The Original Patsy's

The history of the classic New York pizzerias is a Mexican soap opera, swarming with betrayals, reunions, brash upstarts, sudden downfalls, secret twins, stolen identities, and not a few revived corpses. But if you have the fortitude to sift through our homegrown Amigas y Rivales, you'll learn that one of the heroes is Pasquale "Patsy" Lancieri, who supposedly learned his way around the oven under Gennaro Lombardi at the country's first pizzeria before heading up to then-Italian East Harlem, where he opened his own shop in 1933 and (again, supposedly) invented the practice of selling pizza by the slice.

Flash forward to the present: Patsy's restaurants can be found all over town, using the name of the original --- bought from the employees who bought the East Harlem place from Lancieri's widow --- but otherwise unconnected to it. And then you have Grimaldi's, once called Patsy's and founded by Lancieri's nephew (also named Patsy), who had to change the name after a lawsuit from the people who own the chain. Behind it all, we're sure, is a mysterious stranger with an eye patch.

As the progenitor, the East Harlem Patsy's boasts immense street cred, which may go some way toward explaining why they spend as much on decorating as we do on yacht insurance. But you don't come here to ogle the faded pictures of B-list Italian actors, you come for a pizza that's lasted 77 years: vanishingly thin, slathered with sweet sauce and topped with a mild mozzarella. Recently, we ordered ours with sausage, garlic, onions, and peppers; it arrived a little underdone and under-seasoned. So, the pizza here may not be able to keep up with the dashing new cast, but no one disrespects el patriarca.

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