Pizza Review
Yeah, I did it. Finally was able to catch the Pizzeria when open. After Cookie yelled at me a few times, I was able to get my pie. I was not disappointed. 100 year old pizzeria serves a great pie. Cookie approves šŸ‘šŸ¼

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Pizza Review
How could a place be around for nearly a 100 jears and still be a hidden gem? The legendary Totonnoā€™s with the legendary Godmother of pizza ā€˜Cookieā€™ taking phone calls, sitting there with a wad of money in her hand, and demanding excellence from her pizzalioas. Cookie isnā€™t like the great Gio from Luigiā€™s, she isnā€™t putting on a show. My standard for pizza is always ā€œis this Super Bowl pizza?ā€ Totonnos isnā€™t Super Bowl Pizza because even a event as big as the fucking Super Bowl canā€™t live up to this pizza. This pizza demands your attention. This isnā€™t ā€œIā€™m gonna sit back and have a slice and watch the gameā€ pizza This pizza is wedding pizza. Itā€™s ā€œthey donā€™t do this for everybody. But we got a truck from Totonnos at the wedding. Make sure you get a pieā€ The whole pie is just old school. It taste like 1962. And all they make is pizza, thatā€™s it. They got a 14 inch round pie, and a 14 inch white pie. Thatā€™s it. Noā€¦Hot Honey Chicken Francese Pepperoni Meatball Crumb etc etcā€¦no you get a true coal fire red fucking hot pie, thatā€™s fucking it! Other places try to do it. They think they do it. I got news for ya. You arenā€™t close to doing it like Totonnos. Not even fucking close. Give up! So if you are in the Coney Island area for the mermaid parade or the hotdog eating contest or your car broke down and youā€™re going to the numerous body shops around there. Stop into Totonnos get yourself a pie, say hello to Cookie, she wonā€™t say hello back, but say hello anyway.
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Pizza Review
šŸ•HISTORIC PIZZA ALERTšŸ• After 2 fires, Hurricane Sandy and a global pandemic tried to put an end to Totonnoā€™s, theyā€™re finally back up and running and closing in on their 100th anniversary next year! The pizza legend traces back to 1903 when Anthony ā€œTotonnoā€ Pero began making pizzas at Lombardiā€™s grocery store in Little Italy. Considered to be the first pizzaiolo in America, Anthony opened Totonnoā€™s in Coney Island in 1924, where his family has owned and operated ever since. Now run by his granddaughters, Totonnoā€™s is to pizza what Nathanā€™s is to hot dogs, both Coney Island institutions. In 1997, a fire closed the joint for 3 months. Another major fire in 2009 shut them down for 11 months. In 2012, they had to close their doors for 5 months thanks to Hurricane Sandy. Now after over 3 years of shutting down during the pandemic, Totonnoā€™s is once again open for business for delivery and takeout only, no dining in. The reopening comes with several new policies. First of all, they are only open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5:30pm and closed Monday through Wednesday. Also, they are only making 14ā€ pizzas going for a rather steep $28 per pie. Aside from the new rules, this place is as old school as it gets with a coal-fired oven producing some of the most beautifully charred and smokey flavored pizza in Brooklyn. Using quality ingredients imported from Italy, their dough is made fresh daily, never refrigerated or frozen. With exceptional char on the undercarriage and even darker char on the crust, the dough is exploding with so much flavor, you can almost taste the history. The smokiness combined with that one of a kind taste you can only get from dough made with NYC water puts this pizza on a whole other level. However, when it comes to the texture, the dough is shockingly soft and chewy, lacking any real crisp or crunch; a similar consistency to wood-fired dough, with a tougher texture. While the pie is super thin, itā€™s not very light due to some heavy quantities of sauce and cheese. They use thinly sliced handmade fresh mozzarella, not a shredded blend, smattered across the surface above and below the sauce, in splotches like a Margherita pizza. The cheese is deliciously creamy and melty with a quality texture and flow. A sprinkle of Parmesan atop the pie enhances the flavor of the fresh mozz without neutralizing the sweetness of the sauce. A marvelous mixture of sweet tomatoes and scintillating spices, the sauce is saccharine and spectacular, bursting with fantastic flavor. The balance between the cheese and sauce leans heavily towards the sauce, providing elite surface coverage across the top of the pie. Dazzlingly delicious, the sauce definitely has more sweetness than tang or zest but remains a uniquely signature component of this premier pizza. Despite being cooked in a coal-fired oven, this is not New Haven style pizza whatsoever; this is more like old school Margherita meets wood-fired Neapolitan style. Many believe this is the best pizza in Brooklyn; when it comes to taste, itā€™s absolutely in the running. But as far as texture goes, I prefer a crispier, crunchy pie as opposed to this soft and chewy dough. If the dough were crispy, weā€™d be talking about Hall of Fame pizza scoring somewhere in the 9s. As it stands, this is incredibly tasty, legendary, destination pizza, worth trying for the historical factor alone. Come pay your respects to a true Brooklyn/Coney Island landmark.
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