Midtown Lunch

I wasn’t aware that we’d written about Pizza Italia on Stone St. (btw. Broad & Whitehall) when profiled lunch’er Matt gave his thumbs up to their round grandma and buffalo chicken slices. It turns out that former head Downtown Lunch’er Daniel had indeed checked out this round grandma pie during his tenure and gave it a thumbs up. That post even inspired Zach to muse about what exactly a grandma slice was.

All of this talk of grandmas and slices made me both confused and hungry, so I headed down to the bottom of the Financial District to check out this buffalo chicken slice and see what else Pizza Italia had to offer.

This place is larger than most slice shops down here, and it’s a long walk past mirrored walls to get to the counter in the back. I ordered up a buffalo chicken slice ($4.50) and a regular square grandma slice ($3.25) because it looked good and also because based on looks alone, I thought I might need reinforcements if the meaty slice didn’t pan out.

That buffalo chicken slice was actually way better tasting than looking. There were chunks of chicken breast, fresh mozzarella cheese and a bunch of buffalo chicken sauce. The toppings were more successful than a similar slice at Liberato’s that included blue cheese in the sauce and was a little off putting. My only gripes are the price, and the fact that you basically have to eat this slice on the spot or else it gets super soggy from all the sauce.

The regular grandma slice was pretty great with plenty of tomato sauce that erred on the sweet side, strips of fresh basil and a moderate amount of mozzarella. The crust was super crispy and oily in the best way and it was also a huge slice. I’m not sure if this is better or worse than the round grandma, but if you like the thicker crust, it’s good.

I’m not sure this grandma slice is better than the one I love at Majestic Pizza & Calzone on Cortlandt St., but it’s close. If you’re in the mood for something different, I can go along with Matt and say that the buffalo chicken slice is good, too, if you can stomach the price.

Pizza Italia, 11 Stone St. (btw. Broad & Whitehall), (212) 514-7770