Midtown Lunch

In recent months I’ve seen multiple posts about Famous Ben’s Pizza on Spring St. (at Thompson) and their Palermo slice. It looked like a delicious brick of carbs, perhaps made not such a gut bomb by its absence of cheese. Then there was a post last week by Ben Leventhal basically calling the slices at Artichoke Basille’s overpriced crap (my words, not his) s0 I opted to head up to Soho for a taste of Famous Ben’s. What I found was a good pizza experience slightly soured by tourists.

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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. Read more »

Oliva Gourmet on Broadway (btw. Vesey & Barclays) seems to court the tourists with promises of plentiful seating and alcohol, since it’s right by the stop for those double decker site seeing buses. Now they’re courting the rest of us with a 99 cent plain slice. The signs don’t say there are restrictions on when the slices are offered, and it has to be better than the 99 cent slice at Papa John’s at Maiden Lane & Nassau. Now if only the other $1 pizza shops would trickle further down Broadway. Joey’s Pepperoni Pizza, I’m looking at you.

I never made it to Battery Park City to check out Samantha’s which was apparently a bastion of good, authentic Italian food. They shuttered, and in its place Benvenuti opened. Pictures of all their fresh pasta and other various Italian goods caught my attention, as did the fact that they were really proud of their Sicilian pizza. So I resolved to trek across the West Side Highway (and through a bunch of construction sites) for my lunch and I wasn’t disappointed.

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If you were one of the people who got sad when the original Ray’s Pizza (no, really) closed on Prince St. btw. Mott & Elizabeth never fear because the replacement is not too shabby. The straightforwardly-named Prince St. Pizza opened just last week and specializes in square slices and rice balls. An inquisitive neighbor peppered the counter guy with questions while I was in there and I learned that they’re not messing around with anything healthy like salad. The lightest option you’re going to find is a thin-crust slice.

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I’m not quite sure why the stretch of Broadway bordering Tribeca is getting all of the $1 slice love, but those of us working elsewhere downtown are jealous. Roll and Go opened a location at Broadway & Franklin trafficking in pizza, gyro and breakfast sandwiches and last week Joey’s Pepperoni Pizza opened a block up the street at Broadway & White selling only slices and the odd Jamaican patty. I decided that cheap pizza was just what I needed for lunch and staged an impromptu matchup between the two places. One of them came out the clear winner, but you’ll have to click through to see what $2 worth of pizza looks and tastes like.

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There are times when you want a greasy New York-style slice and others when something more refined sounds good. Since we are lacking in fancy, affordable Neopolitan-style spots in the general downtown area, I decided to go check out the newish Piazza Seventeen on Cleveland Place (at Lafayette), purveyor of square Roman slices. When they first opened the gimmick was that you could buy slices of pizza and pay by the pound so I was curious as to how much pizza I could get for my $10 budget. My dreams were dashed when I stepped inside the small shop, heeding the call of the “Eat Pizza Here!” sign out front.  Read more »