One of the great perks of having family is a family funded meal at a fancy restaurant.  My uncle notoriously takes his family to really nice restaurants, and every once in a while I get to tag along.  My mother was in town, and she loves Italian food, so my uncle took all of us out to Pazzo, an Italian restaurant in Back Bay.

You are not dining at an Italian restaurant unless you get some quality pain gratis with olive oil dipping sauce.  This was pretty standard fare and nothing to get too excited about.  This makes me wonder: have we reached the tipping point for pain gratis???

My mother ordered the beet carpaccio, thinly sliced pieces of golden and red beets topped with arugula, goats cheese, and drizzled with basalmic vinegar.  This was an interesting variation of beef carpaccio, and it was a really pleasant salad, the bitter arugula contrasted nicely with the sweet beets and the tart goat cheese/vinegar.  I really enjoyed this appetizer.

I ordered the Sicilian arancine, which were refreshingly vegetarian.  From my experience almost all Italian restaurants that serve arancini (or rice balls) stuff them with meat and cheese.  These were just cheese, and served with a saffron cream sauce.  It was a little too sweet for my liking and definitely could have used some tartness to contrast the bland fried rice and mozzarella ball.

We also ordered the warm spinach and goat cheese salad (there were 8 of us there, I’m not a glutton).  You can’t really go wrong with fried goat cheese and spinach.  Like the beet carpaccio it was a good combination of sweet and tart (which is part of the reason I didn’t really like the arancini).  Unfortunately, this is not really a dish meant for sharing, as there is limited amounts of fried goat cheese, and maximal amounts of spinach.

Finally the entrees come out (I say finally because this review seems interminable, not because it actually took very long).  I ordered the pumpkin ravioli, because ravioli is my favorite format for pumpkin, and I love ravioli.  It was served with some spinach, but was still a little too sweet for my liking.

In contrast, the eggplant parmesan was very bitter, the sauce was very sour, though it was doused with mammoth amounts of cheese.  I wasn’t a very big fan of this dish.

I did like the gnocchi however, it was quite light, though my uncle thought it was doughy.  Normally gnocchi is very heavy, but I ate all six dumplings easily and didn’t feel too heavy.  The kale and tomato garlic sauce was quite a tasty accompaniment.

My cousin ordered the potato and cheese pizza, though I don’t know why.  I’m not really a big fan of potato pizzas, as I find them very bland and uninteresting.  This pizza looks as boring as it tasted.

If you didn’t think I’d be full from all the other food, I somehow managed to find some room for tiramasu (there’s always room for tiramasu).  If this was made in-house, it was not very good, and tasted as if it was made in a central location and delivered to the restaurant.

While I love Italian food, and find that Italian restaurants are pretty vegetarian (though not necessarily vegan) friendly, I find that most Italian restaurants are not very good.  They usually are very expensive and their menus are pretty unimaginative or uninteresting.  Pazzo falls victim to this common concern, as most of the dishes I had (outside of the beet carpaccio which was amazing) were tastier at other Italian restaurants I’ve been to.  And considering the fact that we sampled almost every vegetarian entree, I think I have a pretty good idea of what Pazzo’s has to offer.  It’s pretty good food, but vastly overpriced.  If you ever feel like getting just one dish from a restaurant, I suggest coming to Pazzo’s just for the beet carpaccio, because it’s great.  Everything else, is così-così. So, I’ll give it 3 and a half cheese sandwiches.

Pazzo
269 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02116 
(617) 267-2996

New York is well known for being the home of the greatest pizza in the world.  This is true to the point that many people actually believe pizza was invented in New York.  This is completely false, as pizza originated in Naples through many forms until it reached the form of the “tomato pie”, which was vastly improved with the addition of cheese around the late 19th century.  In the last 10-15 years, New York has become flush with Neopolitan pizzerias, serving simple fresh and light wood-fired pizzas.  Hakeem introduced me to Keste around three years ago, and it has been one of my favorite pizzas in New York (sorry Famous Rays).

On my last trip there, I went with Hakeem, Chamique, and two of their friends in the entertainment industry (nobody you would know, they’re both producers/behind the scenes people).  I decided to order the pizza Margherita, the pizza designed by baker Raffaelo Esposito for the visit of Queen Margherita of Savoy.  She was quite fond of his pizza reminiscent of the colours of the Italian flag (basil = green, cheese = white, tomatoes = red).  According to Neopolitans, there are only two real pizzas, pizza Margherita, and pizza marinara (tomato sauce and bread, no cheese).  Obviously, I always err on the side of pizza margherita.

My initial problems with Keste was that their base was not strong enough to support the heavy sauce and cheese, which is the same problem I always have when I try making pizza at home.  What many restaurants do is pre-cook the bread so that it is somewhat firm before having to soak up all the moisture from the tomatoes.  Keste doesn’t appear to do this, but they have improved the quality of the crust that it can support whatever toppings added. The ingredients are all fantastic - fresh basil, buffalo mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, and the very tasty crust.  The only complaint still would be the danger of weak pizza physics.

I swapped a slice with Hakeem’s friend who works at CBS (yes, that CBS).  He ordered the pizza funghi, unaware of the unorthodoxy of his order.  The mushrooms were pretty good, but not anything amazing.  As soon as I lifted the pizza, all the cheese, sauce and tomatoes came off.  So, pizza construction doesn’t hold up to anything much beyond just tomato and cheese.

Keste is one of my favorite high end pizzerias in New York.  While the pizza construction is not the greatest, it is a problem that I have experienced at almost every Neopolitan pizzeria.  At least Keste does not err on the side of overcooking the dough/burning the pizza, which is much worse than just having the toppings fall off.  So, go to Keste, but don’t get anything beyond the pizza Margherita, unless you like eating tomato-y bread and having a plate full of toppings.  Vegans can get the pizza marinara, but otherwise they don’t accommodate your inability to eat cheese.  At least you’re being authentic by eating the marinara!  For celiacs, there are three dedicated gluten-free pizzas which are only available on Monday and Tuesday.  I don’t know how they resolve the potential for gluten cross-contamination by using the same oven, so that would be a warning.  Overall, Keste is great, and does a pretty good job to cater to vegetarians and celiacs, so for that I’ll give them four cheese sandwiches.

Keste
271 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10014-4102 
(212) 243-1500

There’s a lot of hubbub over what is a “good pizza” or what makes a good pizza.  For me there are only a few places that make an outstanding pizza.  Before I describe one, I’ll tell you what I require in a solid pizza, as I’ve hinted at it before, but never actually defined my criteria for pizza quality.  They are:
1.) Good sauce - the sauce must be tart, slightly garlicky, but not too oily or overspiced.  For me, diced chunky tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper is enough for a good sauce.
2.) Good dough - the dough must be flavorful and slightly buttery.
3.) Fresh toppings - This is rarely a problem, though I’ve seen some places use canned mushrooms and frozen spinach as toppings.
4.) Good oven - You can’t have good pizza that’s been run over a conveyor belt. Woodstone ovens make some of the best pizza that crispy on the outside (but not burnt) and still soft and a little chewy on the inside, and any pizza place that uses Woodstone automatically will be better than others.
5.) Balance - It’s important that there is a right balance of dough:sauce:toppings such that you can pick the pizza up by hand (for traditional slices).  If you’re eating Chicago deep dish, this need not apply.

That being said, probably my favorite pizza/calzone restaurant in Boston would have to be Picco in the South End.  While they do violate the “burnt” aspect for their dough, they hit all the marks for a good pizza.  But I think ultimately, a good slice of pizza is just a little burnt.  I decided to order the DIY calzone, which affords you three fillings for free, which for me was broccoli rabe, buffalo mozzarella, and mushrooms.  The sauce that came with the calzone was a simple garlic tomato sauce (check Item #1), though the fillings were fresh, it was an unfortunate combination of ingredients as the rabe was too bitter to be balanced by the sourness of the tomato sauce.  In hindsight I should have gotten something more tart like roasted red peppers instead of mushrooms.  But my biggest complaint is that cheese choice should not be an option as a filling!  You should be allowed three fillings and a choice of cheese for a calzone.  By shifting cheese into the filling selection field, you dramatically limit the variety of calzone that you can create yourself.  But you’re probably saying “Hey Cheese Sandwich Guy, why don’t you just shell out the extra $1.50 and add another topping?”  Because this is America my friends, and we shouldn’t have to!

While the calzone was pretty good (but limited in amazingness only by my unfortunate choice of ingredients), the ice cream at Picco is the star of the show.  Made fresh in-house, I don’t think there’s a better cup of ice cream in Boston (sorry fans of JP Licks or Toscanini’s).  There was a limited selection, as it is the dead of winter (you can get a much broader selection in the summer), but I ordered the coffee chip, which really melded the bold coffee flavor and the dark chocolate chips really nicely.  While I don’t often go to Picco, I do try to go just for the ice cream, which is great!

There is a limited menu selection for vegetarians, despite it being a pizza place where you can make your own pizzas/calzones.  So, you can definitely find something that you want at Picco, though it is common to fall into inappropriate flavor mixing traps such as the one I fell into.  But make sure you don’t leave before getting the ice cream, which is great.  For those reasons, I give Picco four cheese sandwiches.

Picco Restaurant
513 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116-6306 
(617) 927-0066

I have gone around the world and have sampled almost every variant of the cheese sandwich known to man, but one variant I have never discussed is the Italian cheese sandwich.  No… Not, pizza. I refer instead to piadina, the Italian flatbread sandwich which comes from the Romagna region of Italy (also famous for parmesan cheese, basalmic vinegar, and spaghetti bolognese).  My friend Hakeem is from this region, so he decided to take me to Piada, a small sandwicherie in Lower East Side of Manhattan.

I ended up ordering the piadina with mozzarella, roasted red pepper, and zucchini, a very simple yet delectable treat.  It’s arguable whether this is a true cheese sandwich, but it is definitely a good cheese sandwich.  One of the great things about Italian food is its simplicity, and while it would be tempting to put some kind of pesto sauce or roasted garlic hummus, it would do nothing but ruin the taste of the sandwich.  I am a firm believer in the philosophy of “more is less”, when I’m not believing in the post-structuralism.

I am told by Hakeem that they do not make the flatbread in house, but they do import it directly from Italy, and it is the quality of flatbread that makes the sandwich so great.  It is a little pricey for what they offer, and they have a very limited vegetarian selection, so I can’t give it much more than three cheese sandwiches.  If you don’t mind shelling out a little more for a sandwich, Piada is a good option to try when you’re in the Lower East Side.

Piada
3 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002 
(212) 677-5415