Brooklyn Pizza from George Motz on Vimeo.
We at the Edibles do appreciate our modern pizza pies — last night’s late-night dinner was a locally made bacon-marmalade topped masterpiece at the new Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint, for example — but we’ve got a serious soft spot for the oldies like Totonno’s, Grimaldi’s, and Di Fara’s. All of which are featured in the 2008 short film above on the craft of Brooklyn pizza by food filmmaker George Motz, he of the up and coming NYC Food Film Festival.
In fact if it weren’t already past nine when we headed out to eat, we would have jumped in our Edible jitney (that being a beat-up 1997 Mazda 626) to head out to the original 1924 Totonno’s. We haven’t yet been back to the coal-fired, whole-pies-only place on Neptune Avenue in Coney Island since it reopened in February after the epic fire last March. (Depending on how you view that months-long shuttering, by the way, Totonno’s is the oldest continually operating pizza joint in the city.)
We’ve had Totonno’s on the brain for the past week, ever since George sent us both a link to Brooklyn Pizza and this very cool picture of himself, Mayor Bloomberg and Marty Markowitz sharing a Totonno’s pie.
The pizzeria has technically been back at the pizza peel since February — after their months-long closing due to fire — but celebrated their “official” re-opening last week (with George, Marty and Bloomie) in honor of the re-opening of Coney Island and the grand opening of the new Luna Park.
This year’s NYC Food Film Festival will also have a flick with a focus on a local pizza whiz, though unfortunately one that’s no longer working the brick ovens. On Saturday night, under the Brooklyn Bridge at the massive The World’s First Food Truck Drive-In, Naturally Risen by Michael Evans highlights the pizza-making process of Anthony Mangieri at his now-shuttered Una Pizza Napoletana in Manhattan.
We just hope we’re still awake to see if after stuffing ourselves silly with the edible delights from four dozen moible food vendors….
