A New Yorker's take on Mozza

Not that Nancy Silverton needs yet more positive press, but NYT restaurant critic Frank Bruni spends some time at her now-landmark Pizzeria Mozza and delivers a mostly glowing review. Along the way, we discover that Mozza's higher-end sibbling, Osteria Mozza, won't open until July after months of construction delays. It's got a tough act to follow in the fickle foodie world, though restaurant critics have a hard time bad-mouthing most anything about Silverton. Must be nice. Bruni reprises the ongoing hassles about getting into the place (reservations are accepted up to a month in advance) and how he only managed an unfashionable 5 p.m. seating (and that was three weeks in advance, which, when you think about it, is pretty silly no matter how good the pizza is). When Bruni arrived, the place was two-thirds full. Fifteen minutes later, it was full.

Although not conventionally thick, her crusts are denser and weightier than the Neapolitan ideal, reflecting her stated love of the pizza bianca sold by several bakeries around Campo de’ Fiori in Rome. Instead of an actual topping, pizza bianca has perhaps a gloss of oil and maybe a dusting of herbs, forcing you to focus on what has become of the dough. It’s spongy, like focaccia, but with less air inside and more crunch outside. The obsessive attention that Ms. Silverton and her peers pay to dough and crusts is part of what separates their pies from the trailblazing pizza that came out of the wood-fired ovens at Spago more than two decades ago. Their pies are also being baked in smaller or more exactingly designed ovens that reach 900 degrees. Two minutes or less and they’re done.

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While Ms. Silverton’s pizza isn’t flawless, and while the crusts of a few of the pies had rims so monstrously broad they muscled the toppings out of the picture, I had terrific meals at Mozza. And that’s partly because of what Mozza serves, without much fanfare, in addition to pizza. Its salads and antipasti were fantastic. A dish that placed shreds of slowly braised lamb shank, olives and capers over creamy polenta was salty, rustic bliss. Fried squash blossoms had a light, crisp shell that underscored the creaminess of the ricotta and mozzarella inside them. But the most delightful wedding of crunchy and gooey came courtesy of Mozza’s arancine, deep-fried risotto balls without any of the greasiness to which these fritters often fall prey.