Where to Eat: New York City
The old-school pizzerias at the top of their game.
I’m back! Thank you to Tanya Sichynsky and Sara Bonisteel for stepping in to cover for Becky and I as we took some much-needed vacations and worked on our exhaustive lists of the city’s best bagels and best pizzas.
Speaking of pizza: Every year since I started this newsletter in 2022, I’ve put together a State of Pizza, a yearly report on pizza goings-on around the city. There have been some exciting developments — Durian and Japanese eel on pizza! Real Mexican pizza! A pizza spot in a subway station! — but in researching and eating my way through this pizza list I found myself falling back in love with no frills, old-school pizzerias.
A Queens original
Because I have a car, I assigned myself Queens and the Bronx. One afternoon I decided to feed two birds with one scone and that’s how I ended up at Lucia Pizza in Flushing on an unseasonably warm fall afternoon. Half of the beauty of visiting Lucia, open since 1962, is how well it still fits into a neighborhood that has undergone an incredible shift in demographics to become the city’s most bustling Chinatown.
When I dropped by, teenagers, older Chinese women and families were all hurriedly digging into the restaurant’s very classic New York slices, all displayed on an old school letter board behind the counter. Hurriedly because Lucia is the size of a postage stamp and just the spot to pop into after a day of shopping at the New World Mall across the street. (I highly recommend the classic cheese slice or the Sicilian slice with pepperoni.)
Lucia Pizza, 136-55B Roosevelt Avenue (Union Street)
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