Arthur Schwartz
The Food Maven
About Arthur: The New York Times Magazine called Arthur Schwartz “a walking Google of food and restaurant knowledge.” As the restaurant critic and executive food editor of the New York Daily News, which he was for 18 years, he was called The Schwartz Who Ate New York. Nowadays, he is best known as The Food Maven, the name of his website. Whatever the sobriquet, he is acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost experts on food, cooking, culinary history, restaurants, and restaurant history.
The Best Neapolitan pizza in New York City.
I was so busy before I left for Italy that I never had a chance to tell you about the very successful party (if I say so myself) that I hosted in November at the new Arthur Avenue (the Bronx) restaurant, Zero Otto Nove (089). In English, that’s Zero Eight Nine, and it is the area code for Salerno. Owner-chef, Robert Paciullo, also owner-chef of Roberto’s, the best restaurant in the area, is from Salerno.
So here’s my Small World Story: The son, Matteo, of one of my dearest Italian friends, Enrica Barratta, the sister of Cecilia, is (more or less) engaged to Roberto’s first cousin, Valentina, who also lives in Salerno. When Enrica was in New York last spring, she asked me if I’d ever heard of Roberto’s in the Bronx, as it looks like her son is marrying into Roberto’s family. I tell her it’s the best restaurant up there. She is happy. And that I have known Roberto for many years and that he is a total gent, and a very talented chef and restaurateur. She is happier. Now, with the Valentina-Matteo connection, Roberto and I feel like we are practically cousins, and we couldn’t be happier.
As almost any New Yorker will tell you, the Belmont section of the Bronx, which New Yorkers generically call “Arthur Avenue,” after the main drag, is New York’s real and actual Little Italy, as opposed to the two totally touristic blocks of Mulberry Street that nowadays pass for Little Italy in Manhattan. In fact, few Italian-Americans live in either community, but people from all over, especially Italian-Americans who have moved north and west of the city, still go to the Bronx to shop in Arthur Avenue’s many wonderful food stores. There are butchers, bakeries, groceries, fish markets, mozzarella and pasta makers. And there are several restaurants and cafes. Roberto’s has been a destination restaurant for years. Now Zero Otto Nove has become one. It is already, after only a few months in business, drawing customers from the hinterlands, and for several good reasons. Top among them, I am sure, is the Neapolitan-style pizza that may be the best you’ve ever had in the U.S., and better than many in Naples, as I just described. I know I am going out on a limb with that remark, but I know what I am doing. Well, I hope I am not setting anyone up for a disappointment.
Zero Otto Nove’s pizzaiolo , its pizza maker, Ricardo, who indeed has enough charisma to be called by only one name, like Garbo or Cher, is originally from Naples. But he last worked in downtown Salerno. He was making such good pizza in Salerno that my Salernitani friends suggested that the place he worked at, Pizza Margherita, would be a good substitute for Pizzeria Vicolo della Neve, my usual haunt, but which, in the summer, is way too hot and airless to be enjoyable.
Roberto has designed Zero Otto Nove to look like a piazza in the medieval historic center of Salerno, with its narrow streets and arched passageways. It could be a Broadway set for a southern Italian piazza. And the Arthur Avenue restaurant embodies the spirit of Pizzeria Vicolo della Neve. On stage is Ricardo and the wood-burning pizza oven surround by a green marble counter. The double-height dining room is topped by a copper-lined skylight. Don’t wait for an old Italian woman to lean out the window high on the wall overlooking the room. The windows and soaring arches are finto, fake. But you can imagine …
Roberto’s idea was also to reproduce all the foods they serve at Vicolo della Neve. Besides the pizza and calzone, that would be eggplant parmigiana, baked pastas, that particular dry style of pasta e fagioli, the baccala baked in the oven with potatoes and olives … I hope you get the picture.
At my party of nearly 100 people, we ate all of those, plus some, but the menu offers much more. Pizza prices, each pie meant as a single serving, but you can certainly share, range from $10.95 to $14.95. Pastas and main courses range from $13.95 for the famous baked pasta and beans to $24.95 for zuppa di pesce, fish stew.
Check it out. Zero Otto Nove is at 2357 Arthur Ave., the Bronx; 718-220-1027. Tell them Schwartz sent you.
Horn & Hardart's Macaroni and Cheese
Serves 2 or 3
Horn & Hardart was a Philadephia and New York restaurant chain that also had stores specializing in take-out. With the TV and radio advertising motto "Less work for mother," they actually pioneered the concept of prepared foods to eat at home. The restaurants were called Automats because, besides a cafeteria line, they featured food behind tiny glass windows that was accessed by putting a few nickels in the slots. The last Automat -- on Third Ave. and 42nd St. -- closed only about 10 years ago. It's now a GAP. But New Yorkers and Philadephians old enough to have experienced Horn & Hardart have deep nostalgia for many of its specialties. The mac and cheese is probably prime among them.
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
11/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons light cream (see note)
1 packed cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup crushed tomatoes (I used Pomi, you can use any canned product)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Dash cayenne pepper (I used several dashes)
Dash white pepper
1/2 pound small elbow macaroni, cooked until barely done
1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat, blend in flour and cook about 2 minutes.
2. Beat in the milk, then the cream and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to the boil and thickens. Remove from heat.
3. Stir in the cheese until melted, then the crushed tomatoes, sugar and two peppers.
4. Stir in the macaroni.
5. Pour into a shallow, buttered baking dish and bake in a preheated 400-degree oven until the surface browns, 25 to 30 minutes.
NOTE: This recipe must have been broken down from one that made an enormous quantity, which explains the small amount of light cream. If you don't want to purchase a half-pint container of light cream just for two tablespoons, simply add two tablespoons more milk. You'll never know the difference. I also think it needs a little salt, which is not called for in the recipe.
For women who aren't kids
Get Arthur's brand new cook book: Arthur Schwartz's
Jewish Home Cooking:
Yiddish Recipes Revisted
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