Whereas the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana maintains its personal certification system for standards-observing eating places throughout Italy and overseas, jet-set foodies have lengthy upheld that the perfect Neapolitan pizza on the planet comes from Tokyo. This will sound like heresy to New Yorkers who’re used to the world understanding that our pizza — regardless of the model — is one of the best, however even essentially the most jaded amongst us need to admit there could also be one thing to this line of considering.
Till now, the one method to know for positive was to guide a ticket to Japan, however fortunately it obtained just a little simpler to see what the fuss was about this winter, beginning with a two-night pop-up at Moody Tongue Pizza on St. Marks Place from Tsubasa Tamaki, who has additionally introduced plans to show Moody Tongue into the primary American location of his Pizza Studio Tamaki. On high of that, this week sees the American arrival of Tamaki’s outdated instructor, Seirinkan’s Susumu Kakinuma — a.ok.a. the godfather of the Tokyo pizza scene — at Tao Group’s Decrease East Facet spot Sake No Hana, which is the place I dropped in on Tuesday, the primary night time of the pop-up, to see whether or not this Tokyo pizza lives as much as the legend.
The darkish, clubby eating room looks like a throwback to Intercourse and the Metropolis–period NYC, so the Beatles songs blaring from the audio system felt just a little incongruous, however they had been in line with Seirinkan’s Fab 4 theme again house and matched the Yellow Submarine–impressed lettering on the menus that listed three pies: A margherita, a marinara, and a white, every of which runs $45 with a written request that {couples} share pies. (This wasn’t the case the night time I went, nevertheless it appears to be an effort to extend effectivity: Demand was so excessive throughout my meal that wait occasions, as you’ll see, stretched to absurd lengths.)
Our server — an ebullient Zendaya look-alike — had nothing however reward for Kakinuma. “His aura screams ardour for his work,” she stated whereas going into his course of for choosing a mix of wheat to mill yearly due to seasonal variations within the grain, baggage of which had been imported from Tokyo through the restaurant’s Bluefin provider, Yuga. The pizzas, she identified, “will not be all good circles — it’s extra about highlighting the pure components.”
We ordered certainly one of every and some antipasti to carry us over till the hand-formed major occasion. It took 90 minutes for the primary marinara to reach, a puffy-crusted fortress surrounding a lake of pulpy tomato and a single basil sprig baked into the middle. It was, as promised, formed like a rough-edged O. The aroma from a hoop of dried oregano sprinkled on the crust was the very first thing I seen as I raised a slice to my mouth. It blended properly with the juicy tang of the tomatoes, whereas the hydrated dough held onto its steam, giving the inside crumb its “mochi mochi” bounce beneath the golden-brown crust.
Marinara.
Photograph: Courtesy of Seirinkan
Any delay we’d encountered didn’t proceed: The second pie landed earlier than we’d completed our first: the white pie garnished with a few preserved cherry blossoms and introduced with a aspect of freshly grated wasabi. I requested our server about one of the best ways so as to add it. “Take one chew,” she defined, “after which on the subsequent one, combine it in.” The primary mouthful was gratifyingly tacky and salty, and because of the small nuggets of Pecorino all through the fior di latte, they melted into a mix that appeared like a distinct cheese altogether, and all the dairy fats almost tamed the fiery wasabi.
The margherita was an acceptable denouement, providing a few of what made each of the earlier pizzas work whereas satisfying my primal urge for tomatoes and cheese. The blobs of melted mozzarella swirled with the tomato and sprinkled basil leaves like tie-dye. Lifting a chunk, I used to be capable of see the char marks beneath: as good as pizza will get.
In the course of the look ahead to our pizzas, we had been invited into the kitchen to see Kakinuma at work. Tao Group’s chef, Ralph Scamardella, who’s Neapolitan himself, had reached out to Kakinuma after visiting Seirinkan and proposed the collaboration. He attributed the wait occasions to the truth that the restaurant’s wood-burning oven can solely match one pizza at a time. In the meantime, Kakinuma by no means regarded up from his nook the place he was bent over, stretching a pizza in each course. A single assistant stood close by, giving every of the pizzas a pour of olive oil earlier than they went into the oven, whereas everybody else stored a distance from the grasp at work.
A margherita.
Photograph: Courtesy of Seirinkan
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