Tavola, located in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen and once home to the legendary Manganaro’s Grosseria Italiana grocery, serves some of the most authentic and delicious pizza I have had in New York City. The trattoria, owned by Nick Accardi, serves up equally delicious Puglian, Roman, and Sicilian regional fare, but in the spirit of National Pizza Day, which is tomorrow May 16, I focused mostly on Tavola’s pizza.
The décor at Tavola is a seamless combination of ‘modern Italian rustic’ with the old world charm of the 120-year-old Italian grocery that once occupied the space. On the left side of the restaurant, Accardi preserved the original grocery sign and beneath it, installed wooden shelves lined with specialty items like amaretto cookies and olive oil imported from his relatives in Sicily. The ceiling is lined with white pressed tin panels, wooden fans, and decorative ceiling lights, and the tables furnished in charming oak wood. The floor of the restaurant is lined with decorative green and white tile that one might find in a restaurant in Sicily. In other words, eating at Tavola is like being transported to the 1920’s in New York, perhaps what dining in Little Italy might have been like at the turn of the 20th century.
Now to the pizza at Tavola (Italian for table), which is not only the most photogenic and instagram-worthy, but also has considerable substance to go along with its style. To the New York City Pizza connoisseur and skeptic, you might question the validity of such a grandiose statement. At the upper echelon of pizza restaurants in New York, what might distinguish Tavola from a Lombardi’s, or a Patsy’s? The answer: A 15-foot, 7,000-pound double wood-burning oven made out of Vesuvio volcanic clay from Naples, Italy. The ovens are fired with cherry wood, oak wood, and California olive branches to add a unique smokiness to the dishes. One side of the oven is used to roast seafood, meat, poultry, and the other burns at 900 degrees to create the signature Neapolitan pizza.
Amalfitana Pizza
Of course, the oven on its own is not enough to produce such a masterpiece of a pie, but rather the collective efforts of Accardi and Tavola’s expertly trained pizza chefs. For instance, Accardi is very meticulous about the ‘leoparding’ of the pizza dough, those brown spots that indicate that the sugars on the dough have been completely broken down. Additionally, Accardi uses 00 flour with small amounts of yeast to create the perfect crispy-on-top-chewy-on-the-bottom consistency, as well as San Marzano tomatoes and olive oil imported from Sicily.
The pizzas that we were served in honor of National Pizza Day, were of course, the classic Margherita, and a Daily Special known as the Amalfitana. The Amalfitana pizza is a gorgeous white pie melted with generous slices of bubbling mozzarella and creamy spoonfuls of ricotta. The cheesy base is then layered with paper-thin slices of lemon, crabmeat, pancetta, and flecks of basil. The tartness of the lemon, creaminess of the ricotta cheese, smokiness of the pancetta, and subtleness of the crabmeat were an explosive flavor combination for a pizza, and I now consider myself a lemon-on-pizza devotee.
Margherita Pizza
Next, we were served the classic Margherita Pizza, a pie created in honor of Queen Margherita, who ruled over Italy at the turn of the 19th century (hence the green, white and red colors of the pizza to honor the Italian flag). The pizza had its requisite ‘leoparding’ on the crust, but more importantly, the tomato sauce was unbelievably tangy and fresh, the mozzarella was decadently soft and melt-in-your-mouth, and the texture of the pizza was chewy, tender, and crisp as it should be.
The experience of eating at Tavola was an all-encompassing delight; the décor at the restaurant was rustic and easy-going and it is always a pleasure when the décor is equally matched by the quality of the food and vice versa. While I cannot speak to the other main dishes at Tavola, I can say without hesitation that the pizza is authentic, fresh, and in a class of its own in New York.
Tavola
488 Ninth Avenue (between 37th & 38th)
New York, NY
212-273-1181
Photos by Caroline Solomon
The writer dined as a guest of the restaurant