Midtown Lunch

Which one of these looks like your Grandma made it?

I have to say I was completely confused by the triangular slice of “grandma pizza” our Downtown Lunch correspondent Daniel Krieger posted about last Friday from Pizza Italia. Admittedly, I don’t know a ton about grandma pizza since my only exposure to it has been at the Jiannetto’s Pizza Truck on 47th btw. Park+Mad.  But I was under the impression that the one common quality shared by all Grandma style pizzas is that the slices are rectangular, right?  I checked in with Daniel, and he had this to say:

“Grandma slice has like a sweet/tangy sauce that I believe is slow stewed. I also just read somewhere its fresh tomatoes instead of canned but I don’t know if that’s accurate (someone said it on a board). It usually has fresh mozzarella on it and has the cheese on the bottom and then is covered with the sauce (as opposed to traditionally being vice versa). And is almost always a square baked pie like you said, not triangle. That’s why this one is a bit unique”

Wait- so what exactly makes this a grandma slice then? I decided to check in with the expert…

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

I’m going to have to say that Pizza Italia has the best Grandma slice I’ve had downtown. I specifically went to check this joint out at the recommendation of two blue shirts I met at the Taste of Downtown festival. We were chatting about the food when I asked where their favorite places to eat down here were. One guy said his favorite slice of pizza was definitely “the triangle Grandma slice at Pizza Italia.”

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (ensuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.) This week Daniel hits up the brand new Farinella, which from his description of $3 slices of potato pizza, and small sandwiches for $7, sounds almost like the Downtown version of Sullivan St. Bakery (if Jim Lahey was an Italian hip hop artist.)

“What have I done to deserve this flavorless pizza????” (Said in my butchered Marlon Brando voice). That’s what I used to ask when sampling most downtown pizza joints. There wasn’t really a decent spot for a slice until Farinella, a new Italian bakery/pizzeria, opened this past Monday. I checked in on opening day with high expectations and was not disappointed.

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