The dark side.Photo: Jason Perlow
Like a Maxim “special breast issue” or a Cigar Aficionado report on status anxiety, the definitive N.Y. pizza blog Slice’s “Di Fara Roundup” is a redundancy. Di Fara’s is, with a handful of other pantheon pizzerias, Slice’s reason for existence. But look past this — back, that is, to the post on Egullet co-founder Jason Perlow’s photoblog Off the Broiler, which partly inspired the roundup. In singling out Di Fara’s square pie for special praise, Perlow reveals a big blind spot shared by the faithful. Beloved pizza man Dom DeMarco — and we count ourselves among his greatest fans — actually burns over half of the square pies. His oven is a million years old, give or take, and its hot spots are hard for him to control, especially given the equally ancient cookie pans the Saint of Avenue J uses for the square pizza. We aren’t kidding when we say “burned” — even the bottom of the slice Perlow shoots from below (in what Slice likes to call a “pizza upskirt shot”) is totally blackened. That no one even mentions this is proof of the most orthodox religious fidelity. [Slice: “Di Fara Roundup“]
