Sad that it’s hard to find a slice these days? Does the thought of buying grocery store frozen pizza fill you with soggy-crust sorrow?
Citarella’s recently launched, brand-new pie program is here to help.
Yes, they used to have pizza that you could buy and bring home, but those round pies are no more. Over the summer, owner Joe Gurrera offered up a soft launch of his new “Pizza al Trancio,” a rectangular shaped pie-to-go, hand-tossed and cooked to order in their hot-as-hades stone ovens.
For Gurrera, it was a discovery made like so many of us make them — treasure found while traveling.
“I learned about this style of pizza on a recent trip to Italy when I visited a small town outside of Florence called Volterra,” says Gurrera. “They had the most delicious pizza — packed with flavor in a beautiful, perfectly crispy crust.”
While Volterra, a beautiful, walled medieval city southwest of Florence perched on a mountaintop, is known mostly for its alabaster and stunning scenery, it was the pizza that captivated Gurrera’s heart.
Back home, he couldn’t get the pies of his mind, so he set to work recreating this irresistible style of Italian pizza.
“As soon as I got back home, I started working with our chef to develop a variety of these fantastic pies to share with our customers at Citarella,” he says.
Pizza al trancio, also know as pizza al taglio, literally means pizza by the slice or by the cut. It’s a style of pie where the dough is fitted to a rectangular-shaped pan. It originates in Rome, sometimes served and weighed depending on how large a piece is requested. But as all roads lead to Roma, they all lead out, too, and the style became popular throughout Italy, including the stunning city of Florence and its surrounding towns.
Citarella is selling pizza al trancio either by the pie for $22, or by the slice at $4, and is baked fresh per order. It comes with a ton of topping options, too:
- classic cheese
- savory pepperoni
- grandma’s margherita
- four seasons, choc-a-block with zucchini, eggplant, mushroom and artichoke
- the savory, which is ham and a multitude of mushrooms
- fresh bruschetta
- bianca — a gooey-lovers delight that mixes ricotta, pecorino and mozzarella
- Mediterranean, with fresh arugula, tomato sauce, cares and cherry tomatoes
- Siciliano
- and a special daily chef’s pick
Citarella was founded by Mike Citarella in Manhattan in 1912. It was purchased by Joe Gurrera in 1983, who’s guided and expanded the popular gourmet market ever since, opening the first Hamptons outpost in 2000. Citarella now has locations in Southampton, East Hampton and Bridgehampton, where you can nab the new authentic Italian pie for an easy weeknight dinner.
