Pizza Styles & Dough

At Genova Pizza in Audubon, New Jersey, our dough is where it all begins. It’s cold-proofed for 48 hours to lock in that rich flavor and give it the perfect chew – crispy on the bottom, airy on the inside. We lean into a New York-style base, but we’ve built our own lane with creations like the upside-down Sicilian and our famous vodka pie. It’s classic, but with a Genova edge. Every slice is made with intention.

What inspired you to honor your grandmother with a mural?

She was the soul of our family. Strong, nurturing and the original engine behind everything we do. When we took over Genova, we knew we had to honor her in a big way. The mural isn’t just art, it’s our “thank you.” Now, her face watches over the shop, and she’s part of every slice we serve.

What was the process of finding an artist and the logistics of having the mural painted?

We weren’t going to settle. We needed someone who got it – someone who could bring her spirit to life, not just her smile. After searching local artists, we found someone who understood the assignment. The process wasn’t easy – weather delays, tight windows and some last-minute ladder drama – but when that final brushstroke hit, it changed everything. It became a part of the neighborhood.

How else do you keep your family legacy going with your multi-generational pizzeria?

Legacy is everything here. My father spent years baking in Corsica, France. He learned the craft of breadmaking the hard way, by doing it every day. That knowledge got passed down to us, and it’s the backbone of our dough and our work ethic. We keep that same energy alive by treating our customers like family and making sure every plate that leaves the kitchen has heart behind it.

Your sandwiches also are stars. What makes them so special? Which is the most popular and why?

We don’t treat sandwiches like side items. They’re headliners. We build them fresh, hot and bold. The most talked-about? Our Chicken Vodka Cutlet. It’s a hand-breaded cutlet, house vodka sauce and melted mozzarella stacked high on a toasted roll. It’s messy, it’s comforting, and it’s uniquely Genova. Once people try it, it becomes their go-to.

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 NEW YORK (April 22, 2025) – A beloved New York City tradition came to a halt two years ago, when the iconic $1 cheese slice vanished – leaving a pizza-shaped hole in the city’s heart. But today, Seamless – the homegrown delivery service known for its unbeatable NYC restaurant selection and deals – is bringing it back.* From April 22 to May 20, New Yorkers can snag a legendary $1 cheese slice for pick-up by ordering on Seamless. To find a participating restaurant nearby, visit SeamlessDollarSlice.com.

A Staple of NYC Culture Returns

For generations, the $1 slice has been a thrifty indulgence, a lunchtime savior and a late-night snacking tradition. Whether scarfed down on a subway platform or enjoyed standing curbside, it was always there: hot, fast and satisfying. No frills, no forks, just you and a perfectly foldable slice.

“The $1 cheese slice is more than just pizza – it’s part of the city’s DNA,” said Howard Migdal, CEO at Grubhub, which owns Seamless. “As a company born in NYC, we know what this slice means to people. It’s about culture, convenience and that authentic NYC flavor. Simply put, it’s how New York eats. We’re proud to bring it back and celebrate the food culture that makes this city unlike anywhere else.”

How to Get a Slice of the Pie

Craving a classic? Head to SeamlessDollarSlice.com to explore more than 40 participating pizzerias across all five boroughs, including neighborhood favorites like Luigi’s Pizza, Rocco Pizza, 2 Bros. Pizza, Marinara Pizza, Krave Pizza, La Bellezza, Best Pizza, Ledo Pizza, Beverly Pizza & Cafe, Da Bianca Pizza, Rizzo’s Pizza and Patrizia’s Taverna. Just place a pickup order through Seamless. Limit one order per day during the campaign, with up to five $1 slices per order.

“I’ve watched this city change over the years, but nothing beats that look on someone’s face when they fold a hot $1 cheese slice and take that first bite, it never changes,” said the 2 Bros. Pizza Management Team, proudly serving New Yorkers for over 20 years. “Teaming up with Seamless gives us a chance to celebrate the $1cheese slice tradition with our loyal customers – and introduce a whole new generation to what makes New York pizza so special.”

Seamless Is Better Than Ever, Offering a Wealth of Unbeatable Deals

To reinforce its commitment to where it was founded, Seamless isn’t just bringing back the $1 cheese slice. The food delivery service is also bringing New York City diners unbeatable value on the best restaurants in the city. This includes zero delivery and service fees at participating restaurants and weekly doorbuster deals, up to 50% off orders of $30+, at legendary spots like Di Fara Pizza, Han Dynasty, Thai Villa, Adel’s Famous Halal Food and Katz’s Delicatessen.

For more information about Seamless and to check out the full list of must-try restaurants and current deals, visit Seamless.com or download the Seamless app.

*Pickup orders only. Subject to merchant and menu item availability. Discount applies to up to five plain cheese slices in one order. Promotion may be redeemed once per day. Available for a limited time only. Promotion applies automatically at checkout. To redeem, select the promotional item from the menu on a pickup order from a participating merchant. May not be combined with cash or certain other discounts. Offer and participation are subject to the Grubhub Terms of Use (including the Perks Terms of Use), available at https://www.grubhub.com/legal/terms-of-use Grubhub reserves the right to cancel, suspend and/or modify any aspect of or the entirety of this offer, for any reason at any time, with or without notice, including, without limitation, if any fraud or technical failure impairs the integrity or proper functioning of the offer.

SOURCE: Seamless

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A lot of elements had to go just right for Leo Dicesaris to take first place in the Non-Traditional Division at the International Pizza Challenge (IPC) last week. For example, the owner-operator of Cerrone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria spent a week harvesting yeast from apples, grapes and pears to create his cold-fermented pizza dough.

“The biggest challenge was making the naturally leavened poolish and dough. It was a week-long process harvesting the yeast from the fruit to begin the poolish, so timing and temperature had to be perfect leading up to making the dough and transporting it to the competition,” Dicesaris tells Pizza Today of his preparations ahead of the IPC held during Pizza Expo 2025 in Las Vegas.

The crust for his winning pie is a hybrid of Neapolitan and New York styles made with high-protein zero-zero flour using protocols from the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana. Dicesaris says the dough is made with 20% poolish created from the fruit-based yeast, followed by a five-day cold ferment before balling the pizza dough.

If that sounds like a lot of work, Dicesaris says it’s because he thinks so highly of everyone competing at the IPC. “The competition was phenomenal this year and the biggest it’s been to date, boasting 110 competitors in my division alone. You can always expect elaborate creations in the Non-Traditional Division,” he says.

The Ibérico, a pig originating from Spain, is the inspiration for Dicesaris’ winning pizza, topped with hickory- and cherry-smoked mozzarella as well as Ibérico chorizo. Dicesaris baked the pie in an electric deck oven and garnished it with sliced Anjou pears, arugula, toasted pistachios, shaved two-year-aged DOP Manchego cheese, jamón Ibérico, blueberry preserves and a drizzle of roscato wine reduction.

Sound good? The judges certainly thought so. “My experience with having my pizza judged is always something I look forward to. My favorite thing seeing how people grade the wonderful creations you think up – it keeps us humble and constantly striving for perfection,” Dicesaris says, adding, “I really enjoyed the focus on judging this year as well. They did a great job certifying and educating judges on so many elements this year, and I think it really showed well in the scoring.”

Jeremy Viale of Casa Viale in Meximieux, France, took second place in the Non-Traditional Division. Benjamin Tobin of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania-based Mezzaluna Wood Fired Pizza won third place.

Dicesaris says his team at Cerrone’s Brick Oven Pizzeria is “overjoyed” about his first-place win. “They’ve seen me compete for years, placing well but never quite getting the finish we were after,” he says. “What people don’t see … is the journey of how they got there. Thats something my team back home gets to see day in and day out, and it’s incredible being able to share in this victory together.”

The post Leo Dicesaris Wins Non-Traditional Pizza Division With Jamón Ibérico Pie appeared first on Pizza Today.

Photo courtesy of Tori T’s Pizzeria

Tori T’s is a pizza upstart with ties to a famed New York pizzeria, as Tori Tiso has set out on her own. “One of the biggest things that defines my pizzeria is that it’s 100-percent woman owned,” she says. “There are not many of us in N.Y., and I think in the next five years you are going to see more women making pizza. I am a huge advocate for women in pizza and small businesses.”

“Being that I grew up in the pizza industry at my father’s pizzeria, Louie and Ernie’s (in the Bronx), I learned firsthand how important it is to be involved with local charity, events and to give back to all the people who support you. I was just inducted into the Malverne Chamber of Commerce as a trustee member. I love that within the first year of being open, I was able to jump right in and get involved with the community. My staff and myself take pride in spreading the joy of pizza and showing that this pizzeria is much more than just pizza. We love that pizza brings people together and allows you to be creative.”

Photo courtesy of Tori T’s Pizzeria.

“Tori T’s is very unique because of the N.Y. style I learned from my father’s pizzeria, and the style I fell in love with the most was the Detroit style. The Detroit pizza has been the biggest seller since I opened. Long Island has a lot of pizzerias, but to find ones specializing in Detroit style is rare. When I first started 10 months ago, we had only eight Detroits on the menu, and now we are up to over 15 different options that people love. … As I stay true to my roots of the old-school N.Y. style, I am always looking for new recipes and styles to learn to improve my pizza portfolio.”

“The two pizza menu items that people go crazy for are the Detroit Red and sweet chili chicken grandma. The Detroit red is a parbaked pan pizza that has a crispy bottom and soft inside. It is covered with cheddar, provolone and mozzarella, which melts down the side of the pan, formulating its own cheese crust. Once the pie is cut out of the pan, red sauce, Romano cheese and fresh basil are added to the top. The sweet chili chicken grandma has a great flavor. The chili sauce first cooks into the bread, then we add mozzarella, chicken cutlet and  – when the pie comes out – we finish it with the chili sauce. The chili sauce is a sweet and sour mix that contains chili flakes and cayenne. It has the best consistency where it doesn’t leave your mouth burning but full of flavor.”

Check out more Pizza Destinations in People & Pizzerias.

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John Updike famously said, “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” In my lifetime of visiting New York City, and the 14 years that I have I called the city home, I think I can safely say that your average New Yorker feels that people eating pizza anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.

Anthony Falco, International Pizza Consultant and former “pizza czar,” Roberta’s, Brooklyn

There is a confidence and braggadocio about all things New York City —  and pizza is no exception. It’s indisputable that there are thousands of pizzerias in the five boroughs. It’s also true that there is a culture of pizza here unique to the world, but what is true New York-style pizza? It’s a difficult question, really, but one I have given much thought to. You could say pizza by the slice is the true New York pizza, but what about the famous coal-fired oven pizzerias that only do whole pies? You could say it’s the stone-lined gas deck oven, but today some of New York’s best pizza is coming out of electric or even wood-fired ovens.

So where is the common ground? What defines NY-style pizza? While not everyone will agree, and since I wasn’t born in the city I’m sure certain people will leave my opinions on the sidewalk with piles of ubiquitous garbage, I’ll state my opinion after years of making pizza in New York, and making New York-style pizza around the world.

What is New York Style Pizza?

First things first, like the skyscrapers and personalities of the city, it is big. NY-style pizza tends to be 16 to 20 inches with the classic NY slice being cut from an 18-inch pie. Anything less just won’t look right on a paper plate. And speaking of paper plates, NY pizza is for people on the go, that means eating it quick, with your hands, almost always standing up.

It’s thin, but not paper thin like the cracker style crust found across the Hudson in New Jersey. And it’s crisp, but with some pliability — it shouldn’t shatter when you take a bite. The sauce should be simple, fresh and slightly sweet with a balance of acidity, my choice for achieving this is the California tomato.

The mozzarella should be stringy, but not too wet, and it should form a cohesive unit with the sauce. This amalgamation of sauce and cheese adheres to the dough, and it doesn’t slip off when it’s lifted to the mouth like its Neapolitan cousin. In practice this means a “low moisture” mozzarella, essentially a more aged version of fresh mozzarella (sometimes it’s whole milk, sometimes part skim, or sometimes a blend). Fresh mozzarella is totally acceptable too, just less prevalent than low moisture.

Toppings should be judiciously applied and not overloaded like they do in certain windy cities. In fact, one could say that the most true example of the New York pizza is the humble “plain slice”: tomato, mozzarella, oregano, and maybe a little pecorino or Parmesan.

So let’s summarize; a NY-style pizza is big, it’s thin but not paper thin, crispy but still flexible enough to fold without cracking, and the toppings should be a cohesive amalgamation and applied with restraint and simplicity. It shouldn’t be too fancy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use quality ingredients. It should always be cooked directly on the stones of the oven floor, be that gas, wood, electric or coal.

How to Make New York-style Pizza

So now that we have defined what New York Pizza is, how do we make it? Well, I’m going to be completely honest … I have no idea how to make a proper NY-style pizza. I have never trained or worked at a proper old school New York style pizzeria. I came up cooking in wood-fired ovens, I was cooking small, new-school Neapolitan-ish pizzas fast and hot and topped with globs of fresh mozzarella, definitely the same galaxy but still worlds apart. About five years ago I started playing with NY-style pizza. I thought I would just come in with what I knew, crank the oven all the way up and start kicking butt. That is not what happened. I learned very quickly that NY-style pizza is actually one of the most difficult styles to master. I knew what I wanted the pizza to be like, but I wasn’t sure how to get there. I went into the laboratory, aka my kitchen in Brooklyn, and I started playing around with different flours, temperatures, cheese blends and so on. Eventually I got something I liked, and since then I have helped open NY-style pizzerias as a consultant in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bangkok, Miami and Bali, with more in the works. Every one of these takes on NY-style pizza has been a different approach, from all naturally leavened, a hybrid of sourdough and commercial yeast, and even all commercial yeast. The reception has been great and these are some of my favorite pizzas to eat anywhere.

In the last few years a growing number of pizza consulting inquiries want to do NY-style pizza. And in the last year, the pandemic has proven this style to be built for durability. It holds up well for takeout, delivery, people on a budget, as well as people looking to splurge on a meal they wouldn’t normally make at home.

Anthony Falco’s New York-style Pizza Dough Recipe

So let me share with you a recipe that you can try if you are interested in bringing New York-style pizza to your pizzeria. The ingredients are important for this pizza. I prefer a high-protein American bread flour. You can add in small amounts of semolina (durum wheat) at 5 to 10 percent if you want to up the crisp levels on a flour with less protein.

For the water, it’s true that New York has great tap water, but so does Palm Springs, California! If you have great tap water in your town use that, otherwise a well filtered or spring water from a delivery service should do just fine. New York City tap water is low in total dissolved solids with very little chlorine, and just the right minerality, but it’s not magic, so don’t go crazy thinking about it. If it tastes good as drinking water it will taste good in the pizza.

For olive oil, I highly recommended a California extra virgin olive oil. It’s fresh and clean and really works well with this style of pizza. Also, I like sea salt for my pizza and I think it makes a huge difference, but kosher salt will also work. If you only have iodized table salt you need to get rid of it and upgrade your salt game.

The recipe will call for a starter. If you don’t have a sourdough starter you can use a commercial yeast pre-ferment (aka poolish, biga or sponge). Some people don’t like sourdough in NY-style pizza. That’s their opinion, but mine is that it is delicious. Do whatever you want to do and never listen to the haters. These are all just guidelines — follow your dreams.

When topping the pizza you should always start by making a classic plain pie. I recommend a tomato sauce of uncooked California tomatoes, seasoned simply with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil. For mozzarella a blend of low moisture whole milk and part skim mozzarella is great, but if you want to use fresh mozzarella, that can work too. I’m a big fan of the mozzarella down first method, splotching the tomato on top with a little space between, and finally some oregano (wild Sicilian is always my first choice) and a little hard cheese (a pecorino or grana works great). The key is a balance between the toppings so that they all come together on the pie in a cohesive way, clinging onto rather than easily slipping off of the dough.

And for my final thoughts before you try the recipe is that it is my interpretation of NY style, it’s not authentic or the ultimate or anything like that, it comes from loving this style of pizza and trying to make it through my lens as a pizza maker. I hope you enjoy it and add this style to your repertoire. Go to the recipe now. 

Anthony Falco is an international pizza consultant.

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