The best pizza grows in Brooklyn. We know this. Perfecting your dough craft outer-borough style before bringing those pie skills to the big time seems to be a theme these days, so it comes as no surprise that with a brand already established in Williamsburg, Mathieu Palombino’s Motorino (which the NY Times awarded “best new generation pizza”) recently opened up their first Manhattan annex in the East Village. Their small pizzeria is in the old Una Pizza Napoletana space on 12th street’s mini restaurant row. Having an award winning oven already in place, Motorino has hit the ground running. The masses will now get a taste of Motorino’s unbeatable margherita and signature soppressata pies.
Food Rundown:
Margherita
Crust perfection is what goes on here. Puffy, doughy, and crispy all at the same time, this might be my favorite crust in NYC. If it were possible to order a full pie of crust, I’d be all over that. The rest of this gooey sensation is just as good and can rival any fresh margherita pie this side of the East River.
Soppressata Piccante
You know those pizzas where the middle turns into an amazing hot mess of melted cheese, warm tomato sauce, and whatever else it’s topped with? This pie is just that. In this case, the thin slices of soppressata are practically swimming in goodness.
Pugliese
Now this is an interesting pizza with a combination of burrata, broccolini, sausage, fresh chilies, and garlic. The burrata is a nice touch, and the fresh, unusually soft Italian cheese has a center that’s a mix of both mozzarella and cream, which makes it ideal to spread atop Motorino’s warm, pillowy dough. The rich, buttery taste nicely balances the spiciness of the fresh chilies. However, the broccolini, which is more rabe than actual broccolini, adds a bitterness that upsets the rest of the pizza’s combination.
Brussels Sprout
This pie, topped with crispy Brussels sprouts leaves, smoked pancetta, mozzarella, garlic, and pecorino was a little too salty for our taste, and the smokiness of the pancetta dominated many of the otherwise good flavors. Don’t get us wrong, we’d choose this over a mediocre pie from another pizza joint, but it’s just not the one we’d go to first on this menu.
