Una Pizza Napoletana

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Few things illustrate the currently madcap, upside-down nature of the dining world better than the improbable career of Anthony Mangieri, whose tiny, bunkered wood-oven establishment Una Pizza Napoletana helped usher in the great Neapolitan-pie craze when it opened in the East Village back in 2004. Mangieri’s intense, hollow-eyed pursuit of the perfectly pure, perfectly crafted margherita pie became the stuff of local legend. After five years in the East Village, he abruptly shuttered the spot and moved out to San Francisco. Now Mangieri has returned with a much larger, racier, and more user-friendly (and, inevitably, much more antiseptic) iteration of New York’s original retro-Neapolitan-pizza joint. His partners are the talented Jeremiah Stone and Fabián von Hauske Valtierra, of Contra and Wildair. The pair have helped procure a modest selection of cool, often fizzy, reliably funky natural wines from Italy, which you can enjoy with the chef’s predictably ascetic offering of extravagantly priced $25 pies, along with a smattering of highly stylized appetizers and antipasti. New York’s pizza culture has expanded and matured since Mangieri burst onto the scene, of course, and there’s not much about this latest reboot that feels revelatory or groundbreaking, especially at these prices. But like music fans who’ll pay to see renditions of the songs they’ve heard again and again, you’ll find there’s a certain value to catching the performance of a quirky, uncompromising master of the genre practicing his craft night after night. As with the appetizers, the performance is enhanced by the house desserts, in particular the malty, salty, just-churned ice creams and a rich, high-angle version of tiramisu. — Adam Platt

Ideal Meal

Carne cruda, vegetable “antipasti,” margherita pizza, ice cream and/or tiramisu.

Related Stories

Featured In

• Eat Cheap 2009: A Day at Work With Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana (7/20/09)
• Eat Cheap 2009: 104 Years of Pizza in New York (7/20/09)
• Eat Cheap 2009: The Top 20 Pizzas of the Moment (7/20/09)
• Eat Cheap 2009: Gragnano, The Perfect Wine for Pizza (7/20/09)
• Cheap Eats Guide 2006 (8/7/06)

Recipes at Una Pizza Napoletana

• Cauliflower-and-Spinach Salad (2005)
• Lemon-Lime Gelato (2005)
• Grilled Pizzas (2005)