This is quick look at the history of pizza:

In 1830 baker Raffaele Esposito of Naples, Italy baked a patriotic pizza (in honor of queen Margherita) with the colors of the Italian flag (red, white, and green): he used marinara sauce for the red, buffalo mozzarella for the white, and fresh basil for the green. The pizza margherita was born, later known as cheese pizza in the U.S.A.

In 1905 Italian immigrant Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in the United States. Lombardi’s is still open today on Spring Street, New York City.

Italian immigrants adopted American ingredients to produce their all-time beloved pizza and made it bigger to represent the wealth and abundance of the new country. They used jealously guarded recipes handed down from several generations.

At Pizzeria La Collina we make the authentic Italian pizza (also known as the “New York-style pizza”). For it to be real you need to start with quality fresh ingredients. The dough and sauce has to be made fresh everyday. Most bakers use fresh live yeast and bake the pizza only on a coal or stone deck oven (we use the latter). The pizza is stretched by hand, topped, and baked crispy over a well-seasoned stone oven. The heat has to be high and dry. A skilled pizza-maker is needed to accomplish the job with high speed. The pizza must be assembled and baked quickly, if not the result will be different. The more it sits at room temperature the more it absorbs the water from the sauce and the crust will be soggy.

The non-written rules for real New York pizza is still hotly debated among pizza lovers and pizza makers. Most New Yorkers swear by this kind of pizza. At Pizzeria La Collina we believe this is the only way to go.