Antica Pizzeria Take Out Menu

May 10, 2007, 5:23 pm

… And Yet MORE on Mozza

pizza

Pizza chez Pizzeria Mozza. (Stephanie Diani for The New York Times)

Following the publication Wednesday of my article on Pizzeria Mozza, I received several e-mails from readers that represented the kind of discussion — quibbles, observations, suggestions — that should be seen by more eyes than just my own. It’s the kind of discussion encouraged by, and often present on, this blog.

One reader, referring to a pizzeria in New York I’d singled out, wrote: “Una Pizza Napoletana in Manhattan? You obviously don’t get around to all of Manhattan. You want real Napoletana pizza, go to Patsy’s on First Avenue between 117th and 118th streets on the west side of the street. This is the real deal and has been for nearly 100 years. And it’s made with the most important main ingredient, New York City water. When you eat their pizza, e-mail and let me know what you think.”

I can’t promise this reader I’m going to be able to get there in the near future and write him back. One of the great things about doing this job in this city is the number of restaurants on my to-do list. And one of the worst things about doing this job in this city is the number of restaurants on my to-do list. What I really need is 72 more hours in each day, three more days in each week and several additional stomachs.

Another reader wrote, in reference to Nancy Silverton, who is the principal chef at Mozza: “Like all of Silverton’s enterprises, Mozza is pretty fab — but as for history, have you forgotten about the Cafe at Chez Panisse!?”

The reader went on to say that back in the 1970’s, the kitchen there sifted bran out of whole-wheat flour to achieve dough “with a depth without the toughness” and, as at Mozza, let the dough rise for 36 hours.

The results, wrote the reader, “were very much the pizza that Mozza turns out today. Not thin, not thick, a little chewy, never soggy, with impeccable, well-edited ingredients.”

And from another reader: “It is indeed disappointing to see someone like yourself who lived in Rome touting this pretentious nonsense. My son, who has lived in Rome and now in L.A., found that Mozza does not compare favorably with either of the true temples of outstanding pizza: Baffetto near Piazza Navona or Ivo in Trastevere.”

The reader went on to say that, in writing the article about Mozza, I had abdicated my responsibility “to common sense.”

“Making reservations weeks — or even days — ahead for pizza is rather like making reservations at a fish taco stand,” the reader wrote. “Your article tends to put you in the role of an enabler of preciousness. Is this the kind of role you want to play?”

No, I don’t set out with the goal of enabling preciousness. But if I find something wonderful to eat, and the very nature of its wonderfulness is drawing crowds and creating a situation in which people are reserving weeks in advance, should I then nullify it from consideration — mine, others’ — and cordon it off from praise? I don’t think so.

At a popular restaurant, be it Mozza or Per Se, the need for advance planning is usually a function of demand. And customers can decide that their interest in a place and in going through the hoops necessary to get into that place doesn’t match the trouble. They can take their business elsewhere. And they often do.

I think I should probably more consistently point out when waits are long and planning necessary so that when I do praise a place in serious demand, I’ve made clear to the very reader getting excited about the place that there are strings attached. In the case of Mozza, I indeed pointed out the difficulty of getting in, and that’s a measure of a degree of popularity that makes Mozza a legitimate story.

As for the Roman comparison that the reader makes, well, of course Mozza’s pizzas aren’t like the best pizzas in Rome, which in fact aren’t like the best pizzas in Naples: styles vary in big and small ways even within Italy and certainly in different countries.

It doesn’t mean there’s only one correct method. And although some diners enjoy insisting that you can’t get as good an x here as you can there, or that y or z is only done well in four square miles south of the Tiber or the Danube or the Seine — well, I’ve never bought that.

Finally, one more comment from a reader, a question to me that I share here because it contains a recommendation for readers who are living in or visiting Los Angeles:

“After reading your article on Mozza, I was wondering if you have ever been to Antica Pizzeria in Marina Del Rey, California?”

I haven’t. The reader maintained the pizza there is as true to Neapolitan pizza as pizza in this country gets. Perhaps someone else who’s been to Antica Pizzeria can second that. Or, of course, dispute it.

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