Restaurant Review: Lucia Pizza of Avenue X

Walk into any New York City pizzeria, with a few well-known exceptions, and you can order with your eyes closed: A thin slice of cheese is inevitable, a slice of Sicily or grandma, an all-cheese white pie is inevitable. can happen. There will certainly be pepperoni, and because many owners buy from the same supplier, the pepperoni you get in the Bronx this week won’t be significantly different from the pepperoni you got in Queens last week.

Most pizzerias are like cover bands. Some kicks are harder than others, but they play to the same standard. Every so often, however, one of those bands starts writing his own songs.

That is Di Fara Pizza’s story in Midwood, which appeared to be a corner slicer but was so intricate in composition and proportions that it started a slice renaissance around New York City. Now it seems to be the story of Lucia Pizza of X Avenue, a four-month-old store in Sheepshead Bay.

You could easily mistake Lucia for an ordinary Brooklyn puzzle piece that’s been around forever, if it weren’t for the fresh paintwork on the two signs above the door – one with the crossed Italian and American flags; the other invites the customer “Come by and get your cake!”

About 20 seats are scattered around a simple dining room. Opposite the door is the kitchen, with Bakers Pride Classic Gas Oven stainless steel and cardboard pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling. Integrated into the counter at knee level is a self-serve drinks fridge whose inventory suggests that someone in Lucia loves cherry soda.

But you know that Lucia has strayed from the slice-of-the-mortar stereotype when you walk up to the counter and are presented with a “spring menu.” It’s almost twice as long as the skeleton “welcome winter menu” in effect when the place first opened. In fact, the longer list is still somewhat aspirational. When I tried to order a bagel, a Sicilian flatbread, I was told, “We’re not ready to serve that.”

Apart from this little bit of paraphernalia, the pleasures of the menu are real. A white cake, salsiccia, spread with fluffy white islands of whipped ricotta surrounded by pork sausage that is toasted into crispy brown pebbles – not the usual gray marbles that roll out of the crust when you hold it. go up. Scattered on it were fresh parsley and shallots shaved thin enough to wilt in the oven. Oil-brewed Calabrian peppers are also topped, though you may not notice them until their heat makes you widen your eyes.

A variation on the pork and chili theme appears in the caramelle piccanti. This dish is based on the standard sauce of tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella. Their temperature was raised by pickled cherry peppers and a few drops of hot Mike’s honey, a bottle kept on the counter for customers to apply at will. Pork is in the form of small slices of pepperoni that have sunk, like contact lenses, during the baking process.

Pizza cognoscenti will recognize these as “roni cups,” a hallmark of neoclassical slice shops, such as By Paulie Gee, Mama’s Too and other pizzerias west of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Despite the reputation of the cups has spreadstill a small surprise to see them mixed with spicy orange oil a few blocks from the Belt Parkway.

Sheepshead Bay isn’t exactly a clam pizza stronghold either, but Lucia can make it one. On Fridays, Lucia makes a cake that is different from the New Haven version. In Connecticut, the clams are placed directly on the dough, but Lucia places them on top of melted mozzarella cheese. New Haven custom also requires raw garlic; In Sheepshead Bay, garlic is boiled in olive oil until golden, then briefly simmered with crushed fresh cherries, white wine, and butter. This sauce is basically what is mixed with reishi at hundreds of Italian restaurants around town. It makes for a comfortingly light pizza, even if it doesn’t match the bare strength of the pizzas here. Zuppardi’s Apizza.

Lucia is a new pizzeria, still finding its way. I hope to finally be able to do something about the shell. It has been designed for crunch and a satisfying bite. It is less satisfying to chew; the taste is flat and bland, without the depth that the best pizzerias create in their dough.

I imagine the dough is being tested, with all other indications that Lucia is unhappy with filling her kitchen with products purchased during the last sale at Acme Pizza Supply. Tomato sauce tastes fresh and bright, not bitter or high in sugar. Fresh white mushrooms are cooked to perfection, rich in flavor and fleshy. Ricotta whipped that is really good. Then shredded basil leaves are tossed over the cakes as they leave the oven, along with finely ground pecorino fibers. These are touches that elevate even the simplest of Lucia’s dishes, like classic New York slices and margaritas, with fresh mozzarella cheese arranged over the sauce in concentric rings.

The creator of all these cupcakes is Salvatore Carlino, Lucia’s owner. He grew up in a neighborhood of squat brick houses and wide alleys behind. For more than 40 years, his parents ran Papa Leone, an Italian restaurant attached to the nearby Manhattan beach pizzeria, where he used to help. Papa Leone at Lucia is a vodka scone based on his father’s recipe.

Under the name P.leoneMr. Carlino has another career as a musician, producer and DJ (He said that his music sounds “Like a bound Q train in Brooklyn, packed and full of delays. A little inconvenient, but a lot of fun. ) He was working in Berlin until the pandemic forced him to move home to Brooklyn.

With no club to play, he spent hours baking pizza in an outdoor oven. Caramelle piccanti was born in his backyard. One day, an empty restaurant space appeared on X Avenue. He leased it out and started a new project: old, remixed family tunes.

Meaning of the stars Because of the pandemic, the restaurants are not given a star rating.