PIZZA REVIEW: La Focacceria at Eataly Downtown

My search for the best pizza in New York continues….

My good friend Scott Weiner, who runs an amazing pizza tour company, and is the hands-down expert on pizza in New York and beyond, has just launched a special pizza tour of Eataly. This is a big deal in my mind.

Eataly is a giant food hall, market, education center and everything else that relates to Italian food. Years after the original location opened in the Flatiron District and the company expanded across Europe, a second NYC Eataly opened last year in the Financial District inside the new World Trade Center. And this Eataly is focused on all things bread.

And of course that means pizza. Scott’s tour concentrates on traditional pizza ingredients like  San Marzano tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. But I also imagine he will taste the two different styles available now at Eataly.

Years ago I reviewed the Neapolitan pizza at Eataly’s Rossopomodoro and now that the new Eataly has debuted a counter dedicated to Roman-style pizza alla pala (and Scott has launched a tour), it was about time to broaden my Eataly pizza horizons.

The counter up front serves both pizzas and foccacia. I’ve actually been by a number of times before for a quick sweet flatbread. But I hadn’t tried the official pizza.

For first time visits, I generally prefer to try the classic margherita, but since the special Parimigiana had all the same ingredients but with a few additions, I decided to get a little fancy.

The main star of this pizza was not the cheese, tomato, eggplant, basil or any of the other ingredients, but rather the bread. Alla Pala refers to the fact that this long dough is baked on a paddle (pala in Italian). The dough itself is also much denser and easily lends itself to toppings.

I actually found the dough (which was chewy and flavorful) slightly overwhelmed the other ingredients. I could tell there was quality here (fresh mozzarella, hand crushed tomatoes), but they all played second-fiddle to the doughy exterior and gentle crisp crust of the dough.

It was also a huge amount of pizza for what I considered a slice (it was essentially three small slices). So the value is there and the quality is there, but I have preference to thinner crusts and more of a harmony with the ingredients.

But it is very neat to try another style of pizza (this Roman street pizza is somewhat underrepresented in NYC) and if you want, you can go to the other side of the hall and compare it to the wood-oven Neapolitan pies. Or better yet, you can join Scott’s special pizza tour and get a full pizza experience without leaving Eataly.

Is La Focacceria at Eataly the best pizza in NY? As good as the chewy crisp dough is, I felt like it was too much and overwhelmed the other quality ingredients. That’s why these large flatbreads only get a 7 out of 10.