Pulino’s

What are you willing to do for pizza? Travel far and wide for the perfect slice? Line up in the rain on 14th Street? How about wait two and a half hours in platform heels, with only the air-kissing at the door and jockeying for position at the crowded bar to entertain you? If you’re willing to do the latter, then we’ve got the place for you.

It’s not really Keith McNally’s fault that his new pizza place Pulino’s is so insanely popular – he’s a popular guy. And we found out belatedly that Pulino’s does take reservations. Make them, and do not attempt to just show up on a Thursday, even if you put your name in before 7pm as we did. Glad-handers and downtown scenesters with reservations will just pass you by. At least the guys at the door, familiar faces from McNally’s other endeavors, will treat you kindly, and the restrictions they mete out – no one can wait at the bar, because there’s literally no more room in there – are meted out democratically.

To be fair, after a wait this long (an hour longer than we were told), the kitchen would have to be using manna from heaven instead of 000 flour to make a pizza that would make us happy. But even when we tried to approach the food with an open mind, we were disappointed.

Pulino’s specializes in New Haven/Roman style pizza, which does not have the doughy crust of Neapolitan places like the fantastic Motorino. But the crust should not have the flavor and texture of matzo. Pulino’s crust was flat and lacking any of that satisfying chew in a good pizza. (And oddly, the round pizza was cut into squares instead of wedges.) Many pizza chefs, including Anthony Mangieri and Mathieu Palombino, guard their dough recipes closely, so it’s hard to say what exactly was missing in this one – more yeast? a dash of extra-virgin olive oil? – but the magic that comes together in an excellent pizza wasn’t present. It didn’t seem to be a problem with the equipment, since Pulino’s has a large wood-burning oven that  dominates the back wall of the open kitchen.

Get a pizza with pork products on top to maximize the flavor – Pulino’s makes a  good if somewhat dry pepperoni in house for their salame piccante pizza ($17). In the case of the funghi pizza ($19), below, however, we wondered if the sprinkling of lackluster pancetta on top was a cheat sheet towards flavor. Good mushrooms should normally provide enough of a woodsy, earthy flavor on their own.

Another problem was the sauce. While it tasted intensely of sunny tomatoes, there didn’t seem to be any garlic or herbs or anything else in it at all. After the first bright note of tomatoes, this too fell flat.

It’s confusing, because there’s no doubt Nate Appleman is a talented chef. But he didn’t really specialize in pizza until now. Perhaps it’s just hard to overestimate the total obsession that’s required of chefs who decide to tackle this genre.

Wine will numb the disappointment: There’s a good selection of Italian wines, many of them reasonably priced in the $30-$40 range. You won’t be at a loss for a good one to go with your pizza. Unfortunately, Pulino’s wines are served warm, a pet peeve of mine. If even a deli can manage to keep drinks somewhat cool, why can’t a new multi-million dollar restaurant do the same?

Baked ricotta is a no-brainer: an appetizer of mild melted cheese sprinkled with a bracing mixture of oregano, fennel, orange agrumato and black pepper with perfectly charred bread is doubly comforting after the anxiety of wondering whether you will eat at all that night. Cue Sam Sifton’s “stoner food.”

When our host finally did get to seat us, he pulled out the chair and said “Now you can sit here all night.” Like everyone else has, we wondered aloud. It wasn’t slow service (ours was good and attentive throughout) but the collective desire to see and be seen at this new place that was keeping people rooted in their chairs for hours. On one side of us a hipster guy in a loose v-neck T-shirt slowly picked at his food while his date observed the room; on the other were girls in designer duds who looked like they normally split an ice cube for dinner.

This is not a foodie crowd, or even a neighborhood crowd. It’s a McNally crowd. The restaurant design, though cacophonous, is beautiful but homey in a Schiller’s-like way, with high ceilings, bottles lit from behind that fun McNally old timey jazz mix on the stereo. It’s kind of sad that New York pizza has finally gotten its palace just as it reached an unfortunate tipping point.

Pulino’s
282 Bowery at Houston Street
New York, NY
pulinosny.com