Di Fara Pizza - Brooklyn

[texassourdough]

Okay, I know Di Fara is not wood fired but I think it deserves recognition anyway!

My wife and I were in NYC last week and rode the subway out to Brooklyn to visit Di Fara Pizza which has been voted best pizza in NYC for eight years running. It is OLD. And the same pizziolo, Dominick DeMarco has supposedly made every pie for forty years!

It was a real treat watching Dominick assemble the pie. Shape the dough, ladle and spread the tomato sauce, pick up a chunk of mozz and slice it by hand onto the pie. Grind the parme and spread on the pie. Each pie is essentially made from scratch. The only think that seemed to be precut was the sausage and red onions but I am confident they were only recently sliced.

He bakes in a deck oven but definitely hotter than most. The bottom was beautifully leoparded. And the top was nicely singed. The dough was clearly retarded with wonderful flavor. The sauce was light but very nice and the balance of ingredients was perfection with the sauce, mozz, sausage, onion, and basil in perfect proportion. My only criticism would be that the basil was not very uniformly spread - basically in three clumps. But oh the dough!

This is definitely worth the ride on the Q subway to Avenue J in Brooklyn - only a half block from Di Fara! A great experience!
Jay

[scott123]

Re: Di Fara Pizza - Brooklyn

The dough was clearly retarded with wonderful flavor.

It's well documented that Di Fara doesn't retard their dough. One to two hours fermentation, max. The flavor you're getting is from the leoparding and the toppings, not the fermentation.

While I'm not a big fan of emergency doughs, Di Fara has tremendous sentimental value for many. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit.

[texassourdough]

Re: Di Fara Pizza - Brooklyn

Thanks, Scott!

That was easily the best FAST dough I have ever had. The one qualm I had in saying it was retarded was that the dough clearly has a lot of oil in it and I decided the the flavor of the oil was masking the some of the retard nuances I expected. There is no question the strong bake contributed to the great dough flavor (which is why I bake my bread HARD/dark). It's hard to believe I blew the analysis (blush) but...I was suspicious - but the experience below pushed me over the edge!) ! I did have one other negative about Di Fara and that involved his rather wet sauce which results in his pies being rather droopy and soggy - one of the reasons I make most of my tomato sauces thick and make different dough for different pies instead of using only one! In any event I thought the whole package was really good.

As an extension, we also got some slices from Patzeria on roughly 46th Street before a show and while my wife liked the pie I found their dough delightfully crisp but almost tasteless - like a DiGiorno's frozen pie. Good topping flavor but...the dough and bake were not in the league of Di Fara. Obviously a fast dough - that no doubt reinforced my reaction to Di Fara!

Thanks for the feedback!
Jay