what you really want is a meatball sub. Those meatballs, which go light on breadcrumbs and heavy on seasoning, are dense, flavorful and meaty. They get mashed down into the deep red sauce, which is cooked down with lots of onions like a Sunday gravy. It's altogether different from the lighter, fresher sauce found on Artichoke's standard Margherita slices.

Artichoke likes to cook their crusts dark and crisp, to the point of being nearly crunchy. Along with mozzarella, the pie gets topped with a generous grating of Pecorino Romano post-oven. Like many of Artichoke's pies, the meatball slice is big, cheesy, salty, and greasy, but not in a bad way. If oily, rich, and filling while being plenty flavorful is what you're looking for, it'll do you just fine.

Artichoke Basille's Pizza

111 MacDougal Street (map)
646-278-6100; artichokepizza.com

From Serious Eats

What's that in the middle of this Vermont furniture store? Oh, it's just a massive brick oven. [Photographs: Elizabeth Bomze]

Until a few years ago, the only furniture store I'd ever eaten at was Ikea.

Let me back up. If you've spent time in Manchester, Vermont, you've probably driven by the best pizza in town and not even known it was there. That's because what you see from the street is a home furnishings store called Depot 62. The stock is mostly high-end, brightly upholstered Mediterranean and North African pieces, plus art and ornate rugs—a unique shopping option in this quaint New England town, to say the least. But the more remarkable find is what's in the middle of the store: a huge brick oven, a cluster of tables, and a menu featuring thin-crust pizza and Anatolian fare.

That said, I didn't find Depot 62 because I was rug shopping. My first meat here was a few years back when the America's Test Kitchen staff was shooting our first season of Cook's Country TV a few towns over in Rupert, andChris Kimball took the group here for dinner.

Most of us ordered pizzas ($11.95-$16.50): 10-inch pies that I remembered were well crisped on the edges, tender within, and tasted like the hearth. That night I think I ate—and liked—the arugula version, which is covered with the fresh baby leaves, but when I got back there this past weekend it was the wild mushroom that caught my eye. The layering of caramelized onions, mozzarella, and handfuls of shaved shiitakes and portobellos gets a sweetness and buttery, earthy richness all at once. The combination really didn't need anything, but I happened to have a lemon wedge at my disposal and (out of habit—I'm a fiend for tart flavors) decided to squeeze a little juice over the pie. Now I'd never order the pie again without a lemon wedge. That little shot of acid was perfect.

I'm going to go out of order here for a moment and explain that I had a lemon wedge on my plate because it came with the fresh leeks ($7.95) appetizer. The rough-chopped green and white portions had been baked with rice, carrots, and plenty of olive oil so that they were rich and velvety. It was one of several vegetarian appetizers that remind me how Mediterranean cuisines show real skill when it comes to cooking humble vegetables. Scooped up in a wedge of the accompanying fresh-baked pita, this plate could be a great meal in and of itself.

The other part of the dinner with Chris Kimball that I remembered was that he was the only one who didn't order a pizza. Instead, he ate a baked lamb dish that looked so good it stuck in my head all these years. Called Konya Kebap ($19.95), it's an oval clay dish brimming with hunks of local lamb that have been seasoned with paprika and oregano and slow-roasted until they're fall-apart tender. A salad of sliced raw tomatoes and paprika-dusted white onion come with; the idea, the waitress explained, is to add the salad to the lamb jus while it's still hot from the oven—the liquid softens the onion and mellows its sharp bite, and the tomato gives up some bright sweetness—and then use the pita as a utensil.

I will say that it was underseasoned; I found myself squeezing every drop out of that lemon, and then sprinkling on some salt and pepper. But the texture was amazing—some of the silkiest lamb I've ever had, with edges that were well browned from the fire.

Depot 62

515 Depot Street, Manchester VT 05255 (map)
802-366-8229; depot62.us

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Associate Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Pizza Town U.S.A.'s Michele Tomo makes stretching and building a pizza look like it's no big thing. It's like a ballet. [via Pizzamaking.com]

I don't know why I do this to myself. For some reason, whenever I'm in an airport, I feel strangely compelled to try the pizza offerings. I'm almost always disappointed. That's because the fare is, at worst, a Pizza Hut Express or at best some sort of mediocre "New York style" joint with limp pies sitting below heat lamps.

The pizza at JFK International's AeroNuova, though, is a a notch or three above standard preflight fare.

That's not to say it's great pizza. The crust is flat and a bit pale but has adequate flavor. It is not aggressively bland, as some pies of this style can be, but neither is there much incentive to finish your "pizza bones." The sauce is not particularly complex. Salt is the dominant flavor (as it is the red-sauce pasta dish that my wife tried). But the mozzarella is good, creamy, and stringy. For NYC, it's B-list pizza, maybe B-minus‐list. In pizza-deprived regions, it might rate A-list. It falls into the category of what I'd term "good for the neighborhood."

But you know what? At $12.50 for a Margherita pie that's made to order (and not "made to order" from a frozen puck in a microwave-convection oven), it's much better than it has a right to be.

The service at AeroNuova (and the cluster of "high-end" Terminal 5 food options) is another thing. I've been a number of times on outbound flights and have always left frustrated. The people are friendly but they're a little inattentive—problematic in a place where most customers are under tight time constraints.

If you have time to kill and want to avoid fast food options but not spend a fortune, AeroNuova pizza hits the mark.

Related...
Have You Ever Had Good Airport Pizza? »
Joey's Pizza, Terminal C, LaGuardia »

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice. You can follow him as @akuban on Twitter.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Edward Kearns]

When is a Maple not a maple? When it's the Maple pizza at the Dogwood Café in Jamaica Plain. The house specialty brick oven pizzas at this JP mainstay pay homage to the nearby Arnold Arboretum (Magnolia, Redwood, Willow, etc.). While there were more than two or tree (sorry) options that bore serious consideration, the winning combination this night was the sausage and ricotta pairing featured on the Maple.

Sliced to produce generous oblong pork slabs, the sausage featured prominent hits of fennel and black pepper. The sausage also managed to remain moist enough to allow for partial pork bites, rather than the whole piece breaking free of its moorings and leaving a porcine void in the remainder of the slice. The elevated dollops of ricotta offered a great compliment to the sausage's spice. The airy-yet-not-unsubstantial texture of the ricotta also showed solid teamwork with the chewiness of the sausage and the crisp of the crust.

Speaking of crust, it's the brick oven that makes the Dogwood a worthwhile pizza destination. Thin, but not cracker-like, the lightly-charred crust yielded nicely to a New York fold without breaking apart. The one element to get short shrift was the tomato sauce. Almost suggested rather than fully applied to the pie, the sauce could have taken on a stronger role. Clearly, the reduced role of the sauce allows more stage for the featured performers, but it would have been nice have just a little more. In hindsight, it may also be this lack of sauce that allowed the crust to maintain its integrity so well.

Though I'm still unclear about the connection between each pizza and its arboreal name, that which the Dogwood calls a Maple by any other name would still be a treat.

The Dogwood Café

3712 Washington Street Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 (map)
617-522-7997; dogwoodcafe.com

About the author: Ed Kearns is neither coniferous nor deciduous, but you can still follow him on Twitter: erk3

Looks like the producers of this movie missed the Oscars cutoff date. Too bad because it would clearly be cleaning house. Frankie Muniz, you know him as Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle, makes his triumphant comeback as a pizza delivery boy transformed into a superhero by an engineered 'magic' tomato. But that's not the only career to be resurrected. Check out this all-star cast: Shelley Long, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Adam West, Michael Gross, and a cameo from comic book heavyweight Stan Lee!

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: President's Day Edition

Happy My Pie Monday! Here to enhance your President's Day holiday we have eight incredible looking pies. New to the posse is RobynB with a killer ricotta, red onion, and pistachio-basil pesto pie—her special reserve combo to savor last after working her wood fired oven. Welcome! And speaking of special reserve, jimmyg tops today's submission with the last of his winter truffles. TXCraig1's pizza proves that even the simplest of pies can be showstoppers and effanzo_mane seconds the notion with a renewed appreciation for how great a simple cheese pizza can be. Bierebeer's pies get a dose of garlicky heat, and dmcavanagh experiments with a new dough. Also trying out a different dough approach, Norma427 (with the best named pie in the bunch, if I may say so) stretches the pie making limits with some freezer dough. There's even a sweet side to the group with Girl Loves Pizza's Berry Valentine's Day pizza.

Get your pie into the My Pie Monday galleries next week!

Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, describe your cooking method (briefly!), and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Be sure to let us know your Slice/Serious Eats screen name!

Need to see more amazing homemade pizzas? Right this way to the My Pie Monday archives »

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photograph: Paige Brocious]

Since the cheese slice from Rosario's Pizza already received Kenji's Corner Slice stamp of approval, I went to see how one of their special slices would measure up. And this one was notably great: paper thin, flash-fried slices of eggplant top a very solid pizza base. The edges of the eggplant are lightly crisped while the centers, with a spot of sauce and a dusting of Parmesan, are super flavorul and not too mushy (the soggy factor was a definite concern when I ordered this slice). The crust is firm, but not dense, with a nice crunch. The trifecta bite with sauce, cheese, and eggplant was reminiscent of every delicious eggplant Parmesan I've had. And there's nothing wrong with that!

Rosario's Pizza

About the author: Paige Brocious is a former Serious Eats intern now helping out with Slice in Boston.

It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook or follow it on Twitter for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, except where indicated]

As a universal lover of nearly all things pizza (I say nearly because, dear Chicago readers, I'm afraid I just can't get into that stuff you've got. Sorry.), I'm often surprised and even more often captivated by the width and breadth of pizza styles that we've got in this fair country of ours. We may not have invented pizza, but when it comes to reinventing and making it our own, nobody—not even the Italians—knows sauce-covered-pies like we do.

Some styles are merely superficial upgrades or minor lateral shifts in existing styles. I'm talking the evolution of a Neapolitan pie to a New Haven style apizza for instance, or making New York style pies a bit thinner and crisper to create bar pies. On the other hand, some styles completely reinvent the form with no real precedence. Say Chicago stuffed or deep dish, or Rhode Island grilled pizza.

To call Philadelphia-style Tomato Pie (not to be confused with a Trenton Tomato Pie) a pizza is not much of a stretch. It fits most people's definition—relatively flat bread, tomato, a bit of cheese, cut into flat slices before serving—but at the same time, it's a beast entirely unto itself. Saucy focaccia might be a more apt description, though it has a far finer, softer crumb than any focaccia I've seen.

Philadelphia native and Slice Correspondent Hawk Krall probably does a better job than anyone of explaining the appeal of Tomato Pies:

Old fashioned Philly Tomato Pie is a bit hard to explain to outsiders. It's distinctly different from everyday pizza—the best Tomato Pies come room temperature from old-school neighborhood bakeries rather than hot from a pizzeria. No toppings and no cheese, save for a scant shake of Romano or Parmesan. For many who grew up in the area, this simple bakery style pie says "Philly" more than any other style of pizza.

He's reviewed a number of Tomato Pies from Philly, like this one from Sam's, or another from Conshohocken Bakery.

A slice from Sam's [photograph: Hawk Krall]

The rumor is that Tomato Pie got its starts as a means to use up leftover hoagie roll dough by piling it into a greased square sheet tray, topping it with a sweet, thick tomato sauce, baking it up, and serving it by the slice at room temperature. As a lover of both square pies and cold leftover pizza, this seemed like something right up my alley. The real question is: is it possible to create real Philadelphia-style Tomato Pie in a New York kitchen?

The Sauce

Unlike a fresh, lightly cooked Neapolitan sauce, Philadelphia Tomato Pie sauce is thick, heavy, smooth, thick, and sweet, and comes heavily seasoned with herbs. As I learned from my research into New York-style pizza sauce, there are a couple keys to building great flavor into a cooked-down tomato sauce.

First rule: use a mixture of olive oil and butter. It's a trick I cribbed from Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce in which she cooks tomatoes with butter and a whole onion split in half. Simmering the onions whole (in this case I ended up going with shallots, though onions would work fine) instead of chopping and cooking them gives you a smoother, rounder flavor and improved texture when you're going for a relatively smooth sauce. Butter, apart from adding its own milky flavor, helps to smooth out the flavor of the sauce, shaving down the sharp edges of the tomatoes and making the whole thing richer, fuller, and sweeter.

Herbs, plenty of garlic, and a pinch of red pepper are also essential to the flavor profile, so I started my sauce by sautéing them in the fat to help release and develop their flavors.

You often hear cooks of a certain ilk say that dried herbs are useless and only fresh herbs should ever be used. These are probably the same kinds of cooks who call mayonnaise aïoli, and they should largely be ignored. When it comes to savory herbs that are grown in hot, dry environments, the dried version will do just fine.

See, herbs like oregano, marjoram, savory, sage, rosemary, and bay leaf (amongst others), grow in hot, arid environments, so the flavorful compounds locked inside their leaves have to naturally be more resistant to evaporation or breaking down under high temperatures. Thus, even when dried, they are able to retain flavor far longer than more delicate herbs like, say, basil, parsley, tarragon, or chervil.

The key to using these types of dried herbs is to just make sure to cook them long enough to allow them to release their flavor into the sauce, and to soften them in texture. So, sautéeing them right from the beginning in the olive oil/butter mixture is a good idea. Sprinkling them on top of the pie in the end is not.

After cooking down the aromatics, I added tomatoes (in this case, I went with whole canned tomatoes that I roughly pureed in the blender), along with the shallots, and let it go for a long simmer. All the sauce needed in the end was a pinch of salt and a bit of sugar*.

*I know you purists will cringe at the addition of sugar, but that's just the nature of Philadelphia Tomato Pies, and in this case I think it works. You can stay silent or go sit in the corner with the fresh-herb-only brigade.

With a good sauce recipe on hand, I started baking off a few sample pies to refine my dough.

The Dough

First things first: Philadelphia Tomato Pie is not thin-crust pizza. It should be thick—Sicilian thick—at about an inch tall, stretching all the way across the pan filling in all four edges and corners. Not enough dough to rise into your pan, and you end up with this problem:

Sauce in order? Yep. Sprinkle of Romano? Check. Nice, 1/8th-inch thick layer of soft dough at the crust-sauce interface? Absolutely. But thin patches and dimples that threaten the structural integrity of the crust? Yeah, we've got that too.

In order to make sure that the dough rose to a good height, I had to use a full 500 grams (about 17.5 ounces or 3 1/2 cups) of flour. Bread flour with its high protein content and potential for high gluten development (that's the stretchy network of proteins that gives structure to bread), is a common choice for pizza dough, but in this case, I preferred the softer texture and tighter crumb that all-purpose flour produced.

Using a basic recipe of flour, water, salt, yeast, and a touch of olive oil, I experimented with a few different mixing methods, ranging from the simplest (kneaded in a stand mixer or food processor, allowed to proof once, stretched, and baked), to the just-as-simple-but-more-time-consuming (mixing dough, letting it proof overnight under refrigeration, stretching and baking the next day). The latter method was far superior, giving the dough ample time for flavor development and allowing it to build up nice structure as gluten slowly developed overnight.

I tried simply reducing the amount of water used, all the way down to 50% hydration (at this point, you basically need a rolling pin to get the dough to stretch out properly)

Also essential was to stretch the dough into the greased baking sheet and allowing it to rise inside the pan in order to acquire the height it needs. Tomato Pies have a pretty distinct raised edge. To form them, I found the side of a greased hand was the best tool:

Though Hawk tells me that his intelligence network has informed him that most bakeries grease their pans with plain old vegetable oil, as a lover of olive oil, I decided to swap out the vegetable oil for extra-virgin olive oil instead (you are free to use vegetable if you prefer a more authentic experience).

I knew my dough recipe would need some work, but for now, I decided to sauce up a sample batch and see how it turned out.

First lesson learned: this is not a Neapolitan pie, and super-high heat is not necessary. With higher heat, you end up with spottier cooking. Your dough develops dark, charred spots, bigger bubbles, and a thinner, crisper crust. For a New York pie or a Neapolitan pie, these are a good thing. A Philadelphia Tomato Pie, on the other hand, should have even, golden brown coloring with a slightly thicker, crunchier top crust, and a very light blond, almost pale underbelly.

A Neapolitan pizza cooks at 900°F for about 90 seconds. A New York pie cooks for about 10 to 15 minutes at 550 to 600°F. For a Philly Tomato Pie, A relatively low temperature oven—say, 450°F— and a longer cook time—about 20 minutes—allows for more even coloration and more significant crust formation.

Another lesson: pour on the sauce, and pour it on thick. A Neapolitan pizza gets a thin, thin veneer of sauce. New York pies can ladle it on a bit thicker, but sparing is still the word to keep in mind. With a cheese-less Philadelphia pie, there's no protection to keep the sauce from over-evaporating during baking, causing a problem I like to call PPB (that would be Pizza Pattern Baldness). In the worst cases of under-saucing, you get not only bald spots, but great cracks and rifts that threaten to tear the world of pizza sauce right in two.

Alright, that's perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but the lesson learned is the same: use more sauce.

With that in order, on to perfecting the crust:

Good Hydration

Anybody who's worked with bread knows that the more water you add to a dough, the larger the bubbles and holes in the resultant dough will be. As a general rule, if you want a denser, tighter crumb, just use a bit less water.

On the other hand, it's a tradeoff: less water also means less chewiness, and a tougher loaf. For my normal focaccia-style pizza dough recipe, I add 350 grams of water per 500 grams of flour—that's the equivalent of a 70% hydrated dough, in baker-speak (that is, the water added weighs 70% of the total weight of the flour). At that hydration level, you end up with a very wet dough that takes a bit of practice to work with (it nearly flows like a soup), but produces a very nice, open, bubbly crumb structure, like this:

Excellent for focaccia, not so great for Tomato Pie.

I tried simply reducing the amount of water used, all the way down to 50% hydration (at this point, you basically need a rolling pin to get the dough to stretch out properly), but it was a bust. Less water gave me a denser crust, but it made the pizza unpleasantly dense—the crust would get the texture of raw dough as you chewed on it.

The key to tight structure while maintaining good softness and flavor? Fat.

See, enriched doughs (that is, doughs that are fattened up with ingredients like oil, butter, milk, or egg yolks) pretty much universally have a tighter, denser crumb than lean doughs. It has to do with the formation of gluten. When you knead dough, long strands of water soluble proteins called glutenin and gliaden will line up and link together, eventually forming a tough, stretchy, web-like matrix known as gluten. When you add some fat to that mix, it can coat strands of proteins, preventing them from linking up too tightly.

The result is a gluten matrix that's not quite as stretchy; and, without the ability to stretch, you end up with smaller bubbles. The key to adding fat? Balance. Dough is a balancing game between the proteins in the flour, the water, and the fat.

I'd already been using a touch of olive oil for flavor, after a few more test runs, I finally came up with a balance I was happy with, and it required quite a bit more oil than I'd been using.

65% water and 6% extra-virgin olive oil (that's about 2 1/4 tablespoons for 3 1/2 cups of flour) proved to be just right.

Topping Her Off

With a great crust, cooking method, and sauce in order, only one thing remained, and it was the hardest part of all: wait until the darn thing cools to room temperature before adding the cheese.

I can tell you, the urge to rip straight into one while it's hot out of the oven is overwhelming.

Then again, if you're into the whole cool-pie thing, this is hands down the best type of pizza to eat cold. It stays tender, doesn't toughen up, the sauce is flavorful and highly seasoned, enough that even when cool it packs a punch, and the thin dusting of Pecorino (one of the strongest cheeses out there) ties the whole thing together.

With a hungry wife to feed and not enough time to cook, it's also nice to have a pizza that I can bake off in the morning or evening and have stick around under a foil cover for a day or two, ready to be eaten without even the need to reheat.

That said—and Hawk, please don't come after me—I must admit that the pie is perhaps even more killer when it's hot.

Get The Recipe!

Homemade Philadelphia Tomato Pie-Style Pizza »

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Managing Editor of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

[Via threadless.com]

When I first saw this shirt I was like, what the what?! Is this wolf some cousin to Courage Wolf, Insanity Wolf or some other wolf meme out there? But no, Wolf Pizza is a different breed. This wolf is a movie mascot. And this shirt doesn't just look awesome, there's an awesome story behind it.

The makers of Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, hired Duke Abner to design the poster for their movie (which is in theaters March 2nd) and requested that Threadless Tees print the design on shirts. The best part about the shirt is that it comes delivered in a slice sized pizza box! While I didn't find anything super specific about the whole wolf/pizza connection, it's clearly relevant as indicated by this plot synopsis:

Their lives at stake, the guys skip town in search of a way to pay the money back. When they happen upon a chance to rehabilitate a bankrupt mall full of vagrants, bizarre stores and a man-eating wolf that stalks the food court, they see dollar signs--a billion of them.

If that doesn't spell entertainment, then I don't know what does. Oh, wait...this Mary Kate and Ashley 'Gimme (Wolf) Pizza' spoof!

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Pizza Brain, Philadelphia's combination art project, restaurant, and Guinness—certified largest collection of pizza memorabilia in the world that we first told you about last year is gearing up to open this summer. Renovations at Pizza Brain HQ in Fishtown—a big space with plenty of room for arcade games, seating, and even a back yard—are running smoothly and they're looking to open around June.

One surprise about Pizza Brain is that they're putting just as much thought into the food as the museum concept. Chefs Joe Hunter (formerly of Dellasando's Pizza in Charleston, South Carolina) and Auston Adams have been working around the clock in the test kitchen experimenting with dough recipes and some wild, original creations.

The menu is going to be in the "true American pizzeria style", meaning gas deck ovens, standard (but perfected) pizzeria-style crust, made with locally sourced ingredients from nearby urban farms. They'll have your standard Margherita and pepperoni options, as well as some awesome sounding specialty pies, including a carmelized onion, gruyere and thyme french onion soup pizza. Instead of slices sitting under heat lamps all day, Pizza Brain plans to offer freshly made to order personal pizzas for around $5 along with their 18-inch large pies.

Other possibilities for the future of Pizza Brain include delivery by skateboard, and some sort of collaboration with Little Baby's Ice Cream, purveyor of flavors such as Earl Grey Sriracha and Cardamom Caramel.

If you want to be a part of the world's first pizza museum, a $15 contribution to their kickstarter campaign gets you a free personal pizza and drink after they open; $500 earns you the title of Ultimate Pizza Warrior, 3 days worth of free pizza, an art print by Brian Dwyer, your name carved into a brick, and a private party for 8 people including champagne and live music performed by the owners!

Pizza Brain

Pizza Brain Kickstarter campaign
@mypizzabrain on twitter; pizzabrain.org

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

For years I've heard of a "great", "OMG, my favorite" pizzeria on Los Angeles' eastern border of Highland Park. Folliero is the quintessential 1960's neighborhood joint. It's hard to remain unbiased when greeted by the owner's family and seeing the modestly priced menu. They make a decent pie, but like many pizzerias that persevered through the onslaught of chains, the fondness for the food is bolstered by nostalgia.

On the 14-inch cheese pizza ($7.50) knots of coagulated mozzarella roll through the watery—albeit—flavorful tomato sauce. It's simple, with just a light note of sweetness. The thin, wet crust flairs out to a puffy edge—more supple then a New York style, but with none of the complexity of a Neapolitan crust. A dark dust of char floats over the otherwise powdery underside, soaking up the loose sauce. The crust has a surprisingly rich chew once you move past the tides of sauce and cheese. Fresh basil is buried under the mozzarella, as are any other toppings ordered.

Still, the doughy pink center dominates. Diehard fans say it's the perfect amount of cheese, but more reasonable people will say it's way too much. It's the globular kind that slips off each slice and hits the plate with an audible plunk. The cheese is applied so heavily it's more texture then flavor. Try as you might to eat with your hands, you'll eventually resign yourself to the fork and knife.

This is undoubtedly the best pizza in Highland Park and the perfect place to go... if you happen to be in the area.

Folliero Pizza & Italian Food

5566 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042 (map)
323-254-0505; follieros.com

About the author: After nearly a decade in Brooklyn, Kelly Bone landed back in Los Angeles where she writes The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

[Photographs: David Kover]

Or, if you're of the mind that only a wood-fired oven can turn out a high-quality Neapolitan pizza, then you'd blame my disappointment on that. I actually almost didn't realize that Locanda Positano cooks their pies with gas. Their Valoriani oven looks* more or less like any number of other rigs you'll find in the area until you get close enough to see the line of gas jets inside. No matter the fuel, it doesn't have a problem creating heat—the temperature gauge read 397 degrees Celsius (that's 747°F) when I walked by.

You could blame it on the fact that we let our pies sit on the table a few minutes too long before eating as I tried to convince my camera to take a reasonable picture. Maybe that's why the crust struck me as a bit dense in spots? Still, with a not-quite-spotted lip and tiger stripes of charring underneath, it came out nicely crisp, with a pronounced tang.

I can't come up with any specific excuse for their Margherita. The fresh mozzarella seemed creamy enough, and the tomato sauce had a nice bright flavor. I'd have taken a bit of salt, or maybe I should have asked for some hot pepper?

Okay, so I can confidently blame my disappointment with their sausage pie on the sheer quantity of toppings. From the coins of fennel sausage, to the sliced mushrooms, to the bits of broccoli, there was just a lot of everything. It seemed somehow an incongruous presentation for a pizzeria that styled itself as upscale-artisanal.

As for their ripieno fritto, the fried calzone, that one I understand as well. Just too much fried-ness. The ricotta, mozzarella, and salami inside didn't stand a chance against the amusement park exterior.

With certain pies I can pinpoint my gripe, but I still can't completely explain why I found myself with a case of the blahs even after eating Locanda Positano's Margherita. It might have been their bad day, or it might have been mine. It seems like I should have liked it better, but for the time being I'd point my car in another direction when asked to pick just one Neapolitan-style pizzeria on the Peninsula.

*Besides the garish paint job.

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He occasionally gets his tweet on as @pizzakover.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This: Pistacchio e Salsiccia (à la Don Antonio)

[Photographs: Erin Mosbaugh]

The pistachio pesto and sausage pizza at Don Antonio makes you wish co-owner Antonio Starita had come to NYC from Naples sooner. How did New Yorkers live previous to this pie? The Neopolitan pizzeria is a partnership between Kesté's Roberto Caporuscio and his mentor, Antonio Starita of Naples' Pizzeria Starita.

But the genius behind the pistachio pesto recipe is Giuseppe Starita, Antonio's son, who currently operates Pizzeria Starita back home in Naples. The sweet and fruity pistachios give a richness that perfectly complements the crumbled sweet Italian pork sausage.

What You'll Need (for one pizza)

• 1 dough portion (Watch this video to learn how to make Neapolitan-style dough)
• Pistachios (toasted lightly in a sautee pan)
• Parmigiano Reggiano
• Smoked mozzarella di bufala, chopped or ripped into small pieces (Antonio uses Torre Lupara)
• Sweet Italian sausage (Antonio gets his from Faicco's Pork Store)
• Basil
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Don Antonio

309 West 50th Street, New York NY 10019 (near Eighth Ave.; map)
646-719-1043; donantoniopizza.com

About the author: Originally from Los Angeles, Erin Mosbaugh writes Je Blague, where she captures her food adventures in NYC and beyond. Erin also writes dining and nightlife features for Robb Report's New York City.

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Hawk Krall]

I'm definitely doing it wrong. Having my first taste of New Haven style Apizza in Washington D.C. is sort of like trying your first Half-Smoke in Connecticut. While I can't say if Pete's is comparable to the real thing, I can definitely tell you it's a damn fine slice of pizza. The Margherita has a thin crisp crust, a light layer of flavorful sauce, and just the right amount of oozing mozzarella and chopped fresh basil.

The sausage pie was a little sloppier, but definitely still satisfying, especially with the crumbled knobs of fennel sausage. Not life-changing, or all that different from other thin-crust pizza I've had, but definitely a solid slice that made me seriously think about booking a trip to Connecticut.

Pete's New Haven Style Apizza

4940 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington D.C (map)
818-980-8555; petesapizza.com

About the author: Hawk Krall is a Philadelphia-based illustrator who has a serious thing for hot dogs. Dig his dog drawings? Many of the illustrations he has created for Hot Dog of the Week are available for sale: hawkkrall.net/prints/.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Lo Duca and San Remo: A Ditmas Park Square-Pizza Mini-Crawl

One of the best ways to really gauge pizza is to do a pizza crawl. When you sample different slices in quick succession, you're better able to discern subtle differences between one and the next—much more so than if you go a few days or a week between pie-probing.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a square-pizza mini-crawl in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, where a group of diehard pizza geeks, organized by John Wozniak (a longtime community member here), assembled first at Lo Duca Pizza and then moved on to San Remo Pizzeria. Follow along with the action in the slideshow above.

Lo Duca Pizza

14 Newkirk Plaza, Brooklyn NY 11226 (map); 718-859-1501
See also: Lo Duca Pizza: A Slice Joint Gem in the Heart of Brooklyn »

San Remo Pizzeria

1408 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn NY 11226 (b/n Rugby/Marlborough; map)
718-282-4915; sanremobrooklyn.com