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If you like pizza, this is for you

LewisBraham
in Off-Topic
There really never was another place quite like this for pizza:

https://grubstreet.com/2022/03/di-fara-dom-de-marco-rip.html

https://grubstreet.com/2022/03/di-fara-regular-remembers-dom-de-marco.html
“The best phrase that describes my father is, he was a man who loved America but missed his country of origin very much and spent all his time in America trying to create that culture of food from Campania,” says De Marco’s son, Dominick Jr. “He brought the hills of Italy to Avenue J.” The younger De Marco adds, “There’s going to be some great pizza in heaven, so let’s all do our best to get there someday.”

In 1959, De Marco emigrated to New York from Provincia di Caserta. After working for a few months on a Long Island farm, according to the New York Times in 2004, De Marco opened a pizzeria with his brother in Sunset Park called Piccola Venezia. After a few years, he and a business partner named Farina opened Di Fara. “I do this as an art,” he said at the time. “I don’t look to make big money. If somebody comes over here and offers me a price for the store, there’s no price.”

Called “the holy grail of classic New York–style pizza” by New York’s Underground Gourmet, Di Fara was, for much of its run, a one-man show, so much so that the shop would close if De Marco was unable to work. Until recently, he produced every pizza himself, a fact that was woven deeply into the shop’s mythology. It gave the pizzeria an aura of craftsmanship just as the food world’s attention was shifting to artisans and producers.

Comments

  • CrashCrash
    I saw that place featured somewhere else, not grubhub. On Oahu, my 2 big, happy pizza discoveries have been:

    1. Boston's Pizza, Kailua. Boston style, of course. What I'm more accustomed to. Excellent.

    2. Yellow Cab Pizza, Honolulu. Advertises itself as NY style. Thinner crust. And you can order it thinner, still. Tasty. A party in my mouth. YUMMY.


  • hank
    edited March 2022
    It’s a delicious item that my diet usually forbids. But it makes a great “emergency” meal at 1 or 2 in the morning while stranded in some distant place due to an airline snafu. I agree the best are found in NYC having indulged in one a few years ago after a flight out of LGA was cancelled and I returned back to the hotel to spend an unanticipated extra night. Wish I could recall the name of the place just a block or two away from Times Square. But it was the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.

    Photo: Biden Joins Troops in Poland for Pizza - 3/25/2022

    image
  • MarkMark
    Great photo. Wish I knew what they're laughing about.
  • hank
    edited March 2022
    Mark said:

    Great photo. Wish I knew what they're laughing about.


    @Mark - Maybe somebody asked … “Where’s the beer?”



  • CrashCrash
    I can read lips. They are giggling after one of them volunteered to assert that the Poot-dog is jealous. HE can't get pizza that's this good. ;)
  • LewisBraham
    edited March 2022
    To me what Dom De Marco was doing at Di Fara goes beyond simply making pizza. He was making a kind of art. What restaurant have you been in where only one chef makes all of the food himself day in and day out for decades? Perhaps only our parents' kitchens. I saw Dom do everything with complete focus and devotion while there was a line out the door. No one but him could touch the pizza. To me this quote from him says it all: "If somebody comes over here and offers me a price for the store, there’s no price.” He could have sold that pizzeria for a fortune to an investor or to a big chain if he'd wanted to. It looked like a hole in the wall too. He didn't care. It was all about the craft to him. Pizza was his religion.
  • hank
    Yes - Dom De Marco, who passed away recently, sounds like a remarkable human being. The story’s not really about pizza at all, but about devotion, perfectionism and love of one’s trade.
  • CrashCrash
    LewisBraham said:

    To me what Dom De Marco was doing at Di Fara goes beyond simply making pizza. He was making a kind of art. What restaurant have you been in where only one chef makes all of the food himself day in and day out for decades? Perhaps only our parents' kitchens. I saw Dom do everything with complete focus and devotion while there was a line out the door. No one but him could touch the pizza. To me this quote from him says it all: "If somebody comes over here and offers me a price for the store, there’s no price.” He could have sold that pizzeria for a fortune to an investor or to a big chain if he'd wanted to. It looked like a hole in the wall too. He didn't care. It was all about the craft to him. Pizza was his religion.

    :). You just have to admire THAT!
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