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What is Neapolitan-style pizza, anyway?
We just got off the phone with Spacca Napoli owner Jonathan Goldsmith, who is nothing if not obsessed with perfect pizza.
Correction: The perfect Neapolitan pizza.
He has been following the travels of our Reader Review group, The Pizza Posse, but something's been cheesing him off. In "Thin is In," the group's Nov. 21 review of upscale pizza newcomer, La Madia, the intro described the place as "specializing in Neapolitan-style pizza, with its super-thin crust… ."
"I think there is some confusion that all thin-crust pies are Neapolitan," Goldsmith points out. "It can be that some owners are saying that they're making Neapolitan, but they're making it dry, which is an oxymoron."
Translation: If you want to call yourself Neapolitan pizza, the center of the pie should be just a little bit goopy from the moisture from the wet cheese.
In fairness to our Reader Review team, that intro was actually written by an editor here -- and in fact was based La Madia's description of its own pizza as a cross between Roman and Neapolitan pizzas.
But in fairness to us: We've had the pizza and, yeah, we get what they mean…it's not super crispy like a Roman and it's not super-moist like a Neapolitan, but it's closer to Neapolitian. That's why we hedged with the "style" suffix. Maybe we should have said, Neapolitan-ish.
Forget it, says Goldsmith. "To me, Neapolitan is Neapolitan is Neapolitan."
They need to have a soft, wet center.
Like his do.
And the oven needs to be very, very hot. Like 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit hot.
Like his are. (And like the pizza ovens in Naples, where in fact his was made, are.)
But at least we're in good company. Goldsmith also complains that a recent Spacca Napoli mention in the New York Times ad supplement, "Chicago Life," described his fresh cow's milk cheese "fior di latte" as being imported.
Uh, that's an FDA-no no.
Goldsmith's assures us his cow's milk cheese is made locally.
OK, at the risk of biting the hands the feeds us, we have to ask: Has this fancy pizza thing gone just a little nuts?
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