Kesté

Like a lot of people, we've been eagerly anticipating the opening of Kesté. (So high has the pitch been running that New York Magazine published an article entitled "What To Do While You're Waiting for Kesté to Open.") With an authenticity-obsessed owner and an oven built by artisans flown in from Naples, Kesté aims to elevate pizza in New York --- they even plan on offering classes to their competitors soon.

We started with a simple salad of greens, mozzarella, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar.


But nobody is coming here for the salad. Kesté serves no main courses except pizza, and the wood-burning oven takes up about a third of the entire space. (Harried-looking staff kept carrying bundles of wood through the dining room during lunch.) Each pizza is made to order, of course, and the seemingly all-Italian staff yells out pie requests to the pizzaiolo as they come in.



The behemoth oven cooks the pies at 1,000 degrees, creating delicious bubbles in the crust and a char so thick it rubs off on your fingers.




We ordered two pies. The first was the quattro formaggi, a white pizza topped with gran cru, buffalo mozzarella, parmigiano reggiano, and caciocavallo, drizzled with olive oil and topped with whole basil leaves. The mixture of cheese meant that each bite was slightly different. Our other pie was the salsiccia, which is topped with tomatoes, mozzarella, Italian sausage, basil, and oil. The sweetness of the salsiccia might have been a bit much on its own, but sharing the two pizzas allowed us to cut the tomatoes with the tangy richness of the quattro formaggi.




The prices and the crowds are the same as at Co., so we'll have to go back to each many, many more times before we can choose a favorite.