Stretch Pizza

"With its tiled floors, high ceilings, and tidy, cushioned booths Stretch looks like a slightly nicer version of your average pizza parlor. But this isn’t where you go for a plain cheese pie. The toppings here include pickled shallots, cream cheese, and dan dan chicken. Or, in the case of the El Cubano, ham, pickles, and mustard. The Old Town, accessorized with garlic cream, is a wonderful vegetarian option, and the crust on all the pies is perfectly chewy and crisp. " - bryan kim, hannah albertine

"Wylie Dufresne, chef-owner of NYC’s Stretch Pizza, finds inspiration for his pizzas anywhere he can find it: Goodfellas, the Flatiron District’s Old Town Bar, NYC’s classic halal carts. 'I’m looking at pizza from a slightly different lens than some of the more traditional pizza makers in the city,' says Dufresne, a 32-year veteran of New York kitchens who’s probably best known for his influential molecular gastronomy restaurant wd~50. (It closed in 2014 after an 11-year run.) The process of creating a pizza at Stretch begins with its biga. Akin to a sourdough starter, a biga is a fermented yeast mix that’s added to doughs to create more depth of flavor. Stretch’s team adds water, olive oil, flour, years, salt, sugar, and diastatic malt powder to their biga to create the dough that serves as the base of all of their pizzas. 'To do something well, you have to understand what’s at play,' Dufresne explains. 'That involves really trying to be analytical about the dough.' Stretch’s meticulously made dough is proofed, divvied up, weighed, balled up, and proofed again for three to five days. From there, the dough is turned into Stretch’s unique pizzas like one inspired by a mushroom grilled cheese from NYC institution Old Town Bar. 'We use New York City as our inspiration a lot,' Dufresne says. 'I use my past, my culinary history, but I also like to use New York City as an opportunity [to find inspiration].' Watch the latest episodes of Icons: Pizza to learn more about all the influences behind Stretch Pizza’s whimsical pies." - Annie Harrigan

"Do potato chips belong in a salad? Is green goddess dressing a good match for garlic bread? Should egg yolk be the main topping on a pizza? Those are questions you’ll ask yourself at Stretch Pizza (and the answer to all of them is yes)—but don’t get too in-the-weeds with your philosophizing here. Unlike the chef’s previous restaurant, the now-closed wd~50, this casual Flatiron spot isn’t a culinary experiment. It just wants to make you happy. The bright space has a pastel palette, a long bar, and a row of cushioned booths, and the menu is full of fun twists on pizza parlor classics. Be sure to get the chickpea fries, and don’t skip the mushroom pie with garlic cream and muenster. The crust is light, blistered, slightly chewy, and perfectly crisp. photo credit: Casey Giltner" - Bryan Kim

"Like many New Yorkers, Chef Wylie Dufresne spent the better part of 2020 baking an inordinate amount of bread products at home. Now the former chef and owner of WD-50, Alder, and Du’s Doughnut is making New York-style pizzas at a weekly pop-up out of Breads Bakery near Union Square. Stretch Pizza’s thin-crusted and modestly sauced pies mimic a true New York slice - inexplicably floppy middle, crispy-puffy crust, and all. They’re available in four different varieties, including a classic cheese pizza with salty mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce that are so merged, you’d think they moved into a studio apartment together in the 1970’s and never left. We’d also recommend trying the delicate Everything Bagel pizza with a thin layer of cream cheese and mozzarella, and a creamy-spicy romesco pie topped with grilled ramps. The only non-pizza item is a breakfast calzone, which shouldn’t be ignored. It’s stuffed with piping hot scrambled eggs, mildly gushing muenster and american cheese, and scallions. You can pre-order your pizza online ahead of time here, exclusively for pickup at Bread’s Bakery by Union Square." - Hannah Albertine

"Breads Bakery is the latest New York restaurant to make the pandemic pizza pivot." - Luke Fortney