Forget the fancy pies, this $3 slice is NYC’s best pizza
Famous Original Ray’s Pizza still rules — no matter what pizza snobs say. As its crown logo proclaims, the local chainlet, which has three locations in Manhattan, is the king of pies, the imperatore of all New York street food.
The Big Apple is full of vaunted pizzerias, such as Una Pizza Napoletana, which just reopened to a blizzard of hype on the Lower East Side after a two-year hiatus. “Big cheese foodies” and celebrities stampeded the Orchard Street spot at its launch, Page Six reported.
I wonder how many sprang for a $750 tasting menu for four. A pizza tasting menu? Well Una Pizza Napoletana’s dough is “naturally leavened!
For me, good ol’ Ray’s reigns supreme. Its gooey, cheesy, messy $3.50 slice laughs at pricier, pretentious mutations.
Sure, it’s the butt of jokes. “Seinfeld” and “Elf” ridiculed its convoluted history and the scores of joints that hijacked the name “Ray’s,” all claiming to be the real thing.
And yes, I almost feel guilty professing my love for Ray’s “regular cheese” slice. Its ingredients are culinary blasphemy in today’s everything-artisanal environment. The dough does not profess to be naturally leavened for three weeks in a temperature-controlled room with Mozart and nature documentaries. The sauce is not made from jet-setting tomatoes with houses in California and Southern Italy. The parmesan cheese — the only cheese on the entry-level slice — does not have a captivating origin story, nor do the basic olive oil and garlic that round out the simple ingredient list. (I have no use for peppers, pepperoni or pineapple, thank you).
The primitive pie isn’t fired over coal or wood but baked in a commercial gas oven. Ray’s has no affiliation with institutions of higher pizza learning such as Pizza Academy Foundation, the “elite Italian governing body teaching the 300-year-old art of Neapolitan pizza making,” that Kesté boasts an affiliation with.
But nothing gives me as much pleasure as a hot Ray’s slice dripping from the oven. I never loved the square, Sicilian-style article that’s often an exercise in crust-busting. I don’t need Paulie Gee’s hot-honey drizzle, Two Boots’ cornmeal-crusted bottom or Artichoke Basille’s artichoke dip vessel masquerading as pizza.
My first bite of Ray’s triangular slice is a taste of heaven. Its elements, which I spice with light sprinklings of no-name garlic powder, oregano and red-pepper flakes, fuse into an orgasmic burst of pleasure every time. No other mouth-feel compares. The crust’s made for walking — supple to fold after the first few bites but just firm enough not to let everything dribble onto the sidewalk. It’s a far superior street food to spongy boiled hot dogs or tacos that turn to cardboard once you extract anything inside worth eating.
My Ray’s rapture might offend “serious” pie-chasers. They want “authenticity” even though Italians endlessly squabble over what it means. They want ovens made from volcanic salt, sand and rock from Mount Vesuvius. They demand “artisanal,” 00-grade flour from upstate; tomatoes from San Marzano; and cheeses from far-flung corners of Italy.
They chase every mutant form — deep-dish “Chicago-style,” caramelized Detroit-style, Midwestern (whatever it means) and even Canadian (maple syrup, if you ask).
And the fancy optics! See Motorino’s blistered crust! See Rubirosa’s scary squiggle of green basil they call “Tie-Dye!”
It’s spring. It’s Ray’s season. I can’t wait for my next bubbling, crackling slice to devour on the teeming sidewalk. And phooey on pretentious pretenders to the throne.
