i would agree with you about amici's --
it hasn't been nearly as good
the last couple times i tried it --
although it's still one of my favorites
here.

"Brick oven? If you are from Upstate New York, that is NY-style pizza, but NYC pizza parlor pizza is not cooked in a brick oven."

Well, except for the minor detail that it was, originally, & still is in many places (including most of the best ones) back there.

The first pizzeria outside Italy - or at least on this side of the Atlantic - was Lombardi's (they also hold the very first business license ever issued in NYC). And they have always used, not merely a brick oven, but an *anthracite-coal-fired* brick oven. Not CHARcoal that you get from burning wood (though that's good, too), but the kind of coal you dig out of the ground.

Check it out:
www.nynewsday.com/entertain...1535.story

Lombardi's is, literally, the *orignal* NYC pizza, indeed, the original *American* pizza - they defined the genre (&, unlike the "Original Ray's" issue, there's NO debate on who came first in this case! LOL). All, or nearly all, of the most famous, _older_ pizza places (note those mentioned in the article) in the greater NYC area were started by folks who learned pizza making by working at Lombardi's. And they all use, or used to use, coal-fired brick ovens. (Plus really good, REAL Italian sausage & mozzarella, house-made sauces - never canned! - with plenty of tanginess to them, dough made from high-gluten durum semolina flour, etc...)

So, yes, most of the "younger" pizzerias in NY use steel, gas-fueled ovens (though even then, they often use them at a much higher temperature than it seems anyone does out here, which is part of why Cali pizzas rarely taste right or have the right texture); but brick oven pizza most defnitely IS an integral part of New York CITY pizza tradition, not just upstate.

In a proper-temperature pizza oven (& with a properly-thin crust), a pie takes 2-4 minutes to cook, not 15. And that temperature is much easier to achive in a coal-fired brick oven than a steel one (we're talking *800-900* degrees F, here, whereas most places out here rarely cook at temps higher than 500F, & most steel ovens can't *go* higher than 700F).

Of course, then there's the lame-o sauces you usually find on West Coast pizzas, with too much sugar & often *pepper* (which they use to try to give it some flavor, but just doesn't belong) - sauce that has nowhere near enough oregano, basil, or simmering time (when it's not canned crap in the 1st place!), & nowhere near tangy-enough tomatoes being used, and the crusts made from the wrong flour, that aren't properly double-risen & spun to get the right texture & thinness, and the pathetic excuse for Italian sausage they usually use out here, and, and...

Not that I've put any thought into the matter, or anything. ;P

Can you tell I'm a cook? And half-Sicilian one from Brooklyn, at that? lol

Oh, I get that you're making a distinction between places like John's & the more typical neighborhood/corner parlor (often with a little slit window/counter for selling direct to people outside, instead of making them go in) - but what about the other old-fashioned places that are a little of both? Lombardi's, for example, does sell by the slice (or did, last time I was in NY) - even though they're primarily a sit-dow/take-out place. How do you classify them? Or any of the other classic places mentioned in the article that may also sell slices?

Regardless, though - I have yet to have anything out here that's more than a so-so shadow of the pizza back home, at least with any consistancy. I need to try some of the places recommended in this tribe, many of which I've never been to... It's a little harder, too, because I live in Alameda, & most of them are in SF. I've had Arinell's, but I've found them very inconsistant - pretty good one day, kinda pathetic the next. :P