Slicing Into New York's Pizza | 6 AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Business Wars

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Episode: Slicing Into New York's Pizza | 6

Author: Wondery
Duration: 00:35:44

Episode Shownotes

Get ready for a Business Wars pizza party! Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman and Eater NYC reporter Melissa McCart join David to settle the years long debate: is East Coast pizza really better? Then, Dan goes out in the field to put hot honey pizza to the test. Plus, find

out how foodies read the trends to determine whether a slice is all hype, or worth the wait.This episode is available early and ad-free for Wondery+ members. To stay up-to-date on new podcasts and more from Wondery, sign up on http://wondery.fm/applepodcastsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Summary

In this episode of Business Wars, David Brown, Dan Pashman from the Sporkful podcast, and Melissa McCart from Eater NYC engage in a lively discussion about New York pizza. They explore its history, styles, and the cultural significance surrounding it. The conversation delves into the evolution of New York pizza, comparing it to Chicago deep dish, and emphasizes the importance of pizza components, particularly sauce. The episode also examines trends like hot honey pizza, featuring tastings from Roberta's and Scars pizzerias, and highlights local food rivalries, the influence of home cooks, and the importance of storytelling in establishing a pizza destination.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Slicing Into New York's Pizza | 6) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_08
Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Business Wars Chuck E. Cheese vs. Showbiz Pizza early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

00:00:17 Speaker_08
Have you ever encountered a pizza slice so good you just can't wait for it to cool? You bite into it only to immediately burn the roof of your mouth? Yeah, it happens to a lot of us.

00:00:29 Speaker_08
It's hard to find a person who doesn't crave that hot cheesy goodness. And while we can all agree that pizza is a source of comfort and a nostalgic favorite for Americans, after all it arrived in the U.S.

00:00:40 Speaker_08
in the late 1800s, one thing we can't seem to agree on is which style of pizza is best. Last month we traveled to Los Angeles to find out why burger shops are so plentiful and who makes the best patties.

00:00:53 Speaker_08
Now we're heading the other way across the country to New York City, home to some of the best pizza you can find in the nation. Well, at least according to our guests. We're joined by Dan Pashman.

00:01:03 Speaker_08
He's the host of the Sporkful podcast and a three-time James Beard Award winner. We're also hearing from Melissa McCart of Eater New York. She's also the author of Bread and How to Eat It. So she certainly knows her carbs.

00:01:15 Speaker_08
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That's BlueChu.com to get your first month free. Visit BlueChu.com for more details and important safety information. From Wondery, I'm David Brown, and this is Slicing Into New York's Pizza. Dan, tell us about the Sporkful podcast.

00:03:39 Speaker_03
Well, David, it's a podcast I started way back in 2010 in the stone ages of podcasting. Oh my gosh, wow. It's a food podcast. Our motto is it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm not a trained chef.

00:03:50 Speaker_03
I just really love to eat and the show has grown and evolved over the years. And we like to use food to get into a wide range of topics, whether it's history, culture, science, more serious subjects some weeks and then very silly subjects other weeks.

00:04:05 Speaker_03
And as we argue about the best way to layer the ingredients of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

00:04:09 Speaker_03
And then I'm also well known for having done a series about my invention of a new shape of pasta, which is called Cascatelli, and that kind of exploded beyond my wildest dreams.

00:04:19 Speaker_08
This is the Cascatelli. This is from that very podcast that you're talking about here. This was part of the Mission Impossible series. Here's the clip that started it all, folks.

00:04:30 Speaker_03
And I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Spaghetti sucks. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. I said it. It's round on the outside. That means it has a low surface area in relation to the volume. That means that sauce doesn't adhere to it well.

00:04:48 Speaker_03
It means less of it contacts your teeth when you first bite it. It's like, you know, there's all this romanticism around spaghetti, but spaghetti and meatballs isn't even an Italian thing.

00:04:57 Speaker_03
The Lady and the Tramp did a great disservice to American culinary history by romanticizing spaghetti. What we really should have taken from that movie is that it's a pasta shape that's only fit for dogs.

00:05:10 Speaker_08
That's a mighty bold claim. Tell us about your mission, Impostable. What's the backstory?

00:05:14 Speaker_03
So I set out to invent a new shape of pasta. I have these three metrics that I've come up with to judge all pasta shapes. So there's fork ability. How easy is it to get it on the fork and keep it there? Sauce ability.

00:05:25 Speaker_03
How readily does sauce adhere to the shape? And then tooth sink ability, which is how satisfying is it to sink your teeth into it? I think a lot of pasta shapes are good at one or two of these, David. Very few nail all three.

00:05:35 Speaker_03
And as I said, spaghetti barely gets one. You know, we're eating so much spaghetti in the world. It doesn't hold a lot of sauce. It's hard to get a good bite on your fork. So I set out to try to see if I could come up with something better.

00:05:46 Speaker_03
And it took me three years. It was much, much harder than I anticipated. Every person in the pasta industry who I talked to and my wife, who's not in the pasta industry, all said it was a terrible idea.

00:05:56 Speaker_03
and that the world didn't need any new pasta shapes. But I persevered and came out with Cascatelli. It launched in March of 2021. It was a huge hit. It was named one of Time Magazine's best inventions of the year.

00:06:07 Speaker_03
The original version is made by a company called Sfolini out of upstate New York. It's S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I. It's in Whole Foods. It's in a lot of stores around the country.

00:06:16 Speaker_03
There's a version of Trader Joe's, and then there's also a version of Cascatelli made by Bonza that's in Whole Foods. It's gluten-free.

00:06:22 Speaker_08
Well, on behalf of pasta lovers everywhere, we salute you, sir.

00:06:27 Speaker_03
Thank you. Yeah.

00:06:27 Speaker_08
Now, Melissa, I know you're also a carb aficionado. Your book Bread and How to Eat It celebrates bread in all its forms. Right up my alley. Tell us more. Did you get into pizza at all in that book, by the way?

00:06:39 Speaker_02
I've been living with my partner for over a decade, and he owns a Jersey City bakery called Bread and Salt. And when he first opened pre-pandemic, Pete Wells reviewed it in New York Times, even though it's in New Jersey.

00:06:50 Speaker_02
And so he wanted to write about bread and like mine, some old Italian recipes about how people used bread and then move on to pizza. So the answer is not really. Pizza's coming next.

00:07:04 Speaker_08
Well, let's talk about a recent article that you wrote for Eater called New York Pizza is an Evolution in Four Acts.

00:07:11 Speaker_02
What are those four acts? So the oldest style of pizza in New York is the coal oven pizza. that was pioneered by Lombardi's and that's sort of the most recognizable style in New York City. And you won't see a lot of coal ovens anymore.

00:07:29 Speaker_02
It creates essentially a dense crust and is generally served as a whole pie. Then in the 1940s, a baker's pride deck oven was invented in the Bronx. And that pizza is a more chewy pizza

00:07:44 Speaker_02
It's cooked at a lower temperature and it's designed to be reheated. That's the one that is most common in slice shops. For the third one, we have wood fired pizza, and that's sort of like a Neo Neapolitan style.

00:07:58 Speaker_02
You're getting it as a whole pizza, generally with a 12 to 14 inch crust. And then we have a new wave style that's far more focused on the quality of the dough.

00:08:10 Speaker_02
It uses a lot of technique from bread bakers, and there might be flour blends like, I don't know, einkorn and white flour or whole wheat crusts and things like that. We're in this like new school, new wave pizzeria boom.

00:08:26 Speaker_08
You know, what strikes me when you were laying those out is, number one, how much the technology is what distinguishes these four acts.

00:08:34 Speaker_08
You know, the kind of ovens and the style of cooking based on how you're cooking it, but also the bread, because I think that a lot of people do think about the toppings as the main event on pizza, and maybe it is. Maybe you can settle this for us.

00:08:49 Speaker_08
Does the East Coast actually have the best pizza, Melissa?

00:08:53 Speaker_02
Well, I think from East Coasters, especially New Yorkers, it's not even a question. Of course New York has the best pizza.

00:09:04 Speaker_08
I'm surprised you waited so long. There was a lot of suspense there.

00:09:09 Speaker_03
I was really excited to see what she was going to say.

00:09:11 Speaker_02
But I think if you were to ask a lot of pizza nerds, they might tip their hat to New Haven because essentially the Italian immigrants who landed there were better known as bakers than they were in New York.

00:09:26 Speaker_02
And so I think I would maybe lean towards the New Haven style as coming out stronger than New York initially. But now we have such severe competition in New York and such a demand for pizza.

00:09:41 Speaker_02
And it's so much a part of people's everyday diet that pizza can't help but be good in New York.

00:09:48 Speaker_08
Well, why do you think New York City has this reputation as a, you know, ground zero for pizza in the United States? Dan, what's what's your answer to that?

00:09:56 Speaker_03
Well, I think partly what Melissa said that, you know, it is quite literally ground zero. The first pizzeria in America, as far as we know, is Lombardi's. It was open in New York City.

00:10:05 Speaker_03
And, you know, the northeast of America in general is where you have a higher concentration of Italian immigrants and Italian American history.

00:10:13 Speaker_03
But I actually have put a lot of thought in general and some research on this portfolio into why certain regional foods remain specialties in their home regions, even in spite of technology and in spite of travel, like barbecue or pizza.

00:10:27 Speaker_03
I mean, if you know how to make great pizza, you should be able to get that flour sent anywhere in America. You should be able to get that oven delivered anywhere. You should be able to make the same pizza anywhere.

00:10:37 Speaker_03
Yet why, on average, is it still better in New York and a few other places? As best I can tell based on my research is, a lot of people say, oh, it's the water. That's why bagels and pizza are better in New York, it's the water.

00:10:46 Speaker_03
Well, I talked to a bagel historian who had water sent to the University of Kansas to get it tested and said, there's nothing special about the water. It's not the water.

00:10:54 Speaker_03
What it is, is that you have, first of all, you have a- I love how you do everything halfway down.

00:10:59 Speaker_07
I mean, you know.

00:11:00 Speaker_03
That's right. But partly it's that you have a long history of a certain food being cooked in that place. You have a lot of high concentration of expertise that is passed down from one generation to another in that place. You also have more competition.

00:11:13 Speaker_03
So even if someone were to learn to make pizza in New York and then move to some other place, probably their quality would fall off over time because they wouldn't have the same amount of competition. And also the other factor is the customer base.

00:11:24 Speaker_03
So if the customer base in a place where a food is very prevalent and where it's a specialty knows what it's supposed to be, it has higher standards for it. And so over time, the cream will rise, so to speak.

00:11:36 Speaker_03
And so that is generally why the best barbecue is still in the South and the best pizza is still in, I think, in the Northeast. And it's because of those factors.

00:11:46 Speaker_08
OK, well, I mean, I was one of the reasons I wanted you guys to come to the fore with this was because, you know, we've already alienated Chicago and Detroit. Right. I mean, the two other big cities.

00:11:58 Speaker_08
What other big cities are we talking about when we think pizza? What would you say if someone's had to just slice of Chicago pizza, that this is an authentic pizza or that ours is better?

00:12:08 Speaker_03
I lived in Chicago. I love Chicago and I love Chicago deep dish pizza. I just think that it's so different from what we think of as Neapolitan pizza, which is sort of the true history of pizza going back to Naples.

00:12:20 Speaker_03
So to me, yes, they're both called pizza, but like a lot of different things are called dumplings. You know, you can't necessarily compare them all. They can be great in their own way and different.

00:12:29 Speaker_02
It's like apples and oranges. I mean, I don't even consider that a pizza. It's almost like a casserole. It's just like soupy and dense and there's tons of stuff in it and there's lots of layers. It just, it doesn't feel like a pizza.

00:12:43 Speaker_02
You cannot walk around and eat a Chicago deep dish pizza without wearing it.

00:12:49 Speaker_03
Yeah, and after you eat it, you're not particularly portable.

00:12:53 Speaker_08
Good point.

00:12:55 Speaker_03
I live in Chicago. I can also tell you that like people in Chicago, like you don't get deep dish pizza, like for lunch, like on your lunch break when you're working, like you don't, you don't just like grab it on the way home from work on a Tuesday.

00:13:05 Speaker_03
It's an event and it is a fun event, but it's more of a special occasion. Pizza in New York is like embedded in the culture. Like I don't go a week without eating a slice of pizza.

00:13:14 Speaker_08
Wow. Well, now, what do you look for in that perfect slice? And I guess this leads to the question we're going to have to just call it. What's the best place to find that in New York's five boroughs? Perfect slice. Where do you find it?

00:13:29 Speaker_08
Melissa, you want to go first?

00:13:30 Speaker_02
I would go between Scars and the new Roberta's R Slice as far as slices go.

00:13:35 Speaker_08
and what makes it perfect?

00:13:36 Speaker_02
I mean, I like Scars because he's milling the flour and it's a really flavorful crust. It has a little bit of crunch. It has some crispiness and you can smell it the way you can smell good bread. He's using good tomatoes. It's not a mess of mozzarella.

00:13:52 Speaker_02
That's like a blanket. It just, it's a really great slice. Roberto's, that crust is a little crisper to me and feels a little bit more straight ahead.

00:14:03 Speaker_08
What about you, Dan? Wouldn't you think perfect slice what comes to mind and what's the place?

00:14:07 Speaker_03
I mean, I do really love Roberta's in New York. There's a lot of good pizza in New York, and I'm not, honestly, I'm not super picky. To me, the big thing is, and this may be controversial, I'm curious to hear your and Melissa's take on this.

00:14:20 Speaker_03
So, well, first of all, I don't like a pizza with a lot of toppings, because most, if it's meat, it's gonna release fat. If it's vegetables, it's gonna release water when it gets cooked, and that's gonna turn your crust soggy.

00:14:32 Speaker_03
Also, if you're making, if you have great crust, great sauce, and great cheese, you shouldn't need a whole lot else. You want to add a few things, that's fine, but more is not better when it comes to toppings.

00:14:41 Speaker_03
The other thing that I'll say that's somewhat controversial is of the three canonical basic components of pizza, crust, sauce, cheese, to me, the most important and the one that sets great pizza apart is the sauce.

00:14:57 Speaker_03
Now, that's controversial, especially among bread aficionados like Melissa. I'm sure that you may not agree, Melissa, but to me, yes, some crusts are better than others, but fresh baked bread is always good.

00:15:10 Speaker_03
Even mediocre bread when it's hot out of the oven is really good. It might not be good three hours later, but It's always good when it's hot out of the oven.

00:15:18 Speaker_03
And melted cheese is almost always good, whether it's the finest cheese money can buy or something that came out of a plastic package in the supermarket. I love it. So those two components, they're always going to be good.

00:15:29 Speaker_03
But like, I've had a lot of pizza with just sort of an acrid sauce that tastes like dehydrated garlic and onions. It tastes like it came out of a can.

00:15:40 Speaker_03
And when you have that fresh, bright tomato flavor and the natural sweetness that comes with that, to me, there's just a wider variation in sauce quality. And that's why, to me, the sauce is most important.

00:15:50 Speaker_08
Man, I hope our listeners are taking notes here. Dan Pashman hosts the Sportful podcast. Author Melissa McCart is with Eater New York.

00:15:57 Speaker_08
And when we come back, we asked our guests to go out on the street and do some reporting and taste testing on a New York pizza rivalry that's only getting hotter. Stick around.

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00:18:07 Speaker_08
Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. My guests are Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman and Eater New York's Melissa McCart.

00:18:14 Speaker_08
So Dan, since you described the Sporkful as a podcast for eaters and not just foodies, I understand you went on a little quest yourself to taste some of New York City's trendiest slices. Thanks for doing that.

00:18:25 Speaker_08
I guess you were trying to get to the bottom of a rivalry between two hotspots that do different twists on the same kind of buzzy pizza, one with hot honey.

00:18:33 Speaker_03
That's right. So a little while back, this place Scars opened in New York and I went to check it out and I loved it. And that was the first time that I had some version of a pizza that has some combination of pepperoni, honey, and spiciness.

00:18:50 Speaker_03
This one had pepperoni jalapenos and Mike's extra hot honey. And it was phenomenal. And I had not tasted that combination.

00:19:00 Speaker_03
Then I started seeing it in other places, like even out here in the suburbs where I live on Long Island, my local pizzeria was like, hey, we now have pepperoni and hot honey pizza. And I'm like, oh, I guess this is becoming a thing.

00:19:10 Speaker_03
I talked to some friends though, and they were like, oh, Roberta started that. Roberta's was the first to do spicy honey pepperoni combo. Interesting.

00:19:17 Speaker_03
So I decided to set out and try Roberta's and then go back to Scara's and eat them one right after the other to see who does the version of this pizza better.

00:19:25 Speaker_08
All right. But before we get to the test, Melissa, maybe you can help us understand what's behind this whole hot honey on pizza thing. I mean, where did this come from with hot honey on pizza?

00:19:35 Speaker_02
I think we're in an era where a lot of people are seeking out or trained to enjoy different flavor profiles on each dish.

00:19:44 Speaker_02
You have your sweet, you have your spicy, you have your salty, you have your creamy, maybe you have some kind of verdant savoriness.

00:19:52 Speaker_02
So whether it's a new American restaurant or the latest Chinese restaurant that is open, I think people are used to using more condiments or using condiments to enhance flavor profiles.

00:20:06 Speaker_07
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:07 Speaker_02
So adding hot honey to pizza seems like a natural thing.

00:20:11 Speaker_08
Now let's set this up. Dan, you sampled both Roberta's and Scar's for this. Set the scene, then we'll play a little bit of your real time reviews.

00:20:18 Speaker_03
So Roberta's, I mean, Melissa can tell you more about the history of Roberta's, but it started in Bushwick, which is kind of deep into Brooklyn.

00:20:24 Speaker_03
I had heard a lot of buzz around it, but then recently they've opened up outposts in other parts of New York City. And so I went to Roberta's near Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan.

00:20:33 Speaker_03
where they have slices, which is somewhat rare among a lot of the very upscale old school pizzerias. They won't do it. They don't do slices. They'll only do pies to order. So the fact that Roberta's has slices at all is pretty cool and special.

00:20:46 Speaker_03
So I wanted to go there. I knew that I wanted to get what they call the bee sting, which is, theirs is with soppressata, which is essentially, I mean, I'll call it fancy pepperoni, sliced thin and it has a,

00:21:02 Speaker_03
greater diameter than what you would picture from a slice of pepperoni. It's actually probably twice as wide, but much thinner. A thinner slice, but takes up more of the pizza. Got a nice peppery flavor. They do it with honey and chili oil.

00:21:13 Speaker_03
That's how they put their spice together. So soppressata, honey, and chili oil.

00:21:18 Speaker_08
Melissa, do you remember your first encounter with Roberta's and Scars?

00:21:22 Speaker_02
I mean, Roberta's was like the early aughts and I remember going there was like a pilgrimage. You know, it had the tiki bar and the line at the door and it felt sort of punk rock ish.

00:21:35 Speaker_02
So yeah, I remember it, but there were all these other competing things for my attention and Roberta's, but scars on the other hand, it was more recent. Um, I went with my partner who makes pizza, and he knows scar and we saw the milling set up.

00:21:53 Speaker_02
And so that's fresher in my mind, I guess.

00:21:56 Speaker_08
All right, let's put these slices to the test. Dan, here's a clip from your experience with Roberta's.

00:22:01 Speaker_03
All right, I got my Roberta's bee sting. Well, that's nice. You get the honey right off the bat. First impression is that it's sweet and salty and meaty. And then the chili oil, it sneaks up on you at the end there. At first you're like, is this spicy?

00:22:16 Speaker_03
And they're like, oh, okay. Yeah, there we go.

00:22:19 Speaker_04
Mmm.

00:22:21 Speaker_03
The crust is really excellent. It's paper thin with a nice char on the outside, with a nice char on the bottom. Still very crispy and chewy. And that's the tough thing. You know, you don't want your crust to be super doughy.

00:22:37 Speaker_03
You don't want it to be super thin and brittle. You want it to be crispy and chewy and delicate all at once. And this is that. This is very good.

00:22:47 Speaker_07
Oh, wow, that was a very thorough analysis.

00:22:51 Speaker_08
I felt like I was tasting it. That was so good. I'm so hungry now, you know?

00:22:58 Speaker_03
There's something about the sound of honking horns and shouting, you know, and construction vehicles backing up that makes the pizza taste better.

00:23:07 Speaker_07
The carbon monoxide. Yeah, right, right. All right. The next stop on Dan's pizza tour was Scars to put their spicy slice to the test. Let's listen.

00:23:16 Speaker_03
All right, I'm at Scars ready to try the hot boy, which is beef pepperoni jalapenos and Mike's extra hot honey. So it's interesting. Roberta's one, all the spice comes from the chili oil.

00:23:29 Speaker_03
The Scars one, you get spice from the hot honey and spice from the jalapenos. So on flavor, I like Scars better because the flavor of the jalapeno But on crust and crispiness, I give the edge to Roberta's. Their crust was lighter, crispier, chewier.

00:23:46 Speaker_03
This crust is still good, but a little bit soggy. Ever so slightly. So flavor goes to Scars. Overall crust and technique, I would give the edge to Roberta's.

00:23:59 Speaker_08
Oh boy. Melissa, we heard Dan mention you like the crust better at Roberta's. As a bread connoisseur, how do you feel about the crust at this particular kind of pizza and what are they doing with the bread?

00:24:09 Speaker_08
Are they adding some kind of special seasoning or something or what?

00:24:13 Speaker_02
They are using flour blends and milling it themselves and you can taste the difference.

00:24:18 Speaker_08
You can taste the milling of the flour. That's amazing to me.

00:24:24 Speaker_02
I think bread as being the most important thing for pizza is a relative new thing. And I firmly am behind bread as the most essential part of pizzeria.

00:24:35 Speaker_08
Interesting.

00:24:36 Speaker_03
But it's actually, David, it's the same thing with pasta, you know, like you might not think you can tell the difference, but like if you have pasta that's made with a higher quality semolina, especially a more coarse grind, if it's ground very finely, then a lot of the aromatics are going to evaporate from that flour

00:24:51 Speaker_03
before it ever gets a chance to get cooked, where it's a coarser grind, it's going to hold more of its natural components in there.

00:24:57 Speaker_03
And then, you know, if you have really good pasta that's made with really good flour, it should taste almost, it should smell almost like fresh bread. It should have that aroma. It should taste good on its own with no sauce at all.

00:25:08 Speaker_03
And I think if you buy cheaply made pasta, you don't really get that. It's kind of rubbery because of the way it's dried and it doesn't have that same kind of fresh bread flavor.

00:25:17 Speaker_08
Any other major differences worth noting on the Scars versus the Roberta's hot honey pizza? Dan?

00:25:23 Speaker_03
Look, I do want to say these are both really, really good slices of pizza. Like if you were in New York and only have a chance to get to one, you're not going to go wrong. They're both great. And, you know, I think I love jalapenos.

00:25:35 Speaker_03
You know, I want my spice to have flavor and not just spice. And to me, that was really what I was getting at with the scars, with the hot honey and the jalapenos. Jalapenos have flavor, they're not just about spice.

00:25:48 Speaker_03
So to me, I really loved that depth of flavor. And then you have the beef pepperoni that is a more traditional type of pepperoni. It's more the

00:25:56 Speaker_03
the small thick discs that you would picture with pepperoni as opposed to the thin soppressata from Roberta's. And so it doesn't cover as much of the surface of the pizza as the soppressata.

00:26:07 Speaker_03
It's an interesting, you know, I think people, reasonable people can disagree with whatever you really like is fine, but the scars, you're going to get fewer bites with meat, but those bites will be meatier bites.

00:26:19 Speaker_03
With Roberta's, you're going to have a higher percentage of bites with meat, but those bites will be more subtle meat dispersed throughout.

00:26:25 Speaker_08
Okay, now let's hear Dan's final verdict on location from his Hot Honey Pizza tour. Drumroll, please.

00:26:31 Speaker_03
Still overall, I think my final verdict. Flavor, I like Scars. Overall pizza making technique, Roberta's.

00:26:41 Speaker_07
All right. Melissa, what's your verdict on the Scars versus Roberta's Hot Honey Pizza?

00:26:46 Speaker_02
It's so close. It could be a tie. I mean, I like the flavors of Scars better, as I've said, but Roberta's is probably a crispier pie. So let's say if there's a longer line at Scars, I would go towards Roberta's.

00:27:03 Speaker_02
And if there's a longer line at Roberta's, I would go towards Scars.

00:27:06 Speaker_08
Well, some of us might have to go grab a slice ourselves. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll zoom in on the future of pizza. Stay with us.

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00:28:30 Speaker_08
Welcome back to Business Wars. Let's talk about what's next for pizza. Dan Pashman is the host of the Sporkful podcast. Melissa McCart is with Eater New York, and she's an author.

00:28:39 Speaker_08
Once upon a time, I seem to recall grabbing a slice of pizza from a New York corner shop for just, I believe it was just a single buck. That doesn't seem to be as common anymore. Melissa, what happened to the dollar slice?

00:28:52 Speaker_02
I think rents are really expensive and it's hard for them to stay in business.

00:28:59 Speaker_02
Add to it that once you get a couple of ingredients on a single slice of pizza, that slice becomes five or six bucks, then maybe you're going to get two slices, and now you're talking about 12 or 15 bucks with a drink, and then it costs the same as any other lunch around the city.

00:29:17 Speaker_08
Dan, do you have favorite spots for cheap solid pizza?

00:29:21 Speaker_03
I mean, I think at this point, yes, there was a time when you could get a great slice for a dollar.

00:29:27 Speaker_03
I think at this point, if a place is able to make money selling a cheese slice for a dollar, at least in New York or other major cities, whereas Melissa says rent is so expensive, ingredients are expensive, labor is expensive, then it's probably not going to be a great slice of pizza.

00:29:43 Speaker_03
And, you know, I think if you want a meal in any major city, you're probably going to have to spend five or six dollars for the meal, at least, you know. And so at a good pizzeria, the slices are maybe three or four dollars each.

00:29:55 Speaker_03
Two slices and a drink is probably a meal, maybe a third slice of extra hungry. So it's still not so expensive. But, you know, if you want if you want good quality, you're going to have to spend a little more than a dollar a slice, I think.

00:30:05 Speaker_08
What do you think, then, Melissa, shops have to do to become a destination pizza spot, you know, a place that has a line around the block, that sort of thing?

00:30:12 Speaker_02
You know, a place that has a line around the block, that sort of thing. I mean, I think TikTok and Instagram play huge roles, unfortunately or fortunately, because it can also be fun.

00:30:25 Speaker_02
But I think overall it points to the fact that to become a destination pizza spot, you have to have a really good story. Like what's your backstory? So David, there's a guy who just opened a pizzeria in Greenpoint this week. His name is Chrissy.

00:30:40 Speaker_02
He opened Chrissy's Pizza. Here's a guy who started making pizza, New York style whole pies out of his house during the pandemic. And he lived in Bushwick. his pizzas would sell out immediately.

00:30:53 Speaker_02
All these famous people were booking his pizzas and going to his house at the prescribed time. And it was this whole ritual. Then he partnered up with Brooks Headley at this pretty popular place in town called Superiority Burger.

00:31:07 Speaker_02
And he was selling late night pizzas after 11 o'clock. So then this pizza that was just available at a guy's house then became available at like this hipster vegetarian restaurant in the East Village. but you had to stay up till 11 or later to get it.

00:31:23 Speaker_02
And now he has opened in this slip of a location, Chrissy's Pizza, and everybody's really into it because it's a New York style, but more significant, he tells a great story that he used to go to get New York style pizzas all over the area with his father.

00:31:43 Speaker_08
Wow.

00:31:44 Speaker_02
That it was like a ritual with his dad.

00:31:46 Speaker_08
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:47 Speaker_02
and so he like attributes his opening Chrissy's to his dad's memory and I think that resonates with anyone because everyone can remember some family member that they've gone out to eat some iconic food with and where they went and why maybe it tasted better because you were with

00:32:08 Speaker_02
somebody who loved you. And so, you know, I think Chrissy is going to print money because he makes a delicious pizza and tells a good story. And it's totally affordable.

00:32:19 Speaker_08
I think that's a really interesting observation, though, because it's really not enough just to have a great pizza. You got to have a great story. A big part of this is about marketing.

00:32:30 Speaker_08
But I have to say that when I've gone, you know, to some of the social media to find a great place to eat, I've often been really disappointed. I mean, you know, some of these places know how to market.

00:32:40 Speaker_08
When you go to an unfamiliar place, what do you look for? I mean, how do you shop?

00:32:44 Speaker_02
I look and see what their baking is like and are they enjoying themselves? Does it seem like it's fun in there? If it's too serious and sort of feels monastic, I'm probably not gonna go back there.

00:32:53 Speaker_03
I would add to that, to me, if I'm going to check out a new pizzeria, I am going to order a margarita pizza, the most basic kind of pizza.

00:33:03 Speaker_08
With the basil and the mozzarella.

00:33:04 Speaker_03
Right, like, you know, sauce, cheese, crust, or plain cheese pizza, whatever, like, show me you can do the basics.

00:33:11 Speaker_03
And I think that to me, what's a red flag, if I see something on Instagram or TikTok taking off and everyone's lining up for something, is you gotta watch out for gimmicks. And also watch out for the visual.

00:33:20 Speaker_03
Does it look like this food was created more to be visually stunning, so that it does well on social media, than to be actually delicious to eat? Like those ridiculous, stupid milkshakes with a piece of cake on top?

00:33:31 Speaker_03
You know what's better than a milkshake with a piece of cake on top? A milkshake with a piece of cake on the side. So it's just like, I think you just have to really have your spidey sense up about anything that looks like a gimmick.

00:33:45 Speaker_03
Like look at it analytically and wonder like, why is this being done this way? Is there a reason that this is going to taste better or are they just trying to create eye candy to get clicks?

00:33:54 Speaker_08
See, this is how dumb I am, though. I would have heard about this hot honey thing on social media and thought, nah, no way. I would have thought that's like the cake in the milkshake or whatever.

00:34:04 Speaker_03
Right, right. But one thing I just want to add real quick, David, is that you're asking about, like, how can places, the marketing and, you know, Melissa talked about the story. I think the other thing, I think a lot about, like,

00:34:13 Speaker_03
A lot of new pizzerias have opened in New York in the last few years, and a lot of them seem to be doing well, and people are lining up at a lot of them. And you would sort of think that seems to be counterintuitive. Like, isn't the market saturated?

00:34:24 Speaker_03
Aren't there too many great high-end pizzerias in New York, and how can they all survive? But actually, economists talk a lot about this thing called the cluster effect.

00:34:31 Speaker_03
And the idea that sometimes having a high concentration of similar businesses in a small area can benefit all those businesses, because the area becomes known for that thing they can share.

00:34:39 Speaker_03
They have a better labor to choose from, because everyone who works in that area all knows how to make great pizza. You have customers who know what they want, and they're all coming there for that thing.

00:34:47 Speaker_08
And so... So what do you do? You look for the longest line?

00:34:50 Speaker_03
That can be dangerous. I would probably look at, you want a medium sized line, but you want a crowd. You want people there, but you're also going to kind of size up the people there.

00:35:02 Speaker_03
Like, do they look like they're there because they're like, if they're out there taking 27 selfies in front of the place and they're taking selfies with the pizza and they're on, you know, if they look like they're there to be seen and to brag to their friends that they were there, then that's not all that meaningful.

00:35:15 Speaker_03
If they look like people who are just, just really excited to be there to eat pizza, then that's a good sign.

00:35:21 Speaker_08
Very good. All right, we've talked about hot honey. Other trends that we should take note of in the pizza scene? Anything that may be the next big thing we'll all need to try?

00:35:30 Speaker_02
I think we're definitely seeing a lot of cultural mashups like Indian pizzas and Mexican pizzas. And it's not just like the taqueria has a pizza or the Indian restaurant has a pizza on the menu.

00:35:41 Speaker_02
It's like whole standalone Indian pizzerias or whole standalone Mexican pizzas.

00:35:48 Speaker_08
Totally, totally vote yes on the Indian flavored or spiced pizza.

00:35:54 Speaker_03
Go to a place in LA, David, called Pija Palace. It bills itself as an Indian American sports bar and they have dosa battered onion rings. They have the best Caesar salad I think I ever had. It has mango pickle on top that is phenomenal.

00:36:07 Speaker_08
You're killing me.

00:36:08 Speaker_03
And then they also do a couple of Indian spice pasta dishes. They have a malai rigatoni that's out of this world. And then they do pizza with Indian chutneys on top. That's also really excellent. I agree 100% with Melissa. I think this is a larger trend.

00:36:21 Speaker_03
My cookbook, Anything's Pastable, actually, I think is my own small contribution to this larger trend where it's all non-traditional pasta dishes, many of which have ingredients that are not Italian.

00:36:32 Speaker_03
So there's Middle Eastern, North African, Mexican, Indian, Asian, all different ingredients on pasta. And I think that to me, it's a very exciting time. And I love seeing all of these different ingredients coming together.

00:36:45 Speaker_03
And I think people assume that innovation in food comes from fancy chefs, but often it actually comes from home cooks.

00:36:52 Speaker_03
And as people move around the world and they bring ingredients with them, and then they have to find substitutes for the ingredients they left behind. And they end up one night having to throw dinner on the table.

00:36:59 Speaker_03
And it's like, oh, you know, I could put this chutney on this pizza and it might, it'll probably taste good. This is what I have in my pantry. And that's often where new ideas come from. And, and I'm here for it.

00:37:09 Speaker_08
Well, are there other places in the U S you might've sampled some pizza that just blew your mind places beyond the New York boroughs and all of that? Melissa, any, any come to mind?

00:37:21 Speaker_02
I used to be a food critic in Pittsburgh, and there's a Pittsburgh style of pizza. And there are two places, Mineo's and Aiello's, that have a huge rivalry, and it's fun to get in on the rivalry. It's totally not my style.

00:37:34 Speaker_02
It's like a big floppy crust. It's like almost white. It's a sweet sauce and there's a blanket of cheese.

00:37:42 Speaker_02
You know when you bite into a pizza and the cheese is like one blanket and so you have to use your fingers to like separate the bite so it doesn't come off in a big flap. That's the kind of pizza we're talking about.

00:37:56 Speaker_08
Well, Dan, I like your recommendation, too, of that place in L.A. Any other slices that you've sampled elsewhere in the U.S. that you should turn us on to?

00:38:04 Speaker_03
You know, I'm trying to think. I mean, that one in LA, Puget Palace, I think is high on my list. Can I ask you, Melissa?

00:38:12 Speaker_03
I'm curious because I have a theory that anytime there's a regional food specific to a city and when there's a rivalry between two places that are famous for making that thing, that actually neither one of them are ever that good and there's always a secret third one that the locals know about that's actually the good one.

00:38:27 Speaker_03
That's certainly true with cheesesteaks in Philly. Pat's and Gino's are both terrible and all the locals say so.

00:38:32 Speaker_02
My boss from the Post Gazette took me to this place called Fiore's.

00:38:36 Speaker_03
I knew it, I knew there was a secret one. All right, good.

00:38:38 Speaker_02
It's like literally walking into 1978, you know, with a Pepsi lettered sign and the jukebox playing permanent oldies and like, you know, Black Sabbath. And the salad is an iceberg lettuce salad with a secret Italian dressing and yeah.

00:38:58 Speaker_02
That's where to get the Pittsburgh style pizza. It totally tastes better because you want to be there. The environment's great. It's really fun and it's very retro.

00:39:07 Speaker_03
All right, good. If I go to Pittsburgh, I'm going to Fiore's.

00:39:10 Speaker_08
Damn, Melissa, this has been so much fun. Where can folks find your reporting online? Anything you want to plug?

00:39:15 Speaker_02
You can find my reporting at Eater New York.

00:39:19 Speaker_03
And the Sporkful Food Podcast, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. You can get it anywhere you get this podcast or any other podcast. My cookbook is Anything's Pastable, 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People.

00:39:31 Speaker_03
And you can get my pasta-shaped cascatelli in stores all over or order it online. If you go to sporkful.com, there's info on how to get my pasta.

00:39:39 Speaker_08
Dan Pashman is the author of the aforementioned book, Anything's Possible. Melissa McCart reports for Eater New York and is the co-author of Bread and How to Eat It. Thanks to you both.

00:39:49 Speaker_02
Thank you so much.

00:39:51 Speaker_03
Thanks, David.

00:39:52 Speaker_08
Coming up, we're biting into the 80s pizza rivalry that captivated a generation of American kids. The cook-off between Chuck E. Cheese and its copycat nemesis, Showbiz Pizza.

00:40:07 Speaker_08
If you like Business Wars, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

00:40:18 Speaker_08
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondery, this is slicing into New York's pizza for Business Wars.

00:40:33 Speaker_08
If you want to hear more about pizza rivalries, check out our season, Pizza Hut vs. Domino's. I'm your host, David Brown. Emily Frost and Kelly Kyle produced this episode. Our producer is Grant Rutter. Our audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez.

00:40:46 Speaker_08
Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Our senior managing producer is Callum Plews. Our senior producers are Karen Lowe and Dave Schilling. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie.

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This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out, convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy.

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