🍕HISTORIC PIZZA ALERT🍕 After 2 fires, Hurricane Sandy and a global pandemic tried to put an end to Totonno’s, they’re finally back up and running and closing in on their 100th anniversary next year! The pizza legend traces back to 1903 when Anthony “Totonno” Pero began making pizzas at Lombardi’s grocery store in Little Italy. Considered to be the first pizzaiolo in America, Anthony opened Totonno’s in Coney Island in 1924, where his family has owned and operated ever since. Now run by his granddaughters, Totonno’s is to pizza what Nathan’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, Totonno’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 14” 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, it’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, it’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, we’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.
