Roberta's: The DIY Pizzeria
Roberta's
261 Moore Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206 (near Bogart Street; map); 718-417-1118; robertaspizza.com
Must-Haves: Paige's Breakfast Burrito, Calzone, Guanciale and Egg Pizza, Porchetta and Fontina Sandwich
What You'll Spend: $25 per person for salad, pizza, soft drink, tax, and tip. Roberta's is BYO on beer and wine
Grade: B
There are three kinds of people in the pizza-making universe. There are the to-the-oven-born, old-school types like Lawrence Ciminieri of Totonno's, whose great uncle Anthony Pero (nicknamed "Totonno") introduced pizza to the family gene pool almost a hundred years ago. Then there are the obsessive, perfectionist, chef/bread baker types, like Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana, Andrew Feinberg of Franny's, and Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. Then there is the third school, what I call the "We're good cooks who love pizza, so let's open a pizzeria" contingent, where a can-do attitude, enthusiasm, some cooking chops, and economic necessity are the forces driving the people involved.
Wall of logs and the pizza oven.
The partners at the very fine Bushwick, Brooklyn, pizzeria Roberta's definitely fall into the latter camp. Musician and bar-owner Chris Parachini and his partners Brandon Hoy, Carlo Mirarchi, and Mauro Soggio decided to open a pizzeria because they love pizza. They found a practically unfinished space with high beams and poured-concrete floors in a hard-core commercial section adjoining an auto-repair shop in Bushwick, went to Italy to apprentice with an Italian pizzaiolo, found a fire-engine-red wood-burning pizza oven in a bankrupt Italian pizzeria (yes, pizzerias do go bankrupt in Italy), and came back to Brooklyn, put in the pizza oven in the front and waited for the city to install the gas line in the kitchen in the back. They waited and waited until they were about to run out of money, so they were forced to open Roberta's with the aforementioned pizza oven and three pans and three propane burners in lieu of a kitchen.
