New York Pizza Round Two -- Village Pizzeria, Tomato Pie, Little Toni's

Village Pizzeria
131 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 465-5566
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

Tomato Pie
7751 1/2 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 653-9993
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

Little Toni's
4745 Lankershim Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91602
(818) 763-0131
Google Maps, Reviews, Info

As I expected, my last post about New York style pizza in Los Angeles generated a mini-firestorm. Not so many comments here, but a record number of daily hits on the site, a nice link from la.eater, and recommendations from half a dozen friends about their favorite NY style pie in town. Your dedicated Food Crazy is nothing if diligent in following up recommendations, particularly if by doing my culinary duty I can escape my low-carb diet for a day or two. So here are the latest entries, and the current standings.

Village Pizzeria I've been up and down Larchmont Blvd. dozens of times in the past decade. I get my hair cut there, I go to Le Petit Greek every now and again, and there's some great Italian bistro food. But somehow I'd never noticed Village Pizzeria until my friend Terry (who cites his NY pizza faves as Grimaldi's in Brooklyn and Lombardi's in Manhattan) sent me here. It's very much in the same mode as Lamonica's. The walls are covered with sports memorabilia from New York and (oddly) San Francisco. It took me a while to figure out why photos of Jerry Rice adorn the walls of a Brooklyn pizza parlor: apparently, the first Village Pizzeria outpost opened in SF. It has the feeling of a step-up-and-order-a-slice place, but it isn't. It's table service, and after standing unnoticed at the counter for a bit I was told to take a seat. The slice that arrived is what I, before I began this quest, imagined to be classic New York pizza. Ultra thin, floppy crust. My friend oB told me, if you can't fold it in half lengthwise, it's not New York pizza. Village Pizzeria fits the bill.


My slice featured spicy, ultra thin sliced pepperoni, curled up around the edges like Quisp cereal, and with a little puddle of grease in each one. The mozzarella was unusually tangy. My Coke came in a classic, logoed red plastic cup. Jerry Rice says, "two thumbs up, this is good NY pie, go Niners." Another branch is scheduled to open in December, 2007 on Yucca and Ivar in the heart of Hollywood.

Tomato Pie My friend Tom sent me to his favorite, Tomato Pie on Melrose. Tom extolled the owner's obsessive chemical analysis of Los Angeles vs. NYC tap water in his effort to recreate that elusive dough. Again, this is a fine slice.


The dough thickness is somewhere between Vito's and Village. The sauce is tangy, the slice is foldable; but the vaunted crust, chemically analyzed though it may be, didn't work for me. It was slightly undercooked, and a little chewy for my taste. But I'll go back to give it another try. It's worth the trip if for no other reason than to sit at a sidewalk table and watch the fashion parade that accompanies the end of classes at Fairfax High across the street. I note that a goodly number of students sally forth from their studies and charge immediately into Tomato Pie.

Little Toni's Little Toni's is really in a different category from the other joints here. It's a classic, old school, red naugahyde and red sauce sit down Italian, complete with Shakey's style stained glass in the windows. I worked for three years less than a quarter mile up Lankershim from this spot. How did I not know about it? This is the old school Italian of your dreams, kicking all manner of ass over Miceli's, Antonio's, and the like.


Yes, it's dark. Yes, the bottles of house chianti are cheap and drinkable. Yes, there is as much crust on the waitresses as on the pizza. But the pizza is simply sublime. I was with a group, so we had a big combo of sausage, onion, garlic, mushroom and olive.


Even with all the toppings, the crust managed an almost supernatural combination of crispness and lightness, equally so from the tip of the slice to the outer rim. This would not pass oB's fold-in-half-test; the crust is too firm. But for me, the pizza is greater than the sum of its parts, an eluctable and indivisible whole that includes the comfort of the surroundings, the beverage that washes it down, and the capacity to share it all with friends in a big comfy booth. And Little Toni's delivers, pardon the pun. It's my new favorite VENUE for "NY Style" pie in town.

But my favorite NY style pizza... just the pie itself? It's still Pizza Bella, the odd little booth at the back of Whitley Heights market on Franklin and Highland. I reviewed it here. It's not perfect... it can take 10-15 minutes to get your slice, delivery takes forever, the puchasing process (get tag here, go to front of market to pay, return with receipt) is arcane, and you have to endure the gaze of those Star Wars standees while you wait. But the slice itself is, for me, unbeatable.

The current standings (until I get another must-try recommendation) for best NY-style pizza in Los Angeles:

1. Pizza Bella
2. Little Toni's
3. Vito's
4. Lamonica's
5. Village Pizzeria
6. Tomato Pie

NOTE: I wrote this yesterday to post today. I see in today's obituaries that Sam Martorano, the founder of Casa Bianca in Glendale has passed away. I love Casa Bianca, though I can't see categorizing its unique style as being "New York." But I do plan to go have a pie there, just to pay my respects.

New York Pizza -- Vito's vs. Lamonica's

Lamonica's
1066 Gayley Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 208-8671
Google Local Info

Vito's Pizza

846 N La Cienega Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90069

Get Directions

(310) 652-6859
Google Local Info

Before the NYC pizza smackdown, a plug for my wife Sa. This is the final weekend of EEMED, an Evening of Experimental Middle Eastern Dance. It's some of the Southland's best belly dance troupes in a group show featuring non-traditional music and choreography. From Sa's Pirates-inspired piece with the Perfumes of Araby to Desert Sin's jaw-dropping Hut of Baba Yaga, it's a very cool evening of watching scantily-clad ladies shake it to slinky tunes. For more info and tickets, click here.

Okay, on to the chow.

The ragingest foodie debate in in town has to be about the "best New York style pizza." Not only who serves it, but if, in fact, it exists in California. (Logically, of course, it doesn't. If it's not served in New York it's no longer New York by definition. The same could be said about Santa Maria Style BBQ, or Ensenada Fish tacos, or Hong Kong style seafood. Anyone who's tried to find a proper chili cheeseburger outside of LA knows what I'm talking about.)

Now, I'm a native Southern Californian, but I've done some time in Manhattan. I ate a lot pizza there, at some of the "right" places and some of the "wrong" places, and found it all to be, you know, pizza. Some of it was very good, some of it unremarkable, but I didn't find anything quintessentially or homogenously "New York" about it. There were thick crusts, thin crusts, saucy pizzas, cheesy pizzas... just like here.

But to New Yorkers, there seems to be something ineffable in their pizza, such that they find SoCal pie, in all of its variety, to be unworthy the name. So I went to two of the top contenders -- or, some would say, pretenders -- to the title of "best NY style pizza in L.A." to see what all the fuss is about.

Lamonica's has a nondescript storefront on Gayley Ave. a few blocks south of the UCLA campus. (Sorry, no photos... Food Crazy forgot his digital Elph). Inside, it's a classic college-town vibe -- if the town is New York. The walls are decorated with New York street signs and a lightup subway map. You might as well be in the East Village. Lamonica's (a sign proudly proclaims) flies in their dough from New York. Some New Yorkers say their pie is all about the dough. (They say the same about their bagels. Some even assert that it's the ... ahem... savory qualities of the East River water table that gives New York dough its signature texture and flavor The pie at Lamonica's is not what I picture when I think New York pizza... it's not a big, floppy, thin-crust triangle, it's an average-looking, Pizza Hut-sized slice. But the quality is remarkable. It's a perfect balance of cheese and sauce. The sweet italian sausage on my slice is intense with fennel and sweet spice. But it is, in fact, the crust that's noteworthy. Perfectly browned and crisp on the bottom, with a gentle char. There's a custardy top layer that tastes like "more!" In fact, whether because of the surprisingly small slice or the deliciousness of the product, I was still hungry after one slice, and ordered another (pepperoni). In any rustic contruction like a pizza, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that's the case here. The Lamonica's pie has a an intense, slightly gritty quality that, combined with the funky decor, certainly evokes New York.

Or maybe it was the East River I was tasting.

Vito's, formerly of Los Feliz, has moved into a nondescript strip mall on the stretch of LaCienega filled with art galleries, rug emporia, and mid-end restaurants. No Manhattan vibe here like Lamonica's; it feels more like a Subway than the subway. But the slice is awesome. It has the same custardy crust as Lamonica's, but here, thin slices of jalapeño offset the sweetness of the slice's Italian sausage. Maybe I'm just being influenced by surroundings, but the pie tastes somehow "cleaner" to me, less gritty, perhaps more Californian, and -- for my taste at least -- a little better.


I'm not sure yet how these pies would compare side by side to some of my other favorites -- Antica, Dino's, and my personal favorite Pizza Bella. And being a non-New Yorker, I wouldn't presume to venture an opinion about their "authenticity" (the most overrated word in food criticism, IMHO). But they are tasty, tasty specimens of the species, and if you haven't checked 'em out, you should.

Pizza Bella -- Outstandee!

PIZZA BELLA
1900 N. Highland Ave.
(inside Whitley Heights Liquor Market)
Hollywood CA 90028
(323) 876-4712
Open 7 days, 11am - 11pm
M, V, AMEX
Free Delivery

You know the strip mall on the northeast corner of Franklin & Highland? It's always been a kind of forlorn place. There's a Starbucks, a Subway, a Japanese restaurant, the requisite cleaners and florists... and what's now called Whitley Heights market.

Whitley Heights market was once a Hughes supermarket. When that went out of business in the early '80s, it became the "Huge" market for awhile. (I love it when new owners save a buck by knocking down letters of an existing sign with a sledgehammer. Have you ever noticed the "Exaco" gas station on Sunset Blvd?). Though "Huge Market" features prominently and glitzily in the Ren & Stimpy cartoon where Stimpy goes to Hollywood, it was always scary as hell going in there... rows of half-empty supermarket shelves, dusty bottles of wine, and a grim cashier who always seemed badly in need of a fix. Over the past couple of years it's spruced up nicely. You can actually kind of shop there now, though the decor is a mondo bizarro blend of movie standees, stuffed animals, and giant plastic beer bottles. But the strangest thing in a strange place is that tucked in the back corner is what just might be the best NY style pizza joint for miles around.

Here's the dish...

You step up to the counter and place your slice order. $2.55 for cheese, 55c for each extra ingredient. You pick up a drink or whatever else you want from the supermarket area, pay the supermarket cashier, and hang out at one of the three mismatched tables set around the pizza booth (one has an umbrella, in case you're seeking... um, shade in the supermarket). After a few minutes, your slice is ready.

It's huge. Nearly a cubit long, it covers two standard-sized paper plates. It's thin crust, so it undulates over the plates like a snake on a Spanish tile roof. Picking it up with two hands, you fold the thing in half out of sheer instinct, just to to manage it. Although it's floppy, the underside has a slightly blackened outer crust to it, so that the slice manages to be crisp and toothsome at the same time. The sausage, as my friend and photographer Hughes says, isn't that gravelly stuff you often see on pizzas, but a tasty sliced sweet Italian. The basil is fresh. My pepperoni and red onion is a great blend of spicy and sweet. My personal taste in pizza is for generous sauce and ingredients and moderate cheese, and this one is balanced just right, though the sauce runs out a little toward the outer rim of the pie. I'm tempted to order the pie with extra sauce, but I fear it would destabilize the fragile balance that keeps the thin crust from being at all soggy. As it is, the whole thing is a satisfying, surprising, and just-greasy-enough experience.

There are so many exciting things about this. Hollywood has always seemed a surprisingly difficult place to grab a quick bite of something tasty while on the road. Pizza Bella is conveniently located at the busiest intersection in town. Plus you can grab some cereal, razors, a bottle of Ketel One or other necessary sundries while you're waiting for your pizza. Of course they do whole pies too, and not only do they deliver, but you can also add groceries to your pizza order.

And where else can you have a pepperoni slice under the watchful eyes of highly collectible standees of Michael Jackson, R2D2, James Dean, and George W. Bush? Where else, I ask?

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Hughes Hall joins me on this post as special food photographer. Check out his photo blog at seeingeyeblog.com