Fornino Puts Pizza on the Grill
Last night, Empanada Boy and I joined our friends Bass Drum Crumb and Curly Fries at the new Park Slope location of Fornino, a restaurant and pizzeria that has already made a name for itself in Williamsburg. I had read about the fantastic Neapolitan-style pies at the first location and saw the mouthwatering pictures of them on the restaurant’s website. A great Williamsburg foodie attraction had made its way to the less hipster ‘hood of Park Slope! This was worth a celebratory cheer and a visit. What I didn’t know was that Chef Michael Ayoub had decided not to build the requisite wood-fired pizza oven at his Park Slope spot. Instead, he opted to grill his pies and serve a bunch of other Italian pastas and more elegant fare. I didn’t realize this shift until our pizza arrived at the table. (The menu for the Park Slope location is not on the website, but I eventually found it here.) I was disappointed not to be eating the chewy bubbly crust of the Neapolitan-style pizza I had been craving, but the company was great and the grilled pizza had its merits, which I will be discussing below.
We started with two tasty antipasti: eggplant caponata and a salad made with radicchio, peaches and goat cheese. The caponata had a nice balance of sweetness from the roasted eggplant and saltiness from black olives that were blended in. It came with a nice herbed focaccia that had just the right chew (a true rarity, in my experience). The salad was vibrant and beautiful in its color contrasts. My only complaint was that the dressing was a little too mild. A bolder, tangier dressing could have set off the sweetness of the peach wedges nicely. Next came our pizzas. We ordered the Funghi Misti with wild mushrooms taleggio and white truffle oil and another one called the Calabrese, made with tomato, fior di latte (cow’s milk mozzarella) and a spicy pepperoni called caciatorini a diavolo. The crust on these was quite thin and almost cracker-like at the edges. It had good flavor with a hint of smokiness, but none of the blackened, bubbly pockets that come from an oven. The mushrooms on the first pizza had strong flavors of their own, but didn’t seem to have been seasoned enough while being cooked. One variety of darker color mushrooms dominated the others. But the flavors that won the fight for dominance in this dish was definitely the white truffle oil. I could have done with less of it.
Instead of the Calabrese, our server ended up bringing us the Pizza Vinny Scotto. This one had all the ingredients of the Calabrese, but added bel paese (a semi-soft Italian cheese), pecorino, ricotta and a bell pepper aioli. Crumb had been hesitant to order this one because he wasn’t into big clumps of ricotta, but the clumps turned out to be fairly small we decided to keep it when it came. Perhaps we made a mistake, though, because there seemed to be too many ingredients on this pizza. The sheer number of cheese alone was enough to create a conflicting flavor profile that didn’t successfully highlight the quality of any single one of them. The best part of this pizza was the caciatorini. It was hot and well-spiced and not as greasy as the generic pepperoni found on so many pies.
Speaking of ricotta, this cheese also featured prominently in the cheesecake topped with strawberries that we ordered as one of our desserts. I am not a fan of American-style dense cheesecakes, but this one had a pleasant lightness to it, and it was not too sweet. The fresh strawberries made for beautiful color contrast and added seasonal freshness.
Our second dessert was a torta di limone, a cake with a thin crust of brown around the exterior and and moist, but light, lemony interior. This was a great dessert and one I would like to try making at home. Curly Fries and I had enough to drink between the two bottles of Italian wine we ordered as a table and the glass of white she ordered for herself, but EB and Crumb wanted to keep the party flowing…I mean going. They each ordered a glass of grappa from the fairly lengthy list. EB’s ended up being smoother than Crumbs, which was more like a whiskey in its smokiness. Both were quite strong, but the Italians believe they aid the digestion, and I’m not inclined to argue with centuries of tradition.
In the end, the pizza was good but not great. The ingredients were nice and the restaurant itself was pleasant, but I had really been looking forward to that Neapolitan crust. Maybe it was just a question of managing expectations.
Fornino Park Slope
256 5th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.399.8600












How many guys does it take to make a good burger? Apparently more (or less) than five—at least that’s what the burgers at the Park Slope outpost of the cult chain
The name Flipster’s admittedly leaves something to be desired. (The website says it’s a reference to the Brooklyn hipsters who flip the burgers, but I noticed no skinny jeans or horn rims behind the grill.) But EB and I were very pleasantly surprised when we stopped in at Flipster’s after signing our lease. It’s a pretty standard looking bar and grill with dark wooden furniture and a TV playing sports. The menu has items like chicken sandwiches and popcorn shrimp, but burgers are the clear focus. These range from the most basic option to Kobe beef burgers, bison and lamb burgers and even a pizza burger with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese (might be gross, might be good).
I ordered the plain burger, which I believe is the true test of greatness because it highlights the most important ingredient: the meat. It came with lettuce, tomato, onions, mustard and ketchup. EB ordered the Brooklyn Flipster Burger with bacon, mozzarella and caramelized onion. Both patties were obviously hand-formed and nicely charred on the outside. Biting into them revealed the pretty pinkish hue of the meat, medium-rare as requested. The meat was flavorful, fresh and juicy and had obviously never been frozen. It was a far cry from the chewy shriveled disks at Five Guys. EB’s bacon was crispy and delicious. The cheese added chew. Still, I don’t think a good burger needs these accessories, and I was completely content here without them.
Lastly, I cannot fail to mention the superior fries at Flipster’s. They are waffle-cut, offering a greater fried surface-area-to-volume ratio. These were crispy and evenly spiced with a blend of seasonings. Five Guys may give double the number of fries (a huge paper bag full) in its large order, but who wants to eat double the number of limp, flavorless potato sticks? Flipster’s wins this round too, hands down.

Empanada Boy and I are moving to Brooklyn in January. We don’t know where we’re moving, mind you, but we know we’ll be going to that borough. After a year in Mahattan, we are ready to move to a neighborhood that’s more our speed and one that’s not an hour’s subway ride from the majority of our friends. In search of the right neighborhood, we set off on Saturday on a walking tour through Prospect Heights, Gowanus, South Slope, Windsor Terrace and Greenwood Heights. We walked for miles, through light rain at times. As we walked up to the Prospect Park F Train Station at 15th Street, it started to pour. I spotted a tiny Vietnamese cafe called
As soon as the rain cleared up a bit, we continued on our tour by about 6 pm, we were totally exhausted. We took the train to Vladimir Pudding’s house in Boerum Hill and crashed wearily onto his couch. After a few drinks, we called Basedrum Crumb and invited him to come from Park Slope to meet us for dinner. (We had been planning to meet somewhere in the middle, but EB and I were too tired/lazy to walk.)
Empanada Boy is now on a diet. I know, I know, it crushes me too when a man who loves food so much has to be reigned in. It’s not as if he’s had to punch new holes in his belt or anything, but we both agree that he could trim up a bit if he’s going to look like a young Paul Newman for the wedding. I also want to be sure he lives a long and healthy life with me. EB has done a fantastic job of sticking to his diet during his first week. He’s kept to his calorie limit every day and has even turned down birthday cake and beer. He’s riding the stationary bike as I write this. We both agree it’s for the best, but I can’t help thinking that this is something like the end of an era. What was the tipping point? The answer can be found somewhere in the depths of the fryer at
Chip Shop is a British-themed fish and chips joint in Park Slope, Brooklyn. EB used to frequent it when he lived in the neighborhood, and he had been looking forward to dinner there months before we came to New York. We rounded up Vladimir Pudding and EB’s former roommate Bassdrum Crumb to join us. Chip Shop specializes in one mode of cooking: frying. A deep-fried pizza even appears on its menu. I was content with fish and chips, but the frying possibilities were too tempting for EB. He ordered a meal, which comes with a side, fish and chips and dessert. He started with a lovely ball of deep fried mac ‘n cheese (pictured above). It was actually pretty disgusting— just as lumpy, heavy and goopy as it looks. EB’s next course was the cod fish and chips. The fish was tender, but batter on these was too bready and lacked the fine crispiness I was expecting. The fries were decent, but not remarkable.
As if all that weren’t enough, EB’s dessert was a Twinkie cut in half and deep-fried into two calorie-laden packets. Fittingly, they looked like empanadas dusted with powdered sugar. One bite revealed a gooey, fake creamy interior that could only be one thing. The fruit compote that came on the side may have been one of the only sources of nutrients in the entire meal. As that meal came to an end, the seeds of regret and self-doubt were planted in his mind. Empanada Boy was disappointed in the diminished quality of the food, acknowledging that it probably wasn’t worth the calories. It was a Chip Shop epiphany. And it wasn’t long before the diet began. I may not have exactly the same Empanada Boy when it’s all said and done, but I’ll have a trimmer, more studly guy standing next to me on wedding day.
