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Coals is one of a few spots scattered across the boroughs that serve an innovation credited to Providence, Rhode Island’s Al Forno restaurant: grilled pizza. Despite the name, coals have nothing to do with the preparation—each slab of hand-stretched dough is slapped onto the metal grate of a gas-fired grill. The bar dominates this restaurant, which resembles a sports bar, pizza joint, and living room all in one. Narrow and softly lit, with square wood tables and red wainscoted walls, the space is dominated by a 48-inch flat-screen TV. Toward the entrance is a cozier, carpeted section with yellow cushioned armchairs, dark wood coffee tables, and bookshelves. Barring the televised games that arrest the attention of dazed interns from nearby Jacobi Medical Center, the pizza is the main event. Discs of thin wheat- and corn-flour leavened crusts have bitter, appealing char marks, and just past the crisp surface-snap of each bite is a chewy, slightly sour flatbread-like softness. Grilled-crust dishes are the way to go here, even for dessert. The Fluffernutter arrives folded like a crêpe but with no fluff in the filling—instead, it oozes mascarpone cheese and Nutella, a deliciously sweet finish to a pizza-themed meal. — Laurel A. Fantauzzo

Margherita pizza, $12; Coals Fluffernutter, $6

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