Brooklyn: Everything On The Menu at Best Pizza

[Photographs: Jessica Leibowitz]

Opened just over a year ago,Best Pizzahas fast become one of our favorite pizzerias in New York, and yeah, it's mostly because they serve some of the tastiest by-the-slice stuff around. Baked in a wood-fired brick oven, you wouldn't exactly call this classic New York in execution, but it certainly is in spirit. Though Adam categorized it as a cross between aNew Yorkand aNeapolitan-Americanpie in hisinitial reviewof the space last year, I think it sways pretty strongly towards the New York end of the spectrum.

It certainly eats like one, with athin, crisp crust with a hint of chew and plenty of pliancy, a light sprinkle of grated aged mozzarella and pecorino Romano, and a bright, fresh tomato sauce binding it all together. But then you're hit by that subtle but characteristic veil of smokiness that a wood-fired oven imparts on a Neapolitan slice.

Backed by the folks atRoberta'sandBrooklyn Star, Best Pizza'sFrank Pinellois a Brooklyn boy through and through. He manages to take his craft extraordinarily seriously without any airs of fancy-pantsness.

Since opening the shop, the menu has expanded ever-so-slightly to include sandwiches and a single salad. But man, oh man what good sandwiches those are.

If themeatball sub that Adam wrote aboutand that was served at ourSandwich Festlast summer got your juices flowing, just wait until you try theirChicken Parm($9, chicken fried to order!) or their Italian Sub ($9, and IMHO, the best one on the menu).

I brought half a cold cut sandwich out to piemanPaulie Geeat his Greenpoint pizzeria. A self-proclaimed sandwich-ambivalent man, he seemed to have no problem scarfing it down with plenty of praise after reheating it in his wood fired oven.

You heard it folks: the master of flavors himself gives it his stamp of approval.

With so many good things offered there these days, we felt it was only right to head out andorder everything on the menu, which is exactly what we did. Check out all the pictures in the slideshow at the top and let the drooling begin.