First visits to the NYC are always the best. There's too much to explore and too many things to try but not enough time. The one thing that no person will be able to leave without trying once he gets to the Big Apple is its pizza, because you won't just have any pizza. You'll try the pizza that the pizza parlors have mastered over years.
There's not much you have to plan before getting your taste buds ready for it. Here are some details you should know about it.
Do not slice through the pie, slice off a piece instead! The New York slice shop is a special shop: when you enter, you point at what you'd like and pay a couple of dollars and then sit at a counter or a narrow ledge and eat something that has been eating this city for over 100 years. Quick, democratic and delicious! The first slice should be an easy one: plain cheese or perhaps a white one, with ricotta. Give the dough and the sauce a chance to "talk"!
It's dynamic, competitive and really good.
But it's just Brooklyn, it's punching well above its weight, pretty much unwarranted that it's doing that. Built on one single plain pie with three cheeses on a thin, chewy crust, wood-fired, Lucali in Carroll Gardens is known all over the world. Roberta turned an industrial lot into one of America's most culturally relevant restaurants: Roberta's in Bushwick. Pizzas are sold in personal cuts at L'Industrie in Williamsburg, which is a pizza style that can be eaten in boroughs all over the world, especially the burrata cut.
Before you arrive take a bit of time to have a little time with a good guide to the top 5 pizzerias in NYC, which includes the best pizza places in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and all the things a first time visitor would want to know: what makes these pizza places special, what to order and how to look at it. It is a simple and particularly thrilling journey to make crazy city.
Last but not least: Don't restrict yourself to just one pizza meal. New York is a city that you can eat two slices of pizza in one day – one in Manhattan and one for a meal in Brooklyn – and not feel guilty in the least. You're in the world's pizza heaven. Act accordingly.