La Villa
261 Fifth Avenue between Garfield Place and 1st Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-499-9888
Pizza. A word and food that has been at the back of my brain for the last few weeks. Since I’m too lazy to wait in line at Grimaldi’s (supposedly the best pizza in Brooklyn or NYC), I’ll just have to cope with pizza joints that aren’t as tourist-infested and line-prone. At the recommendation of the roommate and some positive Yelp reviews, I set out to down some slices on a Sunday afternoon. My easygoing friend luckily went with my desire for pizza, as long as it wasn’t Domino’s. Heck no! How does Domino’s stay in business? Everyone I know thinks it’s disgusting. We went close to 1 PM, and there was no wait. La Villa feels sort of chain-y on the inside with slick shiny surfaces, but it is not a national chain. The list of pizzas seemed to have the same pizza over and over, but with slight variations like
- tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, olive oil
- tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, olive oil, garlic
Being the nerd that I am, I believed that they should have put this list of pizzas into a table form to lessen confusion. “Why is this pizza different from this pizza?” Or maybe a flowchart. I love flowcharts. Anyway, we settled on the Grandma’s pizza “Foccacia di Nona” which had, you guessed it, tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, olive oil, and garlic. Luckily we ordered a small instead of a large because a small comfortably fed the two of us. The complimentary bread was yummy, some with onion and some without. We also ordered an appetizer of baked clams which was probably not something I would get again as a half-dozen for $10 did not feel like a steal, and size-wise: littleneck not cherrystone. Why were there no cheesesticks in the menu’s appetizer section? Odd. I guess La Villa needs to conserve their homemade mozzarella for the pizzas.
Anyway, the grandma’s pizza was deliziosa! One gripe that I have with some thin crusts are that the midsection crust flops over and causes all the toppings to slide onto your plate. That was not the case here since the crust wasn’t anorexic. This certain pizza didn’t have sauce which probably helped too. The crust was crunchy but not crackery. The toppings were all flavorful and delightful with a fair amount of fresh basil tossed about the pie. Are your ears burning, Patsy’s? One basil spring isn’t gonna cut it. Oily but not OILY. Very pleased. You know it’s a special pizza when you’re thinking about it the next day.
