Growing up, I was almost always the only Jew in a room full of Italians. Upstate was where they settled, though it didn’t mean much for me. Our family butcher, an Italian, knew where to find morels and wild watercress--a skill that I wish I had studied more closely--and a lot of the kids in my school had names that ended in a vowel. That was about the extent of it.
Except that I was also spared fast food pizza. There was no Domino’s or a Pizza Hut in town, and chains were slow to trickle in. When the Burger King was set to open, I was excited: finally, a chance to sample chicken tenders instead of chicken nuggets!
There were also three good “independent” pizza places, four if you count the irreplaceable Chez Joey. It was called Chez Joey--what’s not to love about a place like that? Enough, I guess, since it’s gone now.
All of this is by way of introduction to Artichoke, the overblogged, heavily lauded and less-frequently-visited-because-the-hours-are-erratic pizza place on east Fourteenth Street. I’m late to the party—I was out of the country eating pork—but Artichoke recalls nothing so much an upstate pizza parlor, for good or ill. While standing in the blissfully short line at 5 p.m. on a weekday, I saw the piazzolo beckon a friend to cut the line so he could slip him a slice. Also, all the customers are addressed as “dude” or “bro” here, even the ladies. Especially the ladies.
When I popped in, four pizza options were available: plain, artichoke, crab dib, and Sicilian. I had one of each save the crab dip, which may very well taste delicious but looks like hell. It’s the Sicilian that’s the winner. Sure, the plain has potential, but it’s not quite as dense as the other slices, so it has little in the way of structural integrity. The bottom half of the slice goes limp as soon as it’s picked up. Eating a slice of the plain, I held it aloft to counterbalance its pizza droop and a quarter of a tomato rolled down the length of my arm onto my shoulder.
In practice, the artichoke pie is like eating artichoke dip on pizza, and I suspect the crab pizza suffer similar issues, it’s hideous visage excluded. The sheer density was overwhelming, and if I had wanted sheer density, I would have ordered the stuffed artichoke.
When there’s no line, though, Artichoke can compete for best pizza in the East Village. Assuming the staff from Una Pizza Napoletana doesn’t come at them with a shiv.
