Di Fara's: Just Pizza, No Gossip

I dropped by Di Fara's pizzeria in Midwood for the first time since this past summer's unpleasantness with the Department of Health. I found owner Dominic DeMarco happily busy servicing a healthy, well-fed crowd. The place looked a little different. The wall behind the counter is green now, not mustard yellow. The fruit juice maker was gone. And the menu has been simplified. Not sure why those changes were made.

The pizza was as good as always, well worth the wait. I'm not going to tell you if Dominic was wearing gloves or a hat, or whatever the DOB mandated, because I consider the spies who pass along such info to be enemies of the people and of good pizza. I will tell you that I had to wait a fair amount of time for my two slices, which afforded me ample occasion to observe Dom in action. I was amazed by his acuity. I monitored, in particular, one pie he had in the oven that I thought was good and done several times. But Dom kept peeking in and, apparently not satisfied, shutting the oven door. Just as I began to worry that the pie would burn, he opened the oven, slipped his wooden pizza peel under the circle and then shoved it deeper into the furnace. There he paused for 20 seconds while the pizza loudly sizzled. Only then, did he bring the pie out, content that the crust was appropriated singed. The man's mind never goes off the pizza. He's never on auto-pilot.