5 Best Pizza Places In The West Village
In addition to being one of the prettiest neighborhoods in Manhattan, the West Village serves some of its best pizza. Here's where to go after you've wandered around, admiring the brownstones and soaking up the history, and you're ready to stuff your face with yummy yummy pie. By Jessica Allen.
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Emmett's arrival on the scene a few years ago caused much hand-wringing and worrying: was New York ready for Chicago-style pizza? The answer: yes, oh yes, and there were enormous lines to prove it. Although getting a table these days is a bit easier, the excellent deep dish pies remain. Each one takes upwards of 20 minutes to cook, but the result, filled to the brim with sauce and cheese and other goodies (we like the sausage), is absolutely worth the wait.
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Since 1975, Joe's Pizza has cranked out pizza after delicious pizza to hordes of hungry locals and tourists. The original Joe spent upwards of 80 hours a week making and baking pies, and eventually his sons joined him behind the counter. You can get your pizza by the whole pie or by the slice, featuring a variety of traditional topics (i.e., you won't find any kale, truffles, or any fancy stuff here). Try the Sicilian square pie, a hunk of meaty, saucy, carb-tastic delight.
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A true New York institution, John's of Bleecker has been in its present location since the 1930s, but John Sasso had technically opened his eponymous pizza joint a few years before, after immigrating from Italy (a lost lease necessitated the move to Bleecker). Still a family-run business, the restaurant features crispy, thin-crusted pies made in a coal-fired brick oven, covered in mozzarella, a sweet sauce, and your choice of toppings like meatballs, garlic, and pepperoni.
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Probably our favorite pizza place not only in the West Village, but possibly in the entire city! "Kesté" means "this is it" in the dialect of the Italy-born owner's youth, and it really and truly is. The wood-fired Neapolitan pies come in a variety of styles, from red to white. We're big big fans of the pistacchio e salsiccia (pistachio pesto and sausage), but the prosciutto e arugula, quattro formaggi, and burrata Roberto (with housemade burrata) haunt our dreams as well.
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Co-owned by a father-and-son team (along with one another investor), Pizzetteria Brunetti specializes in authentic Neapolitan pies. Among the 13 or so special pies are the vongole, with chopped clams freshly caught off Long Island in a herb butter and garlic sauce; the carbonara, with pancetta, parmesan, and egg yolk; and the spezie, with sautéed broccoli rabe, broccolini, burrata, spicy Italian sausage, hot peppers, and, the coup de grâce, Calabrian pepper puree. Yes, yes, and yes!
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Jessica Allen blogs at We Heart New York.
