After seeing a picture of the most delicious-looking breakfast pizza on Serious Eats yesterday, and then following its trail back to more posts about the rest of the pizzas being made at Motorino, I decided we must eat there. Immediately.
Motorino originally opened in Williamsburg, but has just recently opened a second location on 12th street, between 1st and 2nd avenues—just around the corner from our apartment in the old Una Pizza Napoleatana spot. Rumor had it that Motorino served comparable Naples-style pizzas. That’s a pretty big compliment. Una was so well-revered that people flocked to it despite its very high prices (close to $20 per pie, individual servings), limited hours (Thursday through Sunday only, and only if pizza-maker Anthony Mangieri hadn’t run out of dough), long waits, and cash-only, eat-in only policies. Mangieri would take off for weeks at time to travel back to Naples to work on his craft and had the oven custom-made in Italy; but he sold to Motorino last summer and, it’s said, will open a new place in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco within the next few months.
We only went to Una once: there’s so much great pizza to be had in this city and the difficulty of getting ahold of (and cost of having) an Una pie kept us from making it a first choice. Once Artichoke went in across the street, we found ourselves going there for a slice when pizza beckoned and we wanted something close to home.
But I’m excited to say that Motorino Manhattan was fantastic! The crust was light and delicious with a nice amount of char, there was a good amount of basil, and the buffalo mozzarella—melty and dotted over the light tomato sauce—was so, so tasty. Really excellent. We split a Margharita and a Stracchiatelli. The latter was a white pizza with cheese, basil, sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil.
We’ll definitely be back. They’re open everyday, one can get take-out or delivery, the pizzas aren’t too expensive, and they’re right around the corner! At some point I’ll have to try the breakfast pizza (I think we’ll have to go to Brooklyn for that), but for now, I’d be pretty content to repeat last night’s meal.
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