Este New York Style Pizza
Last week a co-worker gave me a tip about a new New York-style pizza place here in Salt Lake. Since he is a New York native and shares views similar to mine on the quality of mass-produced pizza here in Utah, I’m was very much looking forward to a visit.
For lunch yesterday we headed south down 7th East and made it to Este Pizza for lunch.
It is just off of 2100 South and was not too tricky to find. The actual street sign to look for as you travel along 21st South is Windsor Street. Just north of 21st South and on the East side of the street is a building that at first appearance seems to be a small office building. Turns out Este is a little shop on the North side of the buiding and I’m not sure what is in the rest of the building. There was ample parking all around the place.
The shop itself is not large with maybe four or five tables inside and a bigger patio outside with at least as many large picnic tables and possibly more. First impression is that it’s a dive kind of place, very laid back with a lot of hand-written signs telling you everything from the special of the day to which can is for recycling and which is for plain garbage.
I was amused by their examples, conveniently posted on the wall above the cans. The recycling can allowed for clean/unused napkins, paper plates and such. But they explicitly directed you to put your used paper plates and napkins in the plain garbage. Someone had actually taken the time to recreate a grease-soaked effect with red, yellow, and orange markers on the sample paper plate mounted on the wall above the plain can. Very nice of them to eliminate any confusion on which garbage goes where.
A couple other signs that warrant mention: 1) Above the silverware, a handwritten sign on an old flap from a card board box which unequivocally states that pizza is not a pancake, implying that you should eat the pizza from Este with your hands, folded in half NY-style. 2) Next to the cash register/ordering counter there were two cans of unopened Dole pineapple chunks. The sign above it announced that they were pleased to now offer pineapple as a topping on their pizzas. Each can was priced at $49.99 with a $99.99 corkage fee to open said can. The implication, of course, that pineapple does not belong on real pizza.
We ordered a 14″ pizza (instead of the lunch special slices) knowing we would get a fresh one cooked to our specifications. They have a list of 8-10 specialty pizzas, but since my brother’s favorite is pepperoni and I always like to judge a new place by how well they do with a plain cheese, our was half and half — pepperoni and cheese. The pizza didn’t take long and was excellent. Hot from the oven (too hot to eat when it arrived at our table), the cheese, sauce and crust were all good. The standard NY toppings are provided on each table (dried oregano and garlic) along with parmesan cheese and peppers. It is the closest I’ve come to NY style since I actually lived in Manhattan and definitely merits a return visit sometime soon. I would like to try some of their specialty pizzas now that I’ve established that they can do the basics right.
Other comments:
- very casual, paper plates, serve-yourself sodas
- fast and very friendly service
- additional menu items include a house salad, garlic and cinnamon knots, baked raviolis (as an appetizer) and one or two sandwiches
Este New York Style Pizza
2021 S Windsor Street (840 E)
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
801 485 3699
http://www.estepizzacompany.com/
Bottom line is that this place isn’t all that great. They only serve by the slice for lunch and that is totally weak.
Aside from places making brick-oven Neapolitans, no self respecting NY pizza place does not do slices all the time. I mean, who always wants or has time for a whole pie.
Some may say, “that type of market doesn’t exist in Salt Lake,” but it does. I’ve been in to Este a few times and have missed the “slicing period” as I like to call it. Probability is on my side that I’m not the only one. Even if you end up tossing a pie or two at nights end, selling one slice pretty much pays for that, so you can’t give me that excuse.
I don’t want to hear about quality either. As far as anyone who’s had NY style before will say; Este is just standard stuff; nothing that can’t be reheated in the pizza oven and taste just as good. This isn’t a Grimaldi’s or a Una Pizza Napoletana.
My reason for this gripe arose from an advertisement Este printed in Slug Magazine. It’s essentially a comic strip with two guys, walking in Manhattan, looking for a slice at 10pm. One of them hints at going to Este.
As far as I know that isn’t possible at Este. So, I’m not sure what they are trying to prove.
Maybe I’m wrong and they have changed their policy. Hopefully….
Aren’t these guys from Boston anyway? WTF?
I also wish they would serve slices at any time, but most places I’ve been to in salt lake don’t serve by the slice at all. And there are a few high end places in Staten Island (which has some of the best pizza in new york) that also don’t serve by the slice. So you can’t really say they’re not new york style because they don’t have slices. I mean, even John’s brick oven in the village (which is the best pizza I’ve ever had) does not sell slices.
So, as far as I’m concerned, Este is good pizza and is the best pizza I’ve had outside of new york. Especially if you order it well-done.
In response to “Jack, just a snobby new Yorker”.
You are correct on a few points, and way off the mark on many others. First, your correct points, lets get the short list out of the way. “this isn’t grimaldi’s or una…” Damn straight it isn’t! I don’t own a coal oven, which are illegal anymore for environmental reasons. Nor do I claim to make neapolitan style pizza. My sign says NY style, not napoletena. Any true new yorker would know the difference there, and would not condemn someone for making what they claim. If you were disappointed by not getting a napoletena when you walked in my door, I apologize, but that is not what we make or claim to make. I might suggest settebello. On the quality issue, you are way off. I personally hand pick all of the ingredients we use, constantly looking for the better product. I use very specific cheese, and tomato products. If you knew anything about pizza, you would certainly have tasted the difference. I don’t want to go over the napoletena issue again, but if you are thinking that we don’t use san marzanos, you are correct. We covered the ny style/napoletena difference already. On to the slice issue. It is pretty arrogant to assume you know the reason we don’t sell slices all night. The market does exist; the reason for the lack of all night slices is a combination of a few factors. First, our system. I started on such a skeleton budget, that there was no way to put in an oven out front to have a slice pie counter. Without the slice pie counter and warming oven out front, the labor of creating a slice increases exponentially. Because we can’t display options, we felt that we had to provide our toppings list for people to choose from. This makes it so that each slice is topped individually, also resulting in a much more laborious slice. The other main issue is the distance between our counter and the kitchen. Like before, I didn’t have the funds to make the changes to the building, and did what I could to get open. This distance adds multiple trips for our servers. This adds a grip of time it takes to provide slices to our customers. This continues the time and effort it takes to produce a slice. Couple all of this with a very small kitchen, and you have an incredibly difficult time with slices. Think of the difference between someone pointing at the slice they want, simply reheating it and handing it to them, and the other option of taking the order, running the order back to the kitchen, the cook places the toppings on the slice to order, with any combination of toppings, all the while the server is up taking another order, then when the slice is ready, the server must run back to the kitchen, retrieve the slices and bring them to the customers. This is a distance traveled of over 100 feet. I don’t want to sound like I am whining, we do what we can. We also never promise pizza precisely like you had it at your favorite pizzeria on X street. This is 2400 miles away, and I would go head to head with any ny style pizzeria (not napoletana)on the streets of New York On the advertisement thing, now you are getting petty and really boasting your ignorance. If you have ever used an artist to create an advertisement for you, it would be well known to you that this is not an exact science. I also like to let the artist give their interpretation of my idea. This was not the exact add that I was going for, in fact, the time thing was a complete oversight, I didn’t even notice the time in there. I was much more interested in the look and feel, representing my business. The Boston jab is about a childish as you can get, unless you are simply attempting to get a rise out of me you are just making yourself look foolish . If you have ever been in Este, you would have seen all of the Yankee memorabilia everywhere, you would know that red sox fans pay double, and that we are in fact not from Boston. In the future when you write a review of a restaurant, I would ask that if you don’t have the education, experience, or palate, you at least do some research.
WTF indeed
to respond to jack. to begin, we never did slices around the clock, because we werent set up for it. The location we had wasn’t conducive, ie no slice pie counter, no rewarming oven up front, etc. We were at max capacity in our kitchen. On the advertisement issue, come on man, the idea was to be stylistic, and draw the eye of new customers, not entice late night slice cravings, sorry we don’t tailor our restaurant more to YOU! And no we are not from boston, I, the owner, Dave, is from Dingmans Ferry, PA. I am about an hour and a half from the lincoln tunnel. Not that pizza is better in NY than it is in jersey or PA.