
Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe (2008) - benbreen
http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm
======
mb22
There is some good stuff in this recipe. It's a great starting point for
learning.

I built a wood burning pizza oven and have been doing experiments for 5+
years, and what I've discovered is only certain things make a taste-able
difference.

1\. Oven. 900 degrees baby. Pizza cooks fast, and tastes delicious. You can
get the "leoparding" on the edges. 100% worth it if you have time and space.

2\. Yeast. Get the Ischia: [https://www.amazon.com/Italian-Ischia-Camaldoli-
Sourdough-Cu...](https://www.amazon.com/Italian-Ischia-Camaldoli-Sourdough-
Cultures/dp/B006TMLF98) it's a very light sourdough that imparts a delicious
almost floral taste. I put a little bit of IDY in the mix to help sometimes,
but this yeast is delicious.

3\. Autolyse. Let everything but the salt sit for 30-45 minutes to generate
gluten.

Here's my dough spreadsheet that auto calculates ratios and hydration %:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b46NnndcrK9ImRXx5BW8...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b46NnndcrK9ImRXx5BW8e3vvH74vB7NYxMlbU2B53fM/edit?usp=sharing)

I'm happy to answer more questions if people are interested.

~~~
1024core
> 1\. Oven. 900 degrees baby. Pizza cooks fast, and tastes delicious. You can
> get the "leoparding" on the edges. 100% worth it if you have time and space.

Does it _have_ to be a wood-burning oven though? Does only the heat matter?

~~~
ccgus
It doesn't have to be a WFO (wood fired oven), but you will get slightly
different results depending on wood/gas/electric.

I used to have a WFO, but after I moved houses I've switched to all electric.
It's different and more convenient, but I do miss my old WFO at times. Still
makes great pizza though, and most folks won't be able to tell the difference.

------
tribby
surprised to see this here, but it doesn't have style sheets, so maybe not too
surprised ;)

jeff varasano's website is a great resource for pizza hackers and lays a lot
of myths to rest (like proofing). my own process (which I cook in a blackstone
pizza oven at ~800°) has a bit more in common with tony gemignani's basic
neopolitan (described in his _pizza bible_ ), with the addition of the earlier
and longer autolysing period used by jeff. the difference is night and day and
I wish I'd learned about it a lot sooner!

if you're in the bay area and this kind of pizza is your thing, be sure to
check out the following places --

SF: pizzetta 211, una pizza napoletana, tony's, firetrail, a16

oakland: boot & shoe, pizzaiolo, also a16

berkeley: lucia's, emilia's

on that list, emilia's is far and away my favorite. it's a one man operation,
dirt cheap ($21 tax included for an 18" pie), and just impossibly good. he
gave me some of his sourdough starter once, and killing it rather quickly is
one of my greatest regrets.

~~~
colordrops
Any recommendations for L.A.?

~~~
getpost
[http://www.lodgebread.com/](http://www.lodgebread.com/)
[http://www.sottorestaurant.com/](http://www.sottorestaurant.com/)
[http://pizzeriamozza.com/](http://pizzeriamozza.com/)
[http://www.miloandolive.com/](http://www.miloandolive.com/)
[http://felixla.com/](http://felixla.com/)
[http://fahrenheitla.com/](http://fahrenheitla.com/)

new/haven't tried/coming soon:
[http://www.slowrisepizza.com/](http://www.slowrisepizza.com/)
[http://pizzana.com/](http://pizzana.com/)

------
pao
I decided about two years ago try to make a lot of pizza and see how good I
could get. I live in a small apartment with a gas oven. When I started, I
would make them on a regular baking pan with the oven set to 400°. They were
terrible, but it was fun. At some point, my wife jammed a rectangular grilling
stone (from Amazon) into our broiler. That made more of a difference than
anything. If your broiler is in the main compartment of your oven, then it's a
lot easier: get a stone and put it on the highest rack.

The next big leap forward was reading Jeff Varasano and learning the basics of
hydration. Turns out I was in the 45-50% range. I just needed to get that into
the 62% or 65% range or whatever he says. It's counterintuitive because it's
so hard to knead at that hydration, but it cooks beautifully.

I've started doing a long, cold rise like he recommends. I don't know how much
difference it makes. I can't really taste a difference. But I do appreciate
the goal of avoiding big bubbles.

I'd love to play with different yeasts next, but I keep killing my starters.
Jeff has some good thoughts on starters. I like his recommendation to buy a
known starter rather than relying on whatever is in your environment. I like
the focus on predictability and reproducibility. But I think most people do
wild yeast with good results. I think the Tartine book is also a good resource
for the starter (and for a lot of things).

~~~
DigitalJack
Our stones specifically say not to use them with the broiler.

Which one do you use?

~~~
ccgus
A cordite stone will work well against the broiler. But as with any stone,
you're going to want to hit it up slowly to reduce breakage. I'd recommend at
least 40m heat up to whatever your oven's top temp is (probably 550), then
switching to broiler after that point.

------
lhl
Here's a couple interviews from a few years back on what it was like to
transition from basically an extremely dedicated hobbyist to a pro (Varasano
opened his first restaurant in 2009):

[http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2014/04/jeff-
varasano-...](http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2014/04/jeff-varasano-
interview-on-opening-a-pizzeria-atlanta-georgia.html)

[http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2014/04/the-slice-
inte...](http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2014/04/the-slice-interview-
the-return-of-jeff-varasano-part-ii.html)

~~~
princeb
this guy reminds me of Ken Forkish whose book "Flour Water Salt Yeast" is a
James Beard award winner (like J Kenji's "The Food Lab") and is considered one
of the bibles of bread making. he also owns a bakery in Portland that is
supposed to be very good (never tried, can't say).

also reminds me of the microsoft solitaire guy who eventually left software
and started an apple farm and a cider brewery.

i am personally quite into bread baking, which is apparently quite a
curiousity among my friends. "oh, computer guys don't bake do they?" but i
think i'm personally attracted to music or cooking or baking or programming in
the same way because they all involve creating something new. The process of
getting from nothing to something is miraculous. creating both bread and
software gives me the same sense of satisfaction. maybe bread moreso because
of how tactile the process is.

~~~
MegaDeKay
Do what I do and put all your formulas and methods into a spreadsheet. This a)
gets back some of your geek cred, b) makes it trivial to scale the recipe up
and down, and c) makes it easier to share recipes with friends if you use
something like Google Sheets. I also make many different breads, and found
that with a spreadsheet I was much better at putting notes for next time ("try
with 15g less water next time"), updating my method ("a cookie sheet on the
bottom rack of the oven helped prevent scorching"), or adding links to a bread
I want to try in the future.

~~~
princeb
I've already done that. what kind of geek do you think I am! ;)

baker's percentages are the easy part. I also log temperatures and
fermentation times. analysing the effect of those two inputs on bread quality
is _much_ harder.

~~~
MegaDeKay
Are you the kind of geek that puts their dough bucket in a temperature-
controlled waterbath maintained to 0.1 degrees C for proofing? Or the kind
that uses a "drug dealer" scale accurate to 0.01g for measuring salt and
yeast? Because I'm both of those, plus others :-)

~~~
princeb
no I don't use a waterbath, I measure temp of water when first mixed and also
room temps randomly through the fermentation process. I also don't have a sub-
gram scale, I improvise by marking out levels inside a measuring spoon...
measure 5g, and approximate 10 equal portions for 0.5g. and then try to
correlate those markings to how well the bread turned out.

I think part of the fun is that you don't necessarily have full control over
the fermentation process. as you come close to the end of the fermentation you
observe the size of the dough, the quality of the rise, and you adjust your
baking schedule depending on how hot or cold the room has been. the dough is
the master of you, and you can only try to tame it.

it's the same for the levain - the feedings can be exact, but the nature of
the culture, the smell, the taste, the vigor... everybody has a different
culture even if they follow the same recipe.

------
panglott
I'm not going to modify my stove to cook at 800 deg F., so for my money the
best way to get half-decent pizza at home is to make a soft, elastic dough and
then cook on a surface that has some thermal mass. I've had good luck with a
cast-iron pizza pan.
[https://www.cooksillustrated.com/equipment_reviews/1340-cast...](https://www.cooksillustrated.com/equipment_reviews/1340-cast-
iron-pizza-pan)

There are some things that it's better to have specialists do with specialist
equipment, and I'm fine with paying them to do that.

~~~
spaceflunky
You can buy a plate of steel that can be used as a "baking stone" which will
hold in and transfer heat to the pizza exceptionally well.

If you go down to your local metal supply store you can have them cut one of
these plates for you that is thicker (thicker is better) and cheaper than you
can buy at any cooking store.

~~~
dminor
I went this route. There's still a bit of work to do to remove the mill scale
and then season it, but it's nice to get something custom that fits your oven.

------
olleromam91
To me...These do not look like traditional New York Style Pizza. The solid
chunks of Mozzarella are pretty direct Naples style.

If you want a SERIOUSLY thin crust NY style pizza from a hole in the wall shop
in the Bay Area, I highly recommend Arinell in the Mission. Nice big 3 dollar
cheese slices, served on a piece of parchment paper. No bells and
whistles...just delicious

~~~
tdumitrescu
Don't forget the original Arinell in Berkeley, which I find slightly better
than the Mission one. But both top notch for slices.

------
mymacbook
Los Gatos: Oak and Rye is my favorite pizza from a brick oven and I want to
re-create it. :)

I have to say in all the years of hacker news, this article was very welcome
and makes this place feel all the more special and cozy!

------
diego_moita
Warning: this is about American pizza. This is an American cooking site. This
guy is not Italian.

In Rome and Naples, they think of pizza in a very different way. The dough is
more pliable, soft and slightly thicker. They also do care a lot more about
quality, origin and freshness of toppings than the obsessive and meticulous
dough preparation and baking. Charred bottoms in pizza is not a common thing
in Italy.

In São Paulo, Brazil (another Italian emigrants outpost) the dough is like in
Italy but the emphasis is in diversity and amount of toppings.

I wonder what pizza is like in other parts of the world.

~~~
mmmpop
The title clearly says "New York Pizza" so I'm not sure what you're on about.
That's a lie, I do know, but I won't humor you.

------
MikeTaylor
Folks who know pizza:

What can those us with regular ovens do? You know, the sort of oven you find
in most kitchens that top out at 250C (500F)?

~~~
dsr_
1\. Make great dough. The ingredients are cheap, it doesn't take much manual
time -- but you want to let it ferment in your refrigerator at least
overnight.

2\. Make your own sauce. The ingredients are cheap, and a little
experimentation will get it to the taste that you want.

3\. Don't overtop it. The natural tendency is to want more - more sauce, more
cheese, more whatever else. Start off very simply. Scatter little bits.

4\. Transfer as much heat as possible to the bottom of your crust. You can use
a baking steel, a pizza stone, or unglazed fire tiles available for less than
$10 at your local hardware store. Put them in the oven exactly where you want
your pizza to go, then fire it all the way up.

5\. Experiment. The first few pizzas you make will vary wildly from "almost
what I want" to "maybe I shouldn't make pizza". Keep going. Take notes.

And if you don't have an oven at all, consider getting a cast iron frying pan
and try for a completely different kind of pizza:
[http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/08/cast-iron-pizza-
tortilla-...](http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/08/cast-iron-pizza-tortilla-
video-recipe-food-lab.html)

~~~
rlonstein
> 5\. Experiment.

This.

I improvised a pan "pizza" that the whole family likes that's non-traditional
but delicious... Dice 1/2lb of thick bacon or pancetta. Dice a few yellow
potatoes. While the meat bits brown in a pan, parboil the potatoes. Chop a
bunch of rinsed kale. Drain the potatoes. Set aside the meat, reserving the
fat in two portions. Cook chopped garlic with a dash of salt in one portion of
fat, about a minute, then cook down the kale until it softens and reduces in
size, a few minutes. Get a second pan very hot, add the second portion of fat,
and fry the potatoes until golden. Before removing the potatoes from the heat,
toss with garlic, rosemary, oregano, and a little salt, cooking a minute. Now
use these to top a dough and sprinkle with just a couple of ounces of shredded
mozzarella and fresh grated romano.

~~~
dluan
As a founder of Experiment.com, I just want to say that food is such a
fantastic library for small science experimentation. What used to live in cook
books and secretive restaurant storage rooms as scribbled recipes has changed
because of the internet, we can now try so much more and share it so much more
widely than before.

It's mind-boggling how deep these new online communities around barbeque,
cheesemaking, or sour beer brewing (shoutout to milk the funk) can get, where
at a certain point, there's a scientific breakdown of the variables involved.
This sort of food science blends anthropology, biology, marketing, and
engineering. It's so much fun.

~~~
ElijahLynn
You should add a 'food' category. I didn't easily find one if there is one.

~~~
dluan
We've actually had a few:

[https://experiment.com/projects/does-freezing-cookie-
dough-m...](https://experiment.com/projects/does-freezing-cookie-dough-make-
the-baked-cookie-softer) [https://experiment.com/projects/the-cookie-monster-
how-does-...](https://experiment.com/projects/the-cookie-monster-how-does-the-
type-of-sugar-affect-different-cookies)
[https://experiment.com/projects/qualitative-survey-of-
burrit...](https://experiment.com/projects/qualitative-survey-of-burritos-in-
san-francisco?s=search)

------
Nav_Panel
> _The crust is slightly charred. It has a crisp outer layer, but inside it 's
> airy and light. The ingredients are not piled high, but instead are
> perfectly balanced. It's sweet, salty, full flavored but not greasy. The
> tomatoes burst with flavor. Each bite makes you hungrier for the next..._

Right away, I immediately thought about my one favorite pizza place in NYC,
and guess what:

> _This pizza is modeled after Patsy 's on 117th street in NYC_

Yep. I used to go there (all the way out to 1st Ave! oy vey!) and get takeout
slices fresh out of the oven back when I lived uptown. That description gets
it just right. Never knew it was considered the best in the US, but it makes
sense: that neighborhood was the original "Little Italy" back when the
neighborhood was Italian (and Jewish) Harlem rather than Spanish Harlem. I
certainly haven't had better in NYC, and I've tried (even the Patsy's on 60th
St doesn't get it just right).

Another interesting thing, though it doesn't relate to pizza, it's about a
sort-of "restaurant model hacker": around the corner from Patsy's is a very
secretive restaurant named Rao's. It does away with the "first come first
serve" model of seating at restaurants, and instead you get yourself a sort of
"standing reservation" for a table once a week/month/year. It's incredibly
challenging to get one of these reservations, although there are stories of
well-dressed and charming patrons spending some time at the bar and getting a
spot for that evening, if there's space left. Many very famous people (and
some important but not-famous people...) hold reservations there; it's known
as the most exclusive spot in the city. It's also rumored to be mob-related:
eating there back in the 70s, you could leave your furs in your convertible
with the top down despite the danger of the neighborhood.

------
tomglynch
This is ridiculously in depth

~~~
dsr_
Which is why it's suitable for Hacker News. Varasano's a pizza hacker.

------
jdlyga
I had a slice of pizza from the 99 cent pizza place across the street from my
apartment in Queens. It's still really good. After living in rural
Pennsylvania, I don't get why other areas of the country have such a hard time
making decent pizza.

~~~
jbigelow76
_I don 't get why other areas of the country have such a hard time making
decent pizza._

I was on a neighborhood tour of the Lower West Side a few weeks back and this
came up when we sampled slices from what I think was the 2nd oldest pizzeria
in NY. The guides attributed it to two things. One, the water used, the NY
water supply comes from springs in the Catskills Mountains which have some
sort of environmental protections. The other is the quality of the
ingredients, the guide pointed out that the simple slice of cheese pizza
didn't have any oil pooling on top of the cheese, cheap cheese will result in
the oil separating during the cooking processed (that seems legit based on the
pizza I get in TX).

~~~
aeromusek
Freakonimics (great podcast!) did a test a few years back that pretty
convincingly dispelled the whole 'it's the water' argument:
[http://podcastnotes.org/2015/11/09/freakonomics-food-
science...](http://podcastnotes.org/2015/11/09/freakonomics-food-science-
victory/)

~~~
AndrewNCarr
Varasano also rejects the "special water" claim. I think the historically poor
quality of pizza in rural areas is due to the "trade secret" recipe factors
(which Varasano identifies) not being widely shared.

I've been to small towns with a "House of Pizza" that made an awful flavorless
and bready crust, and the locals loved it because they had no reference for
anything better.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, it's probably mainly New York's intense competition that has made the
pizza excellent. Unless you're in Times Square and have lots of tourists to
prey on, you just can't pay the rent if you make bad food in NYC, it's too
easy to find (and walk to) 10 other restaurants making the same thing.

------
RangerScience
My family cooks hand-tossed pizzas every year for xmas eve (we're not
religious at all). Oven with pizza stones. Dad's been playing with the dough
recipe fore awhile, tweaking it this way and that...

...but really, we're going nuts with the toppings. It all started when we got
a white pizza with grape halves (and other stuff) from the Cheeseboard Pizza
Collective.

If I remember it correctly, this year's best pizza was a white pizza with
figs, bruschetta (sp?), goat cheese and truffle oil. Barely any topics, but
the most amazing thing to put in your mouth.

Another story: Back in college (upstate NY), the local late night food was (of
course) many, many local pizza places, all of which were basically the same
and thoroughly standard. I once asked them what kind of dough they used, and
they said "Pizza dough..?". I took their confusion about the question as an
explanation as to why I never really liked their pizza: if they don't care
enough about pizza to learn about dough, it's reasonable to expect they don't
care enough to make a great pie.

PS - Shoutout to Zachary's deep dish in the Bay, and Masa's in LA.

------
vinceguidry
After reading this, I realized he lives in Atlanta GA and has a restaurant
here. So of course I had to go. The pizza was, of course, phenomenal, but Jeff
himself was there, and I let him know that his article reached the top page
here.

He told me he was working on an AI framework in C++! I gave him the URL for
Hacker News, hopefully he'll find some time to participate.

Hilarious, I told him my pizza was excellent, and he was eating a Big Mac. He
told me his was great too, but I couldn't have any. No trade!

------
krosaen
This recipe (from my favorite NYC pizza place) nails the flour/water ratio
IMO:

[https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016230-robertas-
pizza-d...](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016230-robertas-pizza-dough)

with King Arthur's bread flour and over night rising works really well for me.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BSFAHprAJuF/?taken-
by=krosaen](https://www.instagram.com/p/BSFAHprAJuF/?taken-by=krosaen)

my oven gets up to 550 and I use a pizza stone.

------
wklauss
I'll be moving from NYC to Atlanta soon and the quality of pizza has been one
of my worries (stupid, I know, but it's the little things).

Super happy to find out good NYC-style pizza can be produced there. I always
assumed the high humidity will mess things up.

Now if someone can figure out how to make decent bagels down there...

~~~
mywittyname
Great bagels are tough. They don't last too long, so a place needs to have
enough foot traffic to justify making a fresh batch every few hours.

------
mianos
What is really cool is this same guy was also the US Rubik's Cube champion in
the 80s.

------
hashkb
Verasanos isn't what I'd call "New York style"... it's more like actual pizza,
like, from Italy. Tasty but I am extremely disappointed with having clicked...
any tips for imitating the hole in the wall NYC pizzeria?

~~~
panglott
You can say there's two "New York style"s. There's the average storefront
selling slices, and then there's the coal-fired brick oven pizza places, which
is what this is about.

------
camperman
I've been using this recipe for a good seven or eight years now and it has
never let me down. But you really do need an oven that is capable of 800F. I
eventually knuckled down and bought a small dedicated pizza oven with a
thermometer.

~~~
Dowwie
How often do you make pizza?

~~~
camperman
Several times a month.

~~~
Dowwie
I need a friend like you. LOL.

------
wunderlust
I love that there's a copy of Creating Web Pages for Dummies in the background
of the first photo in the hand kneading section.

------
chrisbrandow
I've followed this recipe to make dough a couple of times and it is solid with
regards to developing the gluten.

------
contingencies
FYI for Americans: when you describe pizza as _pie_ and non-American English
speakers are listening, their inner child recoils in horror.

 _pizza_ = flat thing with cheese on top, pizza base at bottom

 _pie_ = closed thing with significant vertical component, pastry on top and
bottom

Otherwise, every flatbread or similar thing on earth is a pie. Observe: "Oh, I
really dig these Indian _roti_ -pies". "Pass me another _naan_ -pie". "
_Papadam_ pie party!". "The _omlette_ is my favourite pie!". "Cheese
_toasties_ are a way better pies than _pizza_!". "A breakfast of _pancake_ :
how I love a pie in the morning!" It's insane.

~~~
adrianmonk
First of all, a pie must be baked, so that would eliminate omelettes,
pancakes, and more from your list. Second, a pie must have a crust and a
filling. That eliminates a lot of the list too.

Second, a pie needn't have pastry on both top and bottom. There are numerous
pies with no crust on top, such as pumpkin pie, key lime pie, banana cream
pie, lemon meringue pie, chess pie, pecan pie, or chocolate icebox pie. These
are so similar to pies with crust on top that it is hard to see how a
reasonable definition could include one but not the other.

~~~
contingencies
Interesting view regarding the pastry on top. Would you consider
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasagne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasagne),
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moussaka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moussaka),
and other
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_casserole_dishes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_casserole_dishes)
all pies then?

Toasted sandwiches are baked and by your definition could still then be _pie_.
If you would argue otherwise, where do you draw the line between baking and
toasting?

~~~
adrianmonk
While the crust doesn't have to be on both sides, there does still need to be
some kind of crust. So that disqualifies lasagna and moussaka, at least in any
form I've ever had them. It also probably disqualifies most if not all
casseroles, since they don't have a crust, or at least I wouldn't call it
that. (In my experience, many casseroles have no breading. But, in those that
do, it's usually either mixed in with everything or is lightly sprinkled on
top.)

I wouldn't consider a toasted sandwich to have a crust because to me a crust
is more of a hard pastry layer, not a fluffy piece of bread which has been
browned.

Though that is a bit of a gray area. If you were to take some fluffy white
bread, get it wet, and mash it down into a layer that lines a pie pan, and
then put some filling (fruit for example) in it and bake it, and if the bread
all hardened together into a cohesive outer shell, then I suppose I'd call
that a very unconventional pie.

Just to make everything more complicated, there are deep-dish pizzas that have
a very pie-like form. There's crust on top and the bottom, and they are cooked
in a pan that resembles a pie pan. For example, this:
[http://winespiritsbeer.blogspot.com/2013/09/beer-crust-
deep-...](http://winespiritsbeer.blogspot.com/2013/09/beer-crust-deep-dish-
pizza.html) . Compared to a flat pizza, I think those are more deserving of
the word "pie" not only because there is a crust but because the ingredients
are more of a filling and less of a topping.

Another question is whether a (baked) calzone or empanada is a pie. They
certainly meet most of my criteria, so maybe I'd have to say they are.

