Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Here it be, baby.First, let's get real, who normally goes and gets a pie for lunch at work. It's more about the name of yor blog, a SLICE--first. Your epicurian advice is on the money for the most part, but it still costs too much money! Yet, it is a valuable and worthy service. Back to Westchester and the Bx. I'll throw you one I like a lot, if you do, we'll go from there. If not, whatever....
Gino's Pizzeria, 439 South Broadway, about a mile over the Bx/Yonkers boarder.You'll need a car unless you like to take the 1 and the bus. People from all over Yonkers, including the PoPO stop for a bite at this little hole in the wall that serves ONLY pizza, no heros, etc. Yeah, it's street pizza by the slice, but it's primo.Just tell Joe or Tony how you like it, and tell them Teddy sent you. Enjoy

Hey Adam, enjoy your site, but have a serious eats "beef" for you. "Splain how Yonkers, second biggest city in NYS, with a big Italian pop, and with plenty of restaurants, and pizza joints doesn't even have a section in your map, but LI does? Forget Yonkers, all of Westchester is missing. You're kiddin', right! I know you throw us a bone here and there. But you can't be saying we got to go to Mt. Vernon or Mamaroneck for a decent slice. If you need help say so. And don't throw us that second hand Tontonos as a sop! You're better than that.

Regarding pizza stones cracking at high heat, it's a probably a problem with the quality of the stone, which is generally poor most places you find. Before I moved to NYC and lost my backyard, I used to cook pizza on my grill using over lump charcoal (temps would get over 700, which is as high as my thermometer would read). I used a stone made for my grill, a big green egg (you can probably find the stone in the accessories section on their website, www.biggreenegg.com). It was significantly thicker and heavier than any I've had before and could handle the high heat. I still use the stone in my current oven (highest heat only 550, ugh!) and have had no problems in 6+ years of grilling and oven baking. I really miss grilling pizza though--the high heat of lump charcoal was as close as I could get to a coal fired pizza from a good pizzeria.

@wunami

It doesn't work so well that way because the dough is too soft at the beginning. Good pizza dough has a pretty high moisture content, so when you put it on the grill, it starts to droop between the grates and becomes very hard to remove without tearing. The broiler helps the dough set up just enough that it doesn't droop when you put it on the grill.

I've never had a problem with cold toppings (after all, it only stays in each location for a couple of minutes), but I suppose you could give it a really quick second flash under the broiler right before serving.

I'd love to give it a test run. That dough recipe must be exacting to get that technique to work for anyone.

Those Czech's really know their pizza!

@egadman-I recently bought a new range which has a much bigger oven than my old range. I have discovered that my pizzas take longer to cook, even though the oven has a higher temp than my old oven. I finally figured out that the larger oven spread the heat to much, and I was better off with the small oven for more concentrated heat. Your foil technique may be the answer to my problems.Thanks!

Thanks! (I'm still working to find my voice, but it's coming along)

@Kenji - I appreciate that... but, as I am stuck with an electric stove at the moment, I'm adapting as I can.

kitchenhacker: It's been my experience that a "superheated" pizza stone cracks. Blake wrote about it here:
http://www.thepauperedchef.com/2008/01/a-night-of-pizz.html
And I've also had a pizza stone that cracked when it was left underneath a broiler for too long. It can easily hang out in a 500 degree oven. But if you want to raise the temperature any higher it needs to go under broiler. And that hasn't worked for me. Maybe Blake and I both had cheap pizza stones.

Btw, I'm insanely curious about this technique...

@kitchenhacker: Kenji has more expertise and could probably answer your questions better, but I'll give it a go.

1.) Looks like Kenji has a gas oven. That would preclude using the heating elements in the oven instead of the stove top. Maybe people with electric ovens could try that method.

2.) If you use a pizza stone to cook the bottom, you're going to get the convection and radiant heat cooking the top at the same time. I think Kenji's hack was to isolate the cooking of the bottom and top.

My pizza stone works great for me too, but my oven goes up to nearly 600* so that may be why. I also like to leave as much other stuff in the oven (roasting pans and sheets etc) as can fit along with whatever I'm cooking, I find that it helps even the heat out and keeps it from dipping rapidly when I open and close the door. Maybe that helps increase the thermal mass you say is necessary...

It seems like it'd be easier to cook the bottom first then the top. I think I'll try it on my gas grill and then throw it under the broiler to finish.