Best of New York 2013 • Eating

• Williamsburg Pizza

  265 Union Ave., nr. Scholes St., Williamsburg; 718-855-8729

  All Aaron McCann was thinking when the Sunny Garden Chinese restaurant in his building closed and he decided to take over the space was that having a pizzeria directly below his apartment would considerably lessen the distance required to quell his pizza cravings. “I just wanted a decent slice without having to go eleven blocks,” he says. What he got, via a Craigslist ad seeking a pizzeria manager, was the services of one Nino Coniglio, member in good standing of the United States Pizza Team. What Tony Manero is to disco dancing, Nino Coniglio is to pizza twirling. The pair hit it off and, between them, assembled a crackerjack staff, albeit a non-pizza-spinning one. Now they have a minor sensation on their hands, with McCann running weekend deliveries himself to keep up with demand. For theirs is the type of old-school place whose slow decline hand-wringing slice hounds have been bemoaning for years: gas oven, paper plates, and a deeply satisfying, classic New York slice ($2.50) made with aged mozzarella and San Marzano tomatoes. Coniglio’s own fresh mozz and grandma pies might be even better. The ultimate, though, has got to be the square kale-sausage-and-­Taleggio slice. It’s Old Brooklyn meets New on delectable terms.

From the 2013 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine