September 12, 2005

Bay Ridge Pizza Hall of Fame

New York has the best pizza in America and Brooklyn has some of the best pizza in New York. And some of the best pizza in Brooklyn is in Bay Ridge.

Here, as a result of extensive testing over decades, is a list of my top five pizzerias in Bay Ridge:
  1. Grandma's Original Pizza, 6918 Third Avenue, 718-833-4646. Everything here is of championship caliber, but my favorites are a) Grandmama's Pizza, a crispy thin crust square, with mozzarella, marinara sauce, fresh basil, olive oil, topped off with sharp romano cheese, and b) margherita pizza ( similar to grandmama's but a from a large round pie that isn't crisp.) Fabulous.
  2. Pizza Wagon, Fifth Avenue, off 86th Street. Great round pie. Good square.
  3. Rocco's, 79th Street and Fifth Avenue. Great round pie. Good square.
  4. Lento's. Ovington and Third Avenues. Serving very good thin crust pizza on ancient wood tables since the 1930s.
  5. Elegante, Fifth Avenue, between 69th and Ovington. Bare-bones, but a good salty slice essentially unchanged since the mid 1960s.

5 comments:

The Phantom said...

dkasler

I stand corrected. Ginos is a good place, but I meant Rocco's on Fifth Avenue / 79th. Good job.

Eagle said...

Please send one of those transplanting pizza-makers from Brooklyn to Dublin - FAST. You can get "pizza" here, if you like Domino's and the like. Otherwise, I'm just dying here.

The Phantom said...

True, but you have vastly better fish and chips that we have. Whats the place there, Burdicks?

We used to have a fine chipper in Bay Ridge, Thompson's Fish Market, who sold immense amounts of chips to me and the other kids at OLA elementary school.

As years went by, I would still stop by on the odd Saturday for an order of fisn and chips.

But this Norwegian family sold out / retired, and the new owner could not really make a go of it. Its closed now, and the neighborhood lacks a good chip shop.

Anonymous said...

The best Pizza in the neighborhood can be found at Pete's, on 3rd Avenue between 75th and 76th. Not only great round and square pies, but fantastic pasta dishes, including the best lasagna anywhere---and I mean ANYWHERE. Growing up, that was my place. Now, I live a little closer to Grandma's, so I usually go there, and I've got to admit, it's pretty good.
Honorable Mention: Pizza Wagon, Sal's

The Coin Guy said...

New Jersey has the best pizza