Inspiration Outing #6: Paulie Gee's

This is the one year anniversary of this blog and it seems only fitting that the post should be about pizza. The motivation for starting this blog was to share some great pizza making on my brother's part.  (Check out this post.)  This weekend I had the fortunate opportunity to introduce one pizza-making Paulie to another.

On left is the Regina for all of the traditionalists out there.  On the right, Anis and Anefew for fennel lovers.

This is my favorite pizza in NY.  Brooklyn has no shortage of pizza places and these days no shortage of pizza places that make a neapolatan style pizza in a brick oven.  But none seem to to quite get the balance of crust and toppings as well as Paulie Gee's.  Even the better pizzerias may do a good crust and have some quality toppings but maybe they don't get enough char.  Or too much char.  Or the topping are heavily piled in the middle making the center of the pie soggy.  These are still good pizzas but they are not Paulie Gee's.  What I like most about the pizza at Paulie Gee's is the artful toppings.  They are both simple and surprising.  Take the popular "Hell Boy" pizza.It has most of the toppings you would expect on an Italian style pizza, mild fior di latte mozarella, soppressata piccante, tomato but with the addition of a spicy, hot honey.  Just enough to add an interesting complexity without overpowering the other ingredients.  We sampled six pies that night, all in unique flavor combinations but keeping with the tradition of simple, good quality ingredients.

The two Paulies in front of one beautiful brick oven.