New YORK's Jewish delis are widely regarded as the best in the country. But even my most New York-centric friends will admit that the hand-cut pastrami at Langer's Deli, just west of downtown Los Angeles, is better than the pastrami at any New York deli. Los Angeles also has great hot dogs, hamburgers and tacos -- and great examples of virtually every Asian cuisine
But we don't have great pizza.
Good pizza? Yes. Absolutely. But I've been eating pizza all over Los Angeles since the early 1950s, and every time someone tells me about a new, (allegedly) great pizza, I jump in my car and race across town to try it. I had pizza four times last week alone. I have never, however, sunk my teeth into a truly fabulous, transcendent, mouth-watering Los Angeles pizza -- the kind of pizza I've routinely eaten in New Haven, Conn., Phoenix, Philadelphia, Boston and, yes -- especially -- in New York.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday May 17, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 24 words Type of Material: Correction
Restaurant name -- In David Shaw's Matters of Taste column in Wednesday's Food section, the Studio City restaurant Caioti Pizza Cafe was misspelled Caiote.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday May 18, 2005 Home Edition Food Part F Page 3 Features Desk 0 inches; 23 words Type of Material: Correction
Restaurant name -- In David Shaw's Matters of Taste column last week, the Studio City restaurant Caioti Pizza Cafe was misspelled as Caiote.
In fact, my favorite pizza in the world is at Lombardi's in New York.
Every time I go to the Big Apple, I look forward to a pepperoni pizza at Lombardi's every bit as much as I look forward to the multi-course dining extravaganzas I've booked weeks in advance at various temples of haute cuisine.
In his newly published book "Pizza: A Slice of Heaven," Ed Levine says Gennaro Lombardi, a Neapolitan baker by trade, got "the first license to make and sell pizza in this country" when he decided to start making pizzas in his grocery store in the Little Italy section of New York in 1905, across the street from Lombardi's current location.
His successors still make the pizzas the way he made them -- in an 850-degree coal-fired oven (not wood or gas, like most Los Angeles pizza ovens, but coal). That imparts a delicious, charred, smoky quality to the bottom of the crust, and it also blisters the puffy, raised outer edge of the pizza. I like that charred flavor; it's why I order my steaks "charred rare."
Lombardi's uses fresh whole-milk mozzarella made specially for them, San Marzano plum tomatoes, imported from Italy, and a Rosa Grande pepperoni that Mike Giamarino, the general manager, calls "the highest-grade pepperoni money can buy."
When I bite into a Lombardi's pizza, all these ingredients blend in a way that brings a big smile to my face, even as I burn the roof of my mouth and the tomato sauce dribbles down my chin. The sauce and the pepperoni give the pizza a bite, the crust is both crisp and chewy, and the cheese is just gooey enough to hold everything together.
Everything adds up
With a great pizza, the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts. I don't usually deconstruct a pizza while I'm eating it -- "The cheese is too stringy" or "The crust is too thick." It's the entire gestalt of the pizza-eating experience that I find satisfying -- or not.
But that said, pizza is made of several distinct components, and they all have to be just right. I like my crust thin -- thin enough to be crisp but not so thin that it tastes like matzo crackers. I want enough dough in the crust so that I can chew it -- but not so much that I feel like I'm eating a piece of bread, as I sometimes do at Casa Bianca in Eagle Rock.
I like the clean taste of fresh cow's milk mozzarella -- which is white, unlike the yellow, aged mozzarella or, worse, the rubbery, industrial mozzarella some chain pizzerias use. I don't like tomato sauce to be the dominant flavor, and I especially object to tomato sauce that tastes like tomato paste. The best tomato sauce for pizza is usually made with canned, uncooked, whole tomatoes.
Because pizza preferences are a very personal matter, I know I'm going to get a ton of e-mails from angry Angelenos, each touting his or her local favorite. I'm bound to receive heart-felt testimonials to the excellence of the pizzas at Casa Bianca, Antica Pizzeria in Marina del Rey, Abbot's Pizza in Venice, Mulberry Street Pizzeria in Beverly Hills, Caiote Pizza Cafe in Studio City and at least half dozen others.
I've tried all of them and liked most of them. But I haven't loved any of them. Although Mulberry Street's name is clearly meant to invoke New York's Little Italy -- Lombardi's is just off Mulberry Street -- most of the pizzas I've had at Mulberry Street here have been a bland goop atop a crust that had no crunch. Abbot's and Caiote failed the crust test too, neither crisp enough nor chewy enough, even though both, like Mulberry Street Pizzeria, say they offer New York-style pizzas.
I should say that when I complain about the absence of truly great pizza in Los Angeles, I'm only talking about the kind of pizza you get in a casual pizzeria, not the pizzas you can get at Spago, Angelini Osteria and several other restaurants (as opposed to pizzerias). Some of those are very good, but when I'm in the mood for a pizza, I don't mean a smoked salmon pizza that I can't get without putting on a jacket and paying for valet parking. And I never want my pizza topped with pineapple or oysters or barbecued chicken.
