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La Piazzetta
442 Graham Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 349-1627
www.lapiazzettany.com
IF YOU'RE LUCKY enough to be out on Graham Avenue on the right weekend morning, you might catch a glimpse of the Virgin. She's hard to miss. She'll be the Virgin carried on the shoulders of churchgoers, her presence heralded by a makeshift marching band that makes up for in sound what it lacks in size and formality. It's a sight of such tight-knit community devotion I'd imagine even an atheist might smile to see it.
This is Williamsburg's Little Italy--meat markets, pasta shops, pizza joints, men's clubs, and old world charm--stretching maybe a dozen blocks up Graham Avenue, perhaps only three or four blocks wide, nestled between the BQE and Bushwick. There are more famous Italian sections of Brooklyn; there are certainly larger ones. I would still think La Piazzetta must possess one of the better Italian kitchens among them.
Both beautiful and casual
Emerging from this kitchen, Chef Francesco Cuozzo greets his tables and recites his specials on most nights, as he can, as he did this evening. Mint and I did not settle on one of these (though his antipasta plate assembled from a spread of offerings set up alongside the kitchen wall was tempting), selecting instead a few plates of pasta, calamari, and a bottle of wine (lots of selections in the low $20 range). Everything at La Piazzetta is reasonably priced, and, given the quality, an excellent value.
My stupid cameraphone takes terrible low-light pictures, so I have none to show you. But the whole wheat fettuccine with eggplant was terrifically hearty, needless to say perfectly cooked, and the tomato sauce was amazingly sweet and flavorful. Mint raved about the pancetta that flavored the red sauce over her rigatoni. For a relaxed, reasonably casual restaurant that serves up Italian fare of such remarkable quality, you really can't do better that La Piazzetta.
MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: One of the few Italian places he'll visit expecting to get a great plate of pasta.
Photos courtesy comevisitbrooklyn.com and La Piazzetta.
IT SEEMS ODD that a blog about consuming food written by a blogger based in Brooklyn is only now, after almost three months of blogging, getting around to the one food for which Kings County is world-famous: pizza! Though I suppose stranger things have happened.
First, as you may have noticed from the now-broken chain of un-commented upon daily Menu posts below, I've been rather absent as of late. This was partly due to unispiring cuisine, but also on account of some early, early call times after which I returned home exhausted. Yesterday, for example, began at 5 a.m. The quantity of coffee I drank would have been more efficiently administered intravenously.
Last week's trip to Migita Sushi: as memorable to us as
axing eight federal prosecutors was to our Attorney General
I offer this not as an irrelevant tangent. It helps explain why I was lazy enough to order a pizza last night. I say "lazy" not because I consider pizza an inferior, couch-potato food, but because Greenpoint is a historically Polish neighborhood and pizza is not a prized Polish tradition. So, if you're going to channel fat and grease into your body via pizza, you might as well get a top-notch pie.
Now, while Williamsburg has some quite authentic Italian options, Greenpoint is lacking. What Greenpoint has is Baldo's (way over on Nassau--and suspect to boot), Nassau Pizzeria (further up, but I'll grant them the reputation of having a decent slice), and L.A's (on Manhattan Avenue just south of Greenpoint Avenue itself.) Of the trio, L.A. is your best bet. For $10 (takeout only) on Monday and Tuesday, a large regular pie ain't a bad way to go if you're trying to keep it cheep and you don't feel like trying too hard.
L.A.'s pizza isn't quite as good as it's predictable menu of Italian fare, and it's hardly fine dining, but when it comes to quick, enjoyable Italian food in Greenpoint, you'd do well to look no further. If it's fine dining you want--head over to La Piazzetta on Graham.
Some people will eat pizza regardless of the time, place, or impending heart failure. I don't normally consider myself part of that group. But after eating a few slices last night I was reminded of how even an average slice in Brooklyn is better than twenty slices anywhere else. Except, perhaps, Patsy Grimaldi's. Viva la pizza!
