ANTICO

This is not some Carrabba’s Italian-joint bullshit. These non-English-speaking kitchen dudes had no idea when we asked to photograph the place. Inside the kitchen you are surrounded by stainless steel work tables with about seven or eight pizza cooks slicing meats, cutting vegetables, hand-kneading dough, folding boxes, and feeding the three 900-degree Sorrento stone ovens. Fact: these ovens, handmade in Naples—Italy—and shipped by sea, weigh over 10,000 pounds each. The heat is contained by Santa Maria brick and volcanic rock from Mount Vesuvius (no shit) laid beneath the cooking chamber. Apparently there are five of these in the states and Antico has three of them. I couldn’t confirm this.

Depending on how busy they are, you still get your pizza relatively quickly since the ovens are so fuckin’ hot. Nine hundred degrees, right? The first bite—Jesus Christ! This was the San Gennaro pie. The dough was a perfect combination of thick, thin, chewy and some parts a little crunchy. This is not New York style, which we love…this is something else, something special…this is pizza, the perfect pizza. Every bite had a little basil and oregano, fresh Italian link sausage (otherwise known as salsiccia), and those sweet red peppers. This shit was like I was whisked to some old fucking Italian lady’s kitchen in the middle of nowhere Italy. I loved it. The two other pies where exactly the same, fuckin’ perfect in every way. The only thing missing was a kick-ass Belgian ale of some sort…maybe a hoppy American craft beer? Shit, who knows…but Antico is BYOB, so come prepared.

Photo Credit: Tim Song