Lombardi's Pizza

Where to Eat and Drink in Manhattan’s Little Italy

"Lombardi’s was, quite simply, the place where modern pizza as we know it was invented. Gennaro Lombardi opened this pizzeria in 1905 (the original was further down Spring Street), using a coal oven to bake his large, profusely topped pies, leagues different from the tinier, barer, and wetter pizzas back in Napoli. Consider the clam pie, as good as those at Frank Pepe’s in New Haven. The 16-inch pizza arrives blanketed in tiny bellies, with a lemon propped at its center. Coated in olive oil, the thin crust provides a crunchy, blank canvas for the garlicky, parsley-flecked mollusks." - Robert Sietsema, Eater Staff