Midtown Lunch

There are so many pizza places downtown that I haven’t even begun to chip away at eating at all of them. While walking down Cedar St. between William and Pearl the other day I noticed a pizza place called Liberatos next to Pita Press and after deciding to go inside to take a look, couldn’t resist getting a couple of slices for research purposes. What I found was some decent pizza, and a great foundation.

The slices here are priced on par with most other places in the FiDi with a plain costing $2.50. Once you start adding toppings and getting fancy, the cost escalates but I wanted something different from a cheese slice so I went a little more unconventional than I normally do.

I ordered a margarita slice and after asking what toppings were on another one, was talked into a buffalo chicken slice. Both were $3.75. There was a square grandma pie but it really didn’t look good so I passed. I saw a couple of people order heroes and those looked OK if a little pricey at $9. According to the menu you can get them on garlic bread, so there’s that.

The toppings on the margarita slice were OK. The basil wasn’t as fresh as I would have liked and the sauce was a little too sweet but there was a good amount of cheese if you’re into that sort of thing. The highlight of this slice was definitely the crust which was solidly crispy and didn’t have cornmeal all over the bottom of it.

As far as weirdly-topped slices go, you could do a lot worse than the buffalo chicken one I tried. The chunks of chicken breast really did taste like spicy buffalo wings to them, and you could definitely taste the blue cheese flavor mingling with the actual mozzarella. And don’t worry celery haters – there wasn’t too much of that on the pizza.

Liberatos is not a destination pizza place by any stretch but judging by the crowd that formed after I got my slices, it’s a go-to spot for a lot of office workers nearby.

Liberatos Pizza, 17 Cedar St. (btw. William & Pearl) (212) 344-3464