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New York Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Why Lucali (Still) Isn't On Our Best Pizza List
For those of us in the business of being journalistically critical, there is a grab bag of ways that the job can go wrong. A chef could confront you over your review. Your social media mentions could become a garbage fire. Your inbox could pile up with emails from angry readers. But the greatest nightmare might be sending someone into a subpar dining experience — one that might not be worth their time, effort or hard-earned money. In October we published our list of the best pizza spots in New York City, and hawk-eyed readers noticed that Lucali, the infamously hard-to-get-into restaurant and pizzeria in Carroll Gardens, was nowhere to be seen. This week, we updated that list and, once again, there's no Lucali. Why? Well, the hassle-to-quality ratio is out of whack. Lucali is still difficult to get into — would-be diners often have to stand in line for hours before the restaurant opens — and if you are able to secure a table, the food might not deliver. For this go-round, I sent Luke Fortney, an energetic and intrepid food reporter, to retest the waters after Priya Krishna's visit last fall. On a Monday in March, Luke lined up at 1:30 p.m., two-and-a-half hours before a host appears and starts taking reservations. At 7 p.m., he and a few friends were seated for dinner. I'll let Luke take it from there: I had done this song and dance before but I didn't remember the service being so rushed once you were inside. Our dinner for a table of three — two pizzas, a calzone and a pasta — lasted 72 minutes. We would have lingered, but we were asked to leave with a half-finished bottle of wine. I liked, not loved, our pizzas. The tomato sauce was as good (salty) as ever but the dough was denser than I remembered. A few weeks later, I returned to order a takeout pizza with a 20-minute wait. That was when I realized it wasn't really about the wait or the service. The pizza just wasn't there. Both Priya and Luke made the point that you could enjoy equally good pizza at nearby restaurants without the hassle. (Embrace the hot restaurant dupe!) And I've lived here long enough — going on 13 years — to know that at the end of most long lines there is regret, disappointment or a mixture of both. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How a TikTok Cook Spends Her Sundays
Justine Doiron didn't plan on becoming a recipe developer when she moved to New York in 2016. She was fresh out of Cornell University's hospitality program and had embarked on a career in public relations. Cooking was just a hobby then. Today, she's better known by her online moniker Justine Snacks and shares recipe videos with 2.3 million followers on TikTok. Ms. Doiron, 30, first gave TikTok a whirl in April 2020. Since the app's main audience seemed to be teenagers, she geared her content toward them with trending recipes for sushi cakes and pasta flowers. Eventually, her style morphed into what she's best known for today: approachable, veggie-forward recipes paired with stories from her day-to-day life. She recently published 'Justine Cooks: A Cookbook' and has another one in the works. All of Ms. Doiron's recipe testing, on and off camera, is done in the kitchen of her 250-year-old wood frame house in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn. 'I'm really building out my dream life in the house, because this year's been the year of Martha Stewart and Ina Garten, and their resurgence of this 'nostalgia core,'' she said. Ms. Doiron lives with her fiancé, Eric Lipka, 31, an intelligence analyst, their French bulldog, Walter, and their rescue cat, Gladiator. EARLY TO RISE I wake up at 6 a.m. if not earlier. I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, which I guess just comes with age and general anxiety about things (love that). I also really like my mornings to myself. I use the first hour of the morning to ingest coffee like it's my job and write down my general outline and plans for the week. TO MARKET TO MARKET I go to the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket as my grossest self. I'm just pajamas-to-jeans, a T-shirt, a puffy jacket, a coat, beanie, puffy eyes and S.P.F. on my face, and I'm out the door by 7:30 a.m. I like seeing everything at its fullest potential. I don't like to feel like I might have missed out something. Carroll Gardens has ACQ Bread Co., which is my favorite bread in the entire city — it's everyone's favorite bread. They have a line down the block no matter how early I am to the market. Every two weeks I get their Living Bread, which has seeds and sprouts. GUILTY PLEASURE Afterward, I pop into Trader Joe's. It's a 10-minute walk from the Carroll Gardens market, so the amount of guilt I feel walking into Trader Joe's with two tote bags filled of vegetables that aren't theirs, to get five cans of chickpeas, some edamame and some coffee creamer, is crazy, but it's part of my routine. Then I take the subway home. LEISURELY BREAKFAST My big luxury is a big, slow breakfast, my shower and being lazy for the next 90 minutes. For breakfast, I toast two slices of the Living Bread I just bought, and then I like to boil jammy eggs. I'm a three egg kind of girl, and I mash them up with chili, flaky salt, red wine vinegar, black pepper and I just put that on the toast. It's a great time to get avocado, so if I have blessed myself with a ripened avocado and have that available, that'll go on there too. Eric, if he's lucky enough, and awake and hungry, will get the same. FIXER UPPER Our house is amazing, but when we got it it needed some tender love and care. I really want a Brooklyn garden in the backyard (which is just concrete, let's be honest). We're making garden beds that have good drainage, and I'm watching the sun and seeing where it'll go. Soon, I'll start seeds on the third floor of the house. TEST KITCHEN I'm usually so excited and inspired by ingredients, especially right when I get them, because nothing hits like the vegetables you just buy. They're at their peak gorgeousness and freshness. I'm currently in the throes of working on book No. 2, so I do a quick little recipe test, or a quick little, 'let's put these flavors together with this ingredient and kind of see where it nets out.' Maybe this will turn into an idea further down the line. We're not super hungry since we had a late breakfast, so it's a little peckish recipe test snack. EARLY BIRD I'm such a morning person and a lazy night person that sometimes we meet our friends for just drinks or aperitivo. Agi's Counter is in our neighborhood, and that's my favorite place. I like to get the window seat (if you know, you know) and just get something super cozy there for dinner. CLEAN UP I have kept this habit since my 9-to-5 corporate days. I can't start a week without feeling some semblance of: normalcy, control, clean. I just straighten the house, do whatever laundry I can and make sure the kitchen's clean. It takes me about an hour, and I do it while listening to a podcast like 'Las Culturistas.' It used to be so much more intense, but I've relaxed now that we have a dog and a cat and I share the home with somebody else. I realize I've let go of a lot of control of things, but the cleaning has stayed. EARLY TO BED Eric and I are together most of the day, but we like to prioritize hanging out all in the same room. He might be logging on and finishing up some emails, while I read and prepare to fall asleep. I've really gotten into reading. I loved 'The Wedding People' by Alison Espach and I'm getting back into reading Maggie O'Farrell — I leap at her books anytime they're available on the library's Libby app. I'm in this phase of my life where I completely understand how lucky I am to have so much peace and so much freedom with my schedule. I use that freedom to go to bed on the earlier side.
