La Pizza – Eataly

Cookie Monster and I had dinner once at Il Pesce portion of Eataly and didn’t exactly walk away loving it.  (See the review here.)  This past Sunday we stayed in town to watch Coldplay and so we  took the opportunity to run some errands.  We were in the Flatiron district and so we decided to try our hand at La Pizza section of Eataly if the wait wasn’t too long. It was about 20 minutes and they ask that you check in with the desk in about 10-15 minutes. We wandered around a bit deciding which groceries to buy after lunch and then headed back to the desk and stood there thinking they would announce our name when it came up.  UM WRONG. FYI – if they say come back to the desk in so and so time, make sure you go back to the desk and check in.  Apparently, we were pushed down the list because we didn’t check in. What…..And we were just standing there trying not to be one of those annoying patrons that ask about the wait every 10 minutes.  Haha apparently at Eataly it pays to be annoying.

We couldn’t decide if we wanted pasta or pizza so we decided to split one of each! Perfect compromise.

I was eyeing the homemade veal agnolotti in a veal reduction sauce so we split that:

(Don’t you just love Instagram? Both the food photos were taken with Instagram if you were wondering.)  The agnolotti was tender to the bite and the perfect delicate vessel to deliver the veal.  That sauce was light and had a bold veal flavor to it since it was reduced veal stock (and probably other things I couldn’t place). Diced parsley brought color to the dish and mild herb flavorings. I ADORED IT.  Incidentally they sell this agnolotti uncooked at one of the fresh pasta counters. Go get it and make it at home!

For pizza, we got the 3 season pizza which essentially is 3 different pizzas all in one. Talk about bang for the buck! (well it is a couple dollars more than the other pizzas on the menu but that’s probably because you get more variety and ingredients in one pizza)

To the far left you have no sauce pizza topped with fresh arugula, thinly sliced proscuitto and shaved parm.  There is just a slight drizzling of EVOO and it was great. You got the peppery freshness from the arugula, salty meaty bite from the proscuitto and then that nuttiness from the parm.  Moving to the middle you have melted mozzarella over tomato pizza topped with parma ham.  SIGH.  That parma ham was so good and the ingredient that made the slice. It was slightly sweet, a little smokey and perfect against the mild melted mozz.  The far right is your basic margerhita pizza with the simple ingredients of tomato, mozzarella and fresh basil. What was so great about this pizza is you got so many different flavor profiles with all of them so your tongue never got tired of just one flavor. We loved the parma slice the best.  Now the crust – it was delicious! Crunchy in places, chewy in others and just the right thickness – which is to say, it was nice and thin as it should be if it’s cooked in a brick oven. See the bits of char? Yum.

So La Pizza was great. We really enjoyed the food and that means we will be back again.  I don’t know that we would wait an hour or anything longer than 30 minutes for a table here (and trust me the waits can get that long) but it’s definitely worth another lunch visit. The food was pretty darn good.

La Pizza, Eataly, 200 5th Avenue, New York, NY