Midtown Lunch

I like to try new restaurants, but for certain foods, I tend to stick to one place. Pizza is one of those foods, and for my lunch needs, Previti is the place to go. But sometimes you have to force yourself to try something new, so this week I stopped by La Trattoria (corner of 2nd Ave. + 45th St.)

To me, pizza places mean pizza and heros. For my hero, I went with the classic chicken parm ($6.50). Glued shut by a plentiful amount of mozzarella cheese, the sandwich was filled with slices of breaded chicken cutlets. You can tell by looking at the breading that it has plenty of dried Italian herbs mixed in. The herby flavor did well to cut through the cheese.

The sauce was also flavorful, but was nothing special, tending to get a bit lost in each bite.

The bread was a standard hero roll, closer to what you get with a Philly cheesesteak than a typical Italian hero. The softness of the bread meant the chicken doesn’t slide out with each bite, and the crust had a slight crispness from two trips in the pizza oven.

Overall, it was a good hero. It was typically large, but not overly stuffed with chicken, meaning you won’t be, either. The great bread Previti makes its sandwiches on will probably draw me back there, but when looking for a more classic sandwich, La Trattoria is a good option.

Looking at the pizza they had available when I stopped in, the grandma slice looked best, so I went with that. Unlike the heavily-herbed chicken parm, I’d best describe the flavors of this slice as bright. The sauce, the fresh basil – they all just popped.

I know there’s always debate over what constitutes a proper grandma slice, and this slice apparently couldn’t decide either. It’s crust is neither thin nor thick, somewhere in between a regular slice and Sicilian.

There fresh mozzarella cheese is topped with a thick sauce that I hesitate to even call a sauce, It was more like they took whole, crushed tomatoes (the menu says pomodoro) and placed them on the pizza. You have to maneuver to get some in each bite, but it’s worthwhile when you do.

The slice was topped with one large leaf of basil. It got nice and crispy from the oven, but still tasted fresh. It might have been nice if it was torn into pieces for better coverage, though, since I wound up eating it in one bite.

La Trattoria’s menu says that the slice comes with olive oil, which made it excessively greasy. Despite that, this great slice will keep me coming back to La Trattoria.

La Trattoria, 844 2nd Ave. (at the corner of 45th St.), (212) 682-5656