57 Napoli’s $6 Pizza Special is Kind of a Let Down

Every time a new pizza place opens in Midtown I get hopeful that we will be one step closer to ending the Midtown pizza debate once and for all. 57 Napoli Pizza E Vino seemed promising enough but a bit too expensive, until they introduced the $6 10-inch personal pizza made with fresh mozzarella. It seemed too good to be true.

Could this be the Midtown Lunch fancy pizza savior we’ve been waiting for?

One thing before the pizza: you guys should be super excited when I wake up at half past dawn to go running. Simply put, it gives me the metabolism of a fat guy. Even with a big breakfast, my stomach is still a bottomless pit at lunchtime (i.e. it takes a LOT of food to make me happy for the afternoon.) On the morning I went to 57 Napoli, I did manage to roll out of bed and get on the treadmill. In other words, I was really ready to put 57 Napoli’s $6 pizza to the test.

As I waited for my lunch, I noticed what others were eating-thin crust, crunchy, appetizing pizzas. Nice toppings, good upskirts, between that and the photo on I Dream of Pizza, it looked like my pizzetta would be the perfect lunch. The 10″ pizza looked to be the equivalent of one and a half to two slices, and is cooked in a wood-fired brick oven (I’m totally willing to do $3 a slice for brick oven pizza.)

Then mine came.

$6 pizza

It looked small, with regular shredded mozzarella cheese.  No fresh mozzarella here. No little clippings of basil leaves. I was surprised, but not deterred.  After all taste is the most important thing, and $6 is still a good deal. Sadly the sauce is way sweeter than I personally like, the crust fairly flimsy, soggy, and bland. Pick up one piece and you can easily have a cheese sliding off broken crust mess. Between the sweet sauce and the crust, it reminded me of Elio’s (aka cafeteria pizza) and there wasn’t nearly enough of it to even partially satiate my hunger.

Maybe I got the wrong pizza?  Or did I make a mistake by not tipping off the restaurant to the fact that their food would be on the interwebs! (We’re not “reviewers” here on Midtown Lunch, who take photos first and ask questions later.  We’re just regular lunchers, who happen to pull out out a camera after the food already comes out.)

So, in the end the $6 pizza was a total disappointment.  I know fresh mozzarella is expensive.  And for $6 what do you expect?  Plus they just opened.  Maybe it will get better?  In other words I’m not completely giving up on this place, but I would have probably been better off trying their under $10 chicken parm instead- and may still stop by for that. But next time I want an under-$10 personal pizza, I’ll just spend two more dollars and get an entire pie at 99¢ pizza.

57 Napoli Pizza E Vino (on the second floor of C’est Bon Cafe), 120 East 57th St. (between Park & Lex), 212-750-4586

19 Comments

  • Wow, disappointing $6 personal pie? :(
    I guess I will have to stick with 2 Bros. then.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    fresh mozzarella and basil leaf? i think youre thinking of a margaritta pizza

    those are usually more expensive but worth the cost IMO. for personal brick oven in flatiron i go to waldys on 6th between 27th and 28th, i dont know of any other brick ovens in the area but i have to admit i havent really looked

    • User has not uploaded an avatar

      Check out the picture of the pizza that the I Dream of Pizza guy was served as part of the $6 special. Stark difference.

  • You should never tip off a place. You want the common man’s experience

  • Hmmm. The pizza looks like the pizza at the Patsy’s in Sparlem, except the Patsy’s pizza is larger. Wish there was a pic that scales it.

    Good call on working out to eat like a fat man. I do that too. Though I can’t do the morning work outs.

  • ….it looks like a sanitary towel

  • Geez, that pizza that the I Dream of Pizza guy got is a totally different pie. Did anyone else go and try this special? Do you have options for what pizza to get or is it just 6 bucks, and then you get what you’re given?

  • This whole thing is very curious indeed…

  • I Dream of Pizza added an update to his review:

    * Update: It’s been brought to my attention that although the pizza in the photo above was served to me as the $6.00 lunch special, the typical $6.00 pie does not include fresh mozzarella and basil. That being said, your best bet might be splitting a Buffalina D.O.C. pie (featured in photo 1 with Salvatore) with two friends. The pie has tomato sauce, fresh buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, and basil. It costs $22 — or about $8 each with tax.

    • LOL. It was “brought to his attention” by us. There’s still no clarification as to exactly what happened…

      Although his idea to split a real pizza between 3 people sounds like the way to go.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    So I guess you get special treatments if you don’t go in incognito. I trust this review much more.

  • I still don’t get why his pie pie was completely different. Unless they realized it was too costly and just completely changed.

  • This is kind of messed up for the bait and switch. Kind of like Saunders for Alves in the potential Fitch rematch leaving you with a subpar product.

  • It’s obvious. Who ever this dream of pizza guy is, he got the Press/Blogger special. Free food that is much better then the actual lay man’s version. Any respectable person… ahhh forget it.. I just feel bad for Blondie, what a let down.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Hey! Jason from I Dream Of Pizza here… so just a little more info about my visit…

    When I got there, I ordered a $6 lunch special, paid, and then my order (that the cashier/hostess wrote down) was handed over to the kitchen.

    The pies take about 10-15 minutes to make. And there’s really nowhere for someone waiting for a takeout order to stand. The place is tiny and waiters are going back and forth between the oven area and the tables. So essentially I was just kind of standing against a wall, waiting for my pie to come out.

    To kill some time, I took out my iPhone and snapped a few photos of the kitchen. This is what I’m guessing may have tipped the staff off that I wasn’t a typical diner. I guess I could have waited until after my pizza was handed to me to take any photos, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.

    Anyway, bottom line is Brownie’s review is probably more along the lines of what you’ll experience there. Which stinks because I had a lot of hope for this place after the delicious pie I ate. But one of the best things about the place was the quality of food for the price you’re paying. So if what I ate actually costs $10 or $12… well, that’s another story.

    Hope that clarifies!!

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Hi!
    Stephanie from 57 Napoli here. I believe the discruntled comments should be addressed because I don’t want misinformation about the place out there nor do I want people to think that we’re attempting a “bait and switch”.

    To clarify, we did not make a “special” pizza for Jason from I dream of Pizza. Our 10″ lunch special pizza is with our hand-pulled home made mozzarella with basil. I’m sorry that Brownie got the pizza pictured above. Salvatore Olivella the executive pizza chef (formerly of L’asso & Numero 28) has his name at 57 Napoli Pizza e Vino and would never put his name on a pizza that is subpar to the quality that he is famous for.

    We are a very new pizza place and we’re still trying to get our staff together and unfortunately this was one of those instances where a new hired pizza helper in the lunch rush, didn’t stick to our consistent delicious thin crust pizzetta and in essence went “rogue”.

    I don’t want people to think that we’re trying to rip people off. Then again, I work here, so you can believe what you want, but I suggest if you haven’t given a pizzetta a try and if you did in the last week, try it again and see what the real lunch special pizzetta looks like.

  • Stephanie? But your handle says johnfranco? Mets fan?
    Whatever. Let’s see if the personal pie goes back to fresh mozzarella and basil next week then…
    I’ll see if I can go sometime and won’t be taking any pics.

    And at least it sounds like Jason didn’t try to flaunt a press pass for any pizza upgrade.

  • The first time I got this pie it looked the one pictured above. Just got it again today and they’ve corrected the situation. It looks almost as good as the one pictured on I dream of pizza. This place is pretty random, I’ve split a 10″ with my coworker and there were 4 basil leaves on the pie. Today the pizzette has more basil than the 10″, maybe they’re trying to do damage control.

    Great pie for $6.50

  • Balls they don’t do this anymore

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