Every day that Lucali is open, what feels like the entire restaurant-going population of New York City shows up outside the Carroll Gardens pizzeria. The line for dinner forms as early as 2pm—often with a few professional line-sitters parked in lawn chairs at the front. There are folks hot-spotting with laptops to fire off their last few emails of the day, international tourists speaking various languages, and a few people brown-bagging tallboys from the bodega down the block. 

photo credit: Teddy Wolff

photo credit: Teddy Wolff

Getting into Lucali is an ordeal. The restaurant that's famous enough to get a shout-out in a diss track by known West Coaster Kendrick Lamar has only 30 seats, and it doesn’t take reservations. Once you do manage to get inside though, the charm of the candlelit room is overwhelming, with a crackling giant brick oven, chefs rolling out pizza dough with floured wine bottles, and old Otis Redding songs underscoring the din of people telling each other that this is the best pizza they’ve ever eaten. 

They're pretty much right. Lucali’s pizza is simple but fantastic. It’s made with a sweet and fresh tomato sauce, the dough is wafer-thin and crunches like a saltine. Each puffy bite of crust shoots a burst of air, flavored with freshly charred bread, into your mouth. Don’t skip the calzone either: the pizza is why you come here, but the calzone is why you come back.

photo credit: Teddy Wolff

photo credit: Teddy Wolff

photo credit: Teddy Wolff

Maybe it’s the small jars of tomato sauce lying around the kitchen, or the fact that the restaurant is BYOB. Maybe it’s because servers give kids dough scraps to play with instead of crayons. Or maybe it's because the slightly-too-small tables feel like they’ve been smoothed out by elbows every night for the last 100 years (even though Lucali actually opened in 2006). Whatever the reasons, as far as sit-down pizzerias are concerned, there’s no more pleasant, endearing experience.

If you’re the person in your group who cut out of work early to get in line, your food is only going to taste that much better—you put in the effort, and you’re reaping the rewards. They'll ask you for your table back after about an hour and fifteen minutes, which might not seem like long enough. But it’s plenty of time to finish up your pies, make a dent in your second bottle of wine, and discuss in detail how you’d like to come back here, even though the effort makes it viable only every so often. It wouldn’t work if the pizza, the calzone, and the buzz around the room weren’t firing on all cylinders. The thing is, they always are.

Food Rundown

photo credit: Teddy Wolff

Pizza

No matter how many people you’re with, get at least two pies when you go to Lucali. On the first, get nothing but basil, and maybe garlic if you’re feeling frisky. If you want to truly experience the magic of their impossibly sweet sauce, sweet and grassy basil, and wispy crust, you need to go simple on toppings. Your second pie is your opportunity to go maximalist. We especially like the hot pepper, shallot, and pepperoni pie.

photo credit: Emily Schindler

Calzone

Skipping a calzone would be like listening to Ready To Die and turning the album off before “Juicy.” Filled with creamy melted cheese that’s just about contained by an ever-so-slightly thicker dough, this calzone is transcendent. The sweetness of the ricotta mixed with the char of the dough gives it more depth than the pizza. Get a shallow porcelain bowl of sauce on the side for dipping and dunking. It comes in two sizes, and you’re going to get the large.

photo credit: Nicole Schumann

Three Cheese Fusilli

If they’ve got this pasta on special for the night, order it. It feels homey, has a bit of a smoldering heat, and parmesan flavor seeping out of its pores.