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Pizzerias by Justin nystrom

It is hard to believe that something as ubiquitous as pizza was virtually unknown anywhere in the United States before 1900. Historians generally agree that the Neapolitan slice made its debut in New York at the start of the 20th century but, thereafter, consensus quickly melts. Recent findings by Chicago writer Peter Regas assert that all the early names like Lombardi’s, Pop’s and John’s were actually started by a mysterious Neapolitan baker by the name of Filippo Milone, the “Johnny Appleseed” of pizza in this country. And so, as with most food creation stories, the elusive truth may lay somewhere between the bold marketing claims of the present and a sparsely documented past.

The first pizza in New Orleans is slightly less challenging to uncover than those in New York, a circumstance that has everything to do with the sorts of Italians who turned up here in the 19th century. Indeed, because very few Napolitano came to New Orleans, thin slices of pizza were almost unheard of here until after World War II. Early “pizza” here instead meant sfincione , a thick, pizza- style bread that, like the vast majority of the city’s “Italians,” traces its origins to Sicily. Nick LoGiudice, who once owned a series of popular pizza places in the early 1970s, described going to Italian Hall on Esplanade Avenue with his grandfather for meetings or parties, where he first came into contact with the dish. “When I tell you about the Sicilian pizza, it’s not pizza, it’s sfincione,” he notes. Pronounced “sfin-JZHO-nee” in Italy and a little closer to “spin-GOH-nee” by the old- school Italians here in New Orleans, sfin- cione comes to the table on a bread that can be an inch or more thick. It’s topped with a sauce that’s more onions than tomatoes and is sprinkled with fried bread crumbs. “That’s what holds the sauce together,” describes LoGiudice, along with some grated parme- san or romano cheese. “You think they got mozzarella layin’ around?” The older gener- ation died off before he could learn firsthand how to make it, but LoGiudice later worked up a version for his cousin who pronounced: “You got it right…. yeah, that’s it.” Perhaps the earliest place to serve modern pizza in New Orleans was Segreto’s at 809 St. Louis, near Bourbon Street. “At last the dish you have been waiting for,” announced an ad in 1945, and “…servicemen from all parts of the country have repeatedly asked for it.” Started by the Masera brothers, the location had been an oyster saloon as far back as the late 1870s, became a speakeasy serving Italian American food in the 1920s, and by the 1930s was one of the city’s hottest night spots called “Masera’s Nut Club,” often mentioned in the same breath as the

pizzeria, the earliest of which most certainly was Sam Domino’s namesake restaurant that opened in 1946, just four blocks away from Segreto’s at 501 Decatur Street. Not to be confused with the later delivery chain headquartered in Michigan that advertises heavily on television during sporting events, Sam Domino’s Pizza served many Italian specialties but became identified with its version of the Neapolitan classic. The scene must have been colorful indeed, a time when out of the restaurant’s windows one could watch longshoremen hauling cargo along the busy riverfront. Diners from that very different era in the Quarter remember a particular “singing waiter” who delivered food to their table. In 1952, Domino’s moved to 701 St. Charles Avenue, the present-day location of Donald Link’s Herbsaint. For the next 20 years they hand-tossed crusts — until 1972 when the business relocated to Airline Highway. We take for granted the appeal of pizza today, a time when our children learn to eat and ask for it almost from the time they start cutting their first teeth. But as late as 1950, the newspaper felt it necessary to describe the “latest dining thrill” and the places one might typically find it. “A Pizzeria, for the uninformed, is a place where Pizza is sold,” explained an article about the Original Chicago Pizza, a short-lived operation located at 1007 Decatur. “And what is Pizza? It’s a kind of pie with anchovies, crabmeat, mushrooms, pimientos, and all manner of mysterious ingredients on the inside of the pastry… ...Pizza is pronounced ‘Peet-zah’ and Pizzeria comes out as ‘Peet- za-ree-ah,’ with the accent on the ‘ree.’” One long-running pizza place still remembered today that emerged during pizza’s early years in the French Quarter was Bill Rizzo’s “King of Pizza” restaurant, which opened in 1950 on Bourbon Street. The proprietor claimed to have learned his trade while stationed in Naples during World War II from the very originators of

Roosevelt Hotel’s Blue Room. When Joe Segreto took it over in 1944, 809 St. Louis was already a well-known destination for visitors, so it’s not too surprising for such a cosmopolitan place to home in early on a national food trend. By 1948, Segreto had moved on to found the 500 Club with Leon Prima, and 809 St. Louis became the site of “Diamond Jim” Moran’s first restaurant. As fancy as Segreto’s was, it would have been difficult to equate it with a modest the vast majority of the city’s “Italians,” traces its origins to Sicily. Early “pizza” here instead meant sfincione, a thick, pizza-style bread that, like

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