Grandma, who taught you how to make a pizza?

[PASQUALINA PINELLO, FRANK'S GRANDMA] I learned in Italy. My mother used to make it.

I grab the onions, the bread crumbs, the anchovies.

Everything nice and neat.

Put a little hot pepper.

A little bit of hot peppers.

And then I spread the dough. And that's how I make a pizza.

Where? In Baucina?

In Baucina and here as well.

Do you like Best Pizza's pizza, grandma?

[FRANK PINELLO, CHEF/OWNER, BEST PIZZA] Oh yeah, you like the Best Pizza!

The best.

[MUNCHIES]

[BEST PIZZA, WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN]

My name is Frank Pinello and my place is Best Pizza.

Best Pizza's pretty much just a by-the-slice pizzeria,

very much a New York-style place where you can walk in

grab a slice of pizza, grab something to drink,

and be out the door in five minutes if that's what you want.

Lucky enough to have a 100 year old wood fire oven,

so we cook the big 20 inch pies in about 4 minutes.

Pizza time!

I'm just gonna go ahead and make you a white pizza.

It's like one of our signature pies over here.

When we first started making it we were playing around with like some

arugula and stuff like that on it, and then we decided that

the white pie is about the ricotta cheese, so

let's not, let's not do anything too crazy.

Let's let the ricotta cheese kinda be the star of the show.

And we do these caramelized onion that we let sit, you know,

on the raw dough and let caramelize for a long time, it's that sweetness

that people always keep talking about.

Comin' in.

Pizza came from Napoli, you know,

and when all those Southern Italian immigrants started coming over to New York,

everybody started opening up all these small pizzerias, and

kept a lot of those values of using really fresh ingredients,

and having really great techniques,

and, you know, as time went on, their sons took it over,

or they sold the pizzerias, and I think people started

realizing, oh, you know, we could just use shitty pepperoni, and

shitty mozzarella cheese and make a whole lot more money, you know.

Started realizing, man, this pizza isn't as good as it used to be.

So when we finally got in here it was important to me

to try to preserve some of those old techniques and those ideas.

of using the best stuff that you possibly can

and hope that we'll make it up.

I know a lot of people love pizza across the world.

You know what I mean? Across the country, but

I'm not so sure that anyone has done it better than Brooklyn.

Like Napoli, like anywhere. Pizza and Brooklyn go hand-in-hand.

I thought it would only be right to bring you to Bensonhurst, of course.

Filthy, filthy.

[BILL MEIER, DELIVERY MAN, BEST PIZZA] My partner in crime is Bill.

Bill's a delivery guy here, but we spend a lot of time together

out at the bars, so I figured I'd bring Bill along as well.

I've worked in pizzerias my entire life.

Delivery is a huge part of pizza places,

and the second I met Bill I knew it was a match made in heaven.

I've been a bike messenger since 1982.

I've seen Bill take 8 pies in a bag.

To me that's mind blowing. This guy rides a fixed gear bike

with no brakes on it, and sometimes...

and sometimes it'll be like, torrential downpour,

and he'll be fuckin' soaked to the bone.

But he gets the job done man, always gets the job done.

Think it was Brandon's, from Roberta's... to get you a cape.

-Dude. -And I was like, "Fuck yes!"

I told him I would totally rock the cape.

For me, homebase for pizza, 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst

old Sicilian neighborhood, and they got some great pizzerias.

J & V Pizza is a great by-the-slice pizzeria

that's on the corner of 64th Street and 18th Avenue.

The square slice at J & V is what they're known for.

As a kid I used to always go there, and you know, scrape up some change

grab a square slice from J & V, an Italian Ice,

and, you know, my afternoon was made.

What's up pop. Can I get a...

4 squares please. Thank you papa.

Bill sit down. Let's eat.

A proper square Sicilian slice is a nice thick fluffy slice.

A crusty bottom, a nice fluffy middle,

a sauce-y, cheesy top to it.

So it's like three different components.

And when you get that ratio right...

you know, that's a good Sicilian slice.

It's pretty crunchy on the bottom, nice and fluffy in the middle,

The cheese is really good. You can tell like this is one of those places

that just kept the quality up over the years, you know what I mean?

You can look around and see how many pizza boxes they have.

And you can tell that these guys are doing really good business

and they're a staple in the neighborhood, so.

From J & V we went to DaVinci's.

Thank you man! Take care buddy.

And that was always sort of a toss up, like,

if we had a couple bucks in our pocket, or my grandmother maybe

didn't feel like cooking and wanted to order some pizzas, it was always like

alright, where are we going, J & V or DaVinci's?

-Here we are. -Wow, that was far.

World famous, Davinci's pizzeria.

[DAVINCI PIZZERIA, BENSONHURST, BROOKLYN]

Every classic pizzeria offers their version of a square

and their version of a round, and J & V for me was

the square slice, and DaVinci's was the round.

And as you can see these guys do a nice job.

-That's a pretty slice. -Beautiful crust.

Nice and thick. Let's give it a shot.

It's always been the same. The recipe hasn't changed.

[ANGELO GNERRE, OWNER, DAVINCI PIZZERIA] I just try to perfect it, you know.

Maybe I add a little of this, a little of that, I use different types of flour,

to give it that color, that consistency, that flavor,

that crunchiness.

Classic. These guys know how to do it right.

Yeah they do.

So we were feeling pretty full after DaVinci's.

Thank you so much man!

And it was only right to bring you guys to Villabate.

It's just like Sicily rolled up into a ball,

[VILLABATE ALBA BAKERY, BENSONHURST, BROOKLYN] and thrown into like a storefront.

They make great espresso, like really really tasty

and the flavor of the coffee lingers in your mouth.

When I work for a chef that I really love,

what I would do is come here and buy them a dozen cannolis.

and bring it to them as a treat, and the second they tasted it,

they knew that it was like the primo stuff, so.

Here you go. Sicilian-style cannoli.

This place does it the best.

Thank you very much. Grazie si!

Amazing.

Come on Bill.

I'm being on a TV show right now.

I think that it's called Munchies.

I lived in Brooklyn until I was about 10 years old, and then

my family moved out to Long Island. On the weekends we would always

sort of drive back to Brooklyn to spend the weekend with my grandmother.

[NONNA'S HOUSE, BENSONHURST, BROOKLYN] And as soon as you kind of like approach the steps,

you could like smell the aroma of what my grandmother's been cooking

for like the last 3 or 4 hours.

Oh yeah!

You know, my grandmother would buzz us in and the door would open,

walk down the long hallway, and that aroma starts getting a little bit more

strong, you know.

-Yes. -Hi!

We've arrived.

Shower us with hugs and kisses and then walk right through the little

doorway, and bam, the table would just be stocked with food.

-Oh wow. -You got some food?

Well it's 8 o'clock, and you can't keep a roomful of Italians...

-Thomas! -What's going on man?

-Hey buddy. -How are you?

I never imagined I would take that walk with Bill.

Hi! How are you?

Everybody sit down. Eat!

Oh sweet. Thank you very much.

Talk a lot about pizza today? This is the style of pizza that I grew up eating.

Country-style grandma's pizza, my grandmother stuffed this one

with some tomatoes, some caramelized onions,

possibly some anchovies in there, I haven't tasted it yet so I'm not sure

but this is the way we do it. Full table full of food,

and eat until we're stuffed.

My grandmother put out a lot of dishes.

I know she knew the camera was coming, but I'll be honest with you,

it's always like that.

This is classic Sicilian pasta.

Right here.

Put a little bit of bread crumbs as a topping, bread crumbs on top.

A lot of people in Sicily couldn't afford cheese as a topping,

so you see bread crumb pretty often on top of pasta, which

it's starch on starch, but like,

the texture combination goes really really well.

-That's yours no? -That's mine.

I'm really happy that you brought Bill with you today.

You like? You like?

Oh yeah, I love it, I love it.

I love you, I love him too.

Nonna, sit down. Go ahead and sit down.

He loved to eat, and he was like,

[STEVE PINELLO, FRANK'S FATHER] around the kitchen when my wife Diane was cooking,

he would actually advise us as to what, you know, spice to use,

every now and then, he would kind of, you know,

put his own two cents into it as to say.

My family was never rich by any means, you know what I mean,

we always grew up in apartments in Brooklyn, but

the one thing that we did right was eat.

The commitment to food that I think Sicilian people have in general

it's crazy, it's amazing, and I feel lucky that I was born into it, you know?

Woo-hoo! The Pinello's rock!

Alright, thanks again you all! It's great to see you!

Bill! Be careful brother!

Thanks a lot Bill. Keep those wheels oiled!

After we left grandma's house, we came back to Best Pizza.

And we had some friends waiting for us here, and we did a meatball pizza

which is starting to become a popular pie here,

especially towards the end of the night when people come in hammered

from the bars.

We get our meat from Pat LeFreda,

it's 50% rib, 50% brisket.

All that fat is flavor.

So we wanna make sure we get all that nice beautiful clear fat

mixed in with those meatballs and back on top of the pizza.

Pizza is like the perfect accompaniment for drinking.

You come into a pizzeria, you have a few beers,

some pizza, you get yourself a nice base before you go out to the bar,

and you usually get hungry at the end of the night, you know,

and if you're done partying with your buds coming back and

having a nice fresh pie out of the over is, to me it's like...

you can't go wrong. It's beautiful.

Who needs napkins?

Nonna what are you, pounding?

To my grandfather Nonnu, we miss, you get better.

Indeed.

To Munchies. Uno, due, tre...

Salud! Viva!

Thank you Munchies!

Viva Santa Fortunata! Viva!

Salud! Viva!