Lotta things to say about this place…
It's the oldest surviving pizzerias (though not continuously run) pizzeria in the US. They opened, closed, and reopened a few times in different restaurant formats, and even moved location from down the block. And that doesn't even get into their earlier lineage being a pizzeria *before* Gennaro Lombardi owned it at 53 Spring Street.
What you eat here today isn't coal fired anymore (that's a covid casualty), isn't at the original location, and their recipe was reinvented by Andrew Bellucci in the 90s and might not even be the same thing today.
Bellucci (who passed on late last year) had to recreate the recipe from the oldest image the Lombardi family showed him. And all that said, I still think you should come here to try it.
I think it's a something you eat partly because of the history of it. It's a good New York style margherita. But it lacks the coal oven bake. I would think Totonno's is more like what Lombardi's used to be. That's sad. Former Lombardi's pizzamaker (I'm talking 1920s) opened Totonno's.
This was still a good margherita though. Saucy, creamy fresh mozzarella, not that tomato slice nonsense
