Eataly: La Pizza

"It's every chef's wet dream."

A culinary mecca in the heart of NYC.  Eataly is the largest Italian food and wine marketplace in the world, housing 50,000 square feet of artisanal products, in a former toy building in the heart of the Flatiron district.

Brought to you by the Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich group, Eataly is a site to be seen.  If you're a self-proclaimed foodie, walking through this culinary phenomenon will leave you in nothing short of awe and amazement.

Five different restaurants.  Nine different vendors.  Walls upon walls and endless aisles of fresh cheeses, breads, farm-fresh produce, dried pastas, olive oils, wine, cookbooks, specialty meats, fresh seafood, coffee, gelato, and so forth.  If you haven't walked through Eataly yet, now is the time.



Now as a professional cook, you can't help but gather your own thoughts about certain chefs and their business partners.  Eating in restaurants around the Batali empire you can't help but think maybe he's spreading himself thin.  With all his restaurants and institutions around the world how can quality be maintained?  Is it worth going to these restaurants for a sub-par meal?  Are these really authentic Italian restaurants or is Eataly one big tourist trap?

Well, walking around Eataly you can't help but think there are hundreds of others that don't seem to care.  On any given day, at any given hour, thousands of patrons descend upon the building sampling cheeses, drinking wine at the open wine bar, licking smooth scoops of gelato, and waiting in line for up to an hour to sit at any of the restaurants.

On one given night, a friend and I did just that.

We decided to eat at La Pizza, and waited up to half an hour for a table at 7:30pm on a Tuesday night.  This seating area has no surprises.  Smooth, wooden tables are pushed close together, a view of an open kitchen with counter-top seating across it, and patrons circling the aisles of dried pasta, sauces, and olive oils around you.

The menu is pretty basic, offering your usual suspects of pizza and pasta.  Ordering a glass of wine each, and a classic margherita pie, we were ready to see if the wait was worth it.

As you wait, your server drops off a small bowl of olive oil, along with an inconspicuous brown paper bag.  Unwrapping your present reveals a thin slice of sourdough bread.  Hopefully, the crust on the pizza isn't as bland.  This was totally pointless, and if it weren't for the fact I took a picture, probably unmemorable as well.


Finally, the pie.  Classic combination of mozzarella cheese baked over a sweet, tangy, red sauce with a thin, crisp, outside crust.  The pie is baked Neapolitan style, where the center part of the pie is to thin that it seems to fall apart easily.  I am not a fan of it.  What is created is a fallen mess, where cheese and sauce seems to flow everywhere on the plate, and you are forced to eat your pizza with a knife and fork.  This isn't the United Kingdom.

Eataly's Neapolitan-style Margherita pie

Flavor?  Yes it had good flavor.  Worth the wait?  No, not necessarily.  Best pizza in NY?  If you don't know any better, sure.  La Pizza is a great place for out-of-towners to enjoy a good slice and a glass of wine.  But if you know NY, and appreciate the pizza here, you know where to find a better slice at a much better deal.  Two glasses of wine and a pizza here cost us close to $60.  For that kind of money, skip La Pizza and head up to Birreria.  It is Eataly's rooftop beer garden and restaurant.  You'll have a much better time, trust me.

La Pizza at Eataly

200 Fifth Ave

New York, NY 10010