San Remo and the Universal Ideal
San Remo pizza
1408 Cortelyou Rd. (betw. Marlborough & Rugby Rds.)
718-282-4915
When you hear someone claim pizza connoisseurship, it's usually a sign you're dealing with a pretentious waste of precious DNA. With the average pizzeria producing soggy bread monsters covered in disgustingly sugary sauce and a layer of what is apparently salted neoprene, it's an easy grab at cosmopolitanism to eagerly say, "This is crap," and then cite a place in some obscure part of Queens or Brooklyn (or even New Jersey) as the paragon.
Allowing myself, like a total schmuck, to be taken on two-trains-and-a-bus pilgrimages to several such recommended spots, I have found that they are often selected on idiosyncratic bases, or even because basic competence permits them to be the citation in the denounce-and-cite formula of pizza machismo.
This being such an easy form of criticism, stuff-to-do magazines with their wide-eyed and eager target audiences have paid a lot of attention to artisanal pizza. And of course they would. The proper approach to a traditional New York City food is obviously to be as pedantic as possible. You can hear the eager cries of the foodies, fresh from Nebraska-"Hey, everybody. Let's order artisanal pizza and watch New York documentaries. Then we'll all know what we're talking about."
Some of the fancy pizza is amazing, but if what you want is just a normal slice done so well that it transcends being merely correct, there is a place for that: San Remo.
"So," you're thinking, "this man is an ass and a hypocrite. Isn't this recommendation exactly the sort of thing he was just complaining about?" No. What makes my claim any different? I'm right. San Remo's wins the laurels for three simple reasons:
Conformity to universal ideals.
San Remo's crust is of just such a thickness that, when baked, it comprises the two critical layers: the crispy bottom beneath the thin and delicate layer of moist bread that is the body of the slice. I've made a good deal of pizza myself, so I can appreciate the subtlety of this matter. If you regularly make tomato sauce and it is anything less than delicious, you are a culinary dunce, insensitive to your own failures. But crust is hard to do; grappling with the crust issue can drive a man away from trying to make pizza, and San Remo makes spectacular crust. Mind you, this is not thin-crust pizza but merely the thinner-than-average that average should be.
San Remo's sauce is proper in the fullest sense. First of all, it is not very sweet, and seasonings are applied with a light hand. Moreover, with the tomatoes finely crushed, but not pureed, its texture is perfect.
The cheese is well-portioned, distributed and melted, which might not sound like much of an achievement, but is. This is a critical point of balance and they nail it.
Consistency.
As a friend of mine likes to say, "People talk about these places like they're McDonald's-like you're getting the same thing every time." Obviously, the finer points of the product vary with the man making the pies, and the very finest points vary from pie to pie at the fluctuating limits of his performance. There is some natural variation, but I have never known a pizzeria so reliable as this one.
A few items done well, rather than a broad array of ziti-covered crap.
You know what I'm talking about: "Hello, and welcome to the LES Museum of Pizza and Pizza-Like Foodstuffs." You've seen the glass and stainless-steel displays filled with a cornucopia of bastard pizzas. Each is artlessly heaped with some mixture of toppings aimed at philistines-the kind of people who are clearly more enticed by fanciful notions of what will taste good than by memories of what has tasted good. Even if any one of these pies was ever acceptable, it is not now, sweating oil in its long and gaudy fashion show.
Although San Remo has a full-on Italian kitchen, as well as a sit-down restaurant to come, their at-the-ready items include only a few types of pizza, some rolls and several snack items like mozzarella sticks and garlic knots. The relatively small number of pre-made pies combined with a fairly brisk business tends to keep things fresh.
Beyond superlative conventional slices, there are also spectacular specialty slices. The finest among these, in my opinion, is the fresh-mozzarella-and-tomato slice. With a generous, but not excessive coverage of melted white mozzarella and scattered tomato slices, as well as small patches of minced garlic and basil in olive oil, it is the very model of simple excellence.
In the average week, San Remo probably accounts for about one-third of my caloric intake. I keep thinking that it can't possibly be healthy to eat this much pizza, but I can't stop going back. My enthusiasm isn't even diminished. I just don't seem to get tired of perfectly executed pizza.