I have a bone to pick with Neapolitan style pizza. New Yorkers go apeshit for that stuff, but I honestly just don’t get it. They are ordinarily small, expensive, under-sauced, and under-topped. That’s why I get so excited when I find authentic Italian pizza that’s NOT Neapolitan style.
At the densely populated intersection of Greenwich Village where MacDougal meets Bleecker Street, Susanna Pizzeria is a relative newcomer. They’ve been open for a few months, but I’ve only now gotten around to checking them out for myself.
Apparently Susanna originated in Italy with sister restaurants in Verona and Mantua. Literally everyone in the restaurant was speaking Italian during my visit, that’s gotta mean something. It’s a beautifully designed space with crisp modern geometric elements with a bold red, white, and stained wood palette. It looks like they also have a spacious back garden that I’ll have to remember for when there’s not snow on the ground!
Dining during lunchtime was quiet. The space was pretty empty, but also made for a quite nice, relaxed experience for solo-dining. At lunch, there are a number of specials on pizza, pasta, and salad, but I noticed that they were also offering $3 off any of their pizza pies from the full menu. I decided to go in that direction to sample some of their more interesting options. I selected a pizza called the Stagioni, a tomato and mozzarella pie topped with Italian ham, mushrooms, artichokes, and anchovies.
It’s a very thin pizza with plenty of flavorful tomato sauce, cheese, and a generous helping of toppings, an issue I often find with these kinds of personal pies in NYC. It’s so thin that the center of the pie was a little floppy, not in a bad way though. It’s kind of like the way a classic New York style slice is a little floppy. Your best bet here is to do a classic NY fold for extra support and make your way through each slice.
Strangely enough though, each of my pizza’s four listed toppings were divided and positioned on separate quadrants of the pie. In this manner, it’s not really that easy to take a bite with all of the flavors at once. I strategically took one bite from each slice at a time and rotated my way through the whole pie until it was done. Am I crazy? Well maybe, but how else am I going to get all of the toppings’ flavors combined?
In conclusion, I’m very happy to have another solid pizza option in the neighborhood, though with Otto Enoteca just as close and a little bit cheaper, I think I’m more likely to find myself there than at Susanna.
Susanna Pizzeria
182 Bleecker St. New York, NY 10012
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