Keste

We eat a lot of pizza, especially neo-Neopolitan, but Keste remains our favorite / one of our favorites (there's some disagreement in our house about just how amazingly excellent this West Village restaurant is). Nevertheless, this is the pizza we daydream about when we're stuck on the side of a road in India, waiting for a flat to get fixed, or hiking up a hill in El Salvador, wishing for AC and a cool pool of water in which to stick our aching dogs. True story! In other words, regardless of where this restaurant appears on our personal pizza pantheon, it matters.

So we were ecstatic to learn that Keste recently debuted an expanded menu. The topsy-turvy night and day calzone (top) --- a calzone stuffed with fresh ricotta, homemade mozzarella, and ham and topped with tomato sauce, homemade mozzarella, pecorino romano, basil, and extra virgin olive oil --- probably won't make our regular rotation of pizza-related fantasies. But the pistacchio e salsiccia certainly will, thanks to the sweet-tang of the pistachio pesto and spicy-bitter sausage, not to mention a crust we could happily chew on, or think about chewing on, for hours.