One of the stop we made last week in the Lower East Side of Manhattan was Lombardi’s Pizza which is located at 32 Spring Street. It first opens its doors as a pizzeria in 1905 but what you may not know is that it started of as a grocery store in 1897. The grocery store was located at 53 1/2 Spring Street and began selling tomato pies for lunch to feed local factory workers. When they acquired a licence to sell pizza, they became a pizzeria and a loyal clientele followed. in 1984, Lombardi’s closed its doors but reopened at its current location 10 years later. Today it holds the title in the Pizza Hall of Fame as the worlds first Pizzeria in the United States and has been reviewed as “The best pizza On the Planet”. Unfortunately we were not able to sample the pizza Lombardi’s had to offer during our tour last week but based on reviews and some friends i know that went there to eat, the pizza does in fact live up to the hype.

As far as New York Pizza vs. Pizza from Italy, they are in fact very different from one another. New York Pizza is know for having a very thin Crust with Sauce, Cheese and if you want, a various choice of toppings ranging from Pepperoni to Pineapples. Italian pizza on the other hand is very different, it is actually know for having a thicker, bread-like crust. In fact, when the Italians first came to the U.S. the pizza they introduced did not have tomato sauce at all, it was just dough, herbs, garlic, cheese and oil. It more closely resembled what we know today as Foccacia. It became popular because it was easy to make, cheap and it could feed a lot of people which is exactly what the Italians needed, living in the LES. Eventually people started experimenting with adding sauce and toppings and it evolved into what we know today.