March 7, 2011 |
Short Order
Don't Call Tresanti a Pizzeria
by Alissa M
erksamer
Pizza Margherita
When Grubstreet pegged Tresanti “our city’s eleventy millionth brick-oven pizzeria,” co-owner Gerry Longi felt stung. It's a “trattoria with fine-dining service,” he tells me while a penguined waiter zooms by with a tray. Last week, Gerry, son Michael, and co-owner Greg Roman threw a small party to prove it.
One peek at Chef John Navarria's deconstructed lasagna and I'm convinced. It arrives as a coil of fresh pasta, crispy on top but progressivly pliant as you work your fork downward until you ultimately penetrate a core of ricotta and bolognese. Truffle gnocchi emerge in a shot glass amidst a few pieces of pancetta and enough brown butter to coat but not quite qualify as a sauce. Braised rabbit tucked in a phyllo pouch only looks ordinary. One nibble sends the mind reeling toward visions of the Italian countryside. Only the delicate tuna tartar on a homemade potato chip seems out of place in this Italian-American lineup.
The oven at work
Despite the filet mignon crudo and homemade linguine with clams, it’s hard not to focus on the pizza at Tresanti. Smack in the middle of the restaurant, the mammoth brick oven takes up almost the entire back wall. Tables are scattered around it so that diners can ogle while pizza-master Lorenzo shapes, thrusts, and retrieves pie after pie from the Goliath’s mouth. Both the fire-breather and its tamer are Italian imports, but the pizza is purely Longi. “It’s our version of Neapolitan,” Gerry explains as I crunch into a slice of Margherita, the thin, blistered crust retaining its crispness all the way to the middle. A mere three minutes at 700 degrees melts the house-made mozzarella, heats the sheath of tomato sauce that’s been a Longi heirloom for thirty-one years, and wilts the dusting of basil.
While Lorenzo steals sips of an espresso and chomps Trident gum and Chef Navarria darts from the kitchen to the dining room, the Longis schmooze the crowd. Low lights tinge the room yellow, creating a scene reminiscent of an early Technicolor movie. Moody jazz plays in the background interrupted every now and again by a guffaw or a gulp.
15 Watts Street at Thompson 212 300-3162
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