Dish No. 15: Montanara Pizza at Forcella

For this week’s review, I paid a trip to Neapolitan newcomer Forcella. Now, I’ve eaten my fair share of pizzas, but I have to say I’d never eaten a deep-fried pie before, and the restaurant kinda blew my mind with its unusual celebration of caloric excess. Three fried offerings are available, two of which are stuffed like calzones, but best of all is the simple montanara pizza.

As noted in the review, to make the $10 pie, pizzaiolo Giuliano Adriani submerges the dough in oil first, creating a base that billows with air but keeps its chewiness while crackling bubbles pock the edges. He then lightly sauces the disk and polka-dots it with house-made mozzarella before baking. The result is a mash-up of textures, a pie that’s chewy and gooey, but also airy and crispy. Many things shouldn’t be fried in life: Twinkies, Mars bars, and butter, to name a few. You’d think that pizza would fall into that category, too. Forcella exists to prove that notion wrong.

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