Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

hey adam, longtime slice reader here. before i talk about my experience at salvatore of soho, i just wanted to give you props for having created such an informative site. keep up the great work, man.

so anyway, i recently made it to this restaurant for the first time. i was optimistic based on your review but still had guarded expectations, mainly because a lot of newish restaurants can be uneven.

my group ordered the clam pie, the regular neapolitan pie, and the sausage/broccoli di rapi pie. while our group enjoyed all three pizzas, the clam pie was easily the standout. if you haven't tried it here, you should do so next time around. the clams tasted fresh and juicy (not canned or overcooked like at some other places) and the crust was nicely charred and crispy on the edges while retaining a slightly puffy interior and chewy, pliable texture. the garlic, seafood, romano, and olive oil flavors were perfectly balanced, making this the most satisfying of the three pies we ate.

i can honestly say that based on this one experience, the clam pie here blew away any other version i've had in the nyc metropolitan area. really, the only clam pies i've ever enjoyed more were up in new haven, ct.

now if they only offered bacon as a topping to go with those clams...

as for the other two pies, they weren't nearly as satisfying but still pretty good overall. the neapolitan pie was certainly tasty, but the flavors didn't really wow me the way the clam pie did. i'm not sure what it was - the crust was similarly great, the sauce and cheese were obviously high quality, and the basil was eminently fresh. perhaps we had a letdown after eating the clam pie, which we'd ordered first and devoured quickly so that the clams wouldn't get cold and rubbery on us. or maybe we've developed difara- or lucali-like expectations for our cheese (i.e. a blend of different cheeses that form a creamier coating for the pie, as opposed to the fresh mozzarella used at salvatore of soho).

in any event, i'd like to try the neapolitan pie again sometime soon - one without toppings (as we did this time) and one with a topping (perhaps the coal oven roasted peppers or sicilian eggplant?).

the least satisfying of the three pies was the sausage & broccoli di rapi pie. now, i'm a big sucker for anything that comes with broccoli rabe, and the batch used for this pie didn't disappoint (fresh, slightly bitter, and not overcooked or mushy). and once again, the crust on this pie was perfectly fine. my complaint, though, is that there was hardly any sausage - and the little that was there wasn't particularly memorable. to be fair, we were all pretty full by the time we started eating this pie, so perhaps our taste buds were off. but at the very least, the broccoli rabe-to-sausage ratio needs to be improved in the future.

i would've loved to have tried some of the other toppings or perhaps the appetizers, but i guess we'll have to do so next time. i did have a little bit of room left over for dessert, so i got the fig gelato, which was delicious.

all in all, this was one of the better new pizzerias i've been to in a while in nyc. there are certainly lots of promising new places that have opened up elsewhere in the city, but this place really delivered good food at reasonable prices and without any pretentiousness. i'll definitely be back.