Breadheads take the pizza world
While not known for their sandwiches, pizzaioli across town experiment and rival their pizza creations
Pizzerias across the city make neighborhoods. The West Village has quickly become an epicenter for pizza fanatics with the opening of Mama’s Too and L’Industrie. Williamsburg routinely sees pizza crawls (and our tours) traipsing through the neighborhood with green Fini boxes in hand. And BrooklynDOP has become the crown jewel of Park Slope pizzerias, drawing flocks of pizza tourists to an otherwise residential neighborhood (in part thanks to a WaPo article calling it the best pizza in the nation).
Pizza dough is sandwich dough at the end of the day, and pizzaioli can’t help themselves to experiment with different fermentation and baking techniques. Hence, the explosion of pizzerias offering their newest creations not to mention a higher ticket item ($15-25 per sammy) than the humble slice.
As these pizza guys experiment, their sandwiches have developed a bit of a cult following. L’Industrie only does them on Wednesdays, and Frankie from Mama’s Too posts his varieties - the Buffalina, the cheesteak, the chicken alla vodka—on instagram, his blurry black shoes always visible below. It’s a bit of a “If you know, you know” situation that draws fans out and cultivates a community of fellow foodies and connoisseurs.
The real hero though is BrooklynDOP’s meatball hero. They say not all heroes wear capes, and no truer words have been spoken about this sandwich. The semolina bread stuffed with meatballs goes down smooth, especially when you prime it with the side of sauce.
To paraphrase Alexander Pope, “To pizza is human, to sandwich, divine.”
What other pizza people are changing the sandwich game? Let us know!
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