On the final night of my New York City trip my incredible hostess suggested we experience a new craze sweeping Manhattan - fried pizza.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read that correctly. Fried pizza, or Montanara pizza, is the new fad in Italian cuisine. You can read all about it in the Huffington Post's piece, "Fried Pizza: A Neopolitan Specialty in New York City" or in the New York Times' feature, "From Europe, Lessons on Frying Pizza."
One of the restaurants leading the fried pizza charge is Forcella. We bundled up on that very cold Sunday evening and headed out to see what all the fuss is about.
Forcella has three locations and we visited the one at Park Avenue between 26th and 27th in Gramercy.
When you first walk through the front door you enter the bar area which has lavender walls and a very cool art installation that includes clocks, film reels and a wire bicycle.
The bar was packed all night with couples sharing glasses of wine and a pizza pie. The AFC playoff game was also on that night, so people were glued to the TV.
The dining room has silver walls, black tables accented with red candles and large, glistening chandeliers.
There are even chandeliers stenciled onto the walls.
At the back of the dining room is the pizza oven which you can see through the open kitchen. I love that it looks like a big apple, just like New York City!
We started the evening with wine, rose for me and red for her. Our waitress took forever to bring our drinks, but she did let us enjoy the happy hour special (two for one drinks) even though we weren't sitting at the bar, which is supposedly the only place you can take advantage of the offer. We really appreciated her bending the rules for us.
Though we acted like we were open to the whole menu, we really only came for one thing, the Montanara.
We did make an exciting discovery on the menu that we decided to indulge in, an oil tasting! When in Rome, right?
We ordered an oil tasting that included two varieties of olive oil, served with green olives, walnuts and a plate of doughy, delicious bread.
We weren't expecting the accompaniments, but we're happy to nibble on them. Both of the oils were a brilliant green color - one more of a sage green, and one with a hint of yellow.
The oils were outrageously fantastic and we used the bread sparingly to make sure we could soak up as much olive oil as possible.
After the oil tasting we moved on to the Amalfi salad which was mixed greens topped with thinly sliced pears, whole walnuts and blocks of gorgonzola cheese.
The salad was fresh and the flavor profile was perfection.
When our Montanara pizza came to the table we couldn't wait to experience the first bite! It tasted like having a Margherita pizza on top of a savory funnel cake.
The fried crust was surprisingly light, the tomato sauce was tasty and the melted mozzarella cheese with ooey gooey bliss.
Though we were completely stuffed after three courses, our waitress came over with a plate and said, "Since it's your first visit here at Forcella, we wanted you to sample our house made dessert, the mille foglie." How nice is that?
The mille foglie is puff pastry, stuffed with cream and drizzled with nutella.
When we asked for the check it was delivered to us in this snazzy wallet that looked like Henri Bendel and a tube of red lipstick had a love child.
On our walk home from Forcella (and boy did it feel good to walk), we had a beautiful view of the Empire State Building which was lit up purple that night. God, I love New York.
The next time you have a pizza craving in the city, don't satisfy it at one of those greasy, corner shops, treat yourself to the Montanra at Forcella.
Have you ever had fried pizza before?
