Lost City Asks, "Who Goes to DeNino's Pizzeria and Tavern?"

New York foodies aren't are adventurous as they think.

They'll go to Flushing to check out a secret Vietnamese hole in the wall, or Red Hook to source a cart serving a particular Ecuadorian treat. But mention Staten Island—an entire borough belonging to the City—and they'll make with the trite "That's not really New York" and "There's nothing good there" remarks. Happens every time on Eater when I venture to Staten Island for my "Who Goes There?" column. So provincial. But I'll keep going, because so far the island to the south has shown me it can give me this and this and this. I'm sure there's more where that came from.

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An Oasis of Tiki in a Staten Island Mall

Jade is a tiki bar and restaurant sitting in the middle of a Staten Island strip mall. It opened in 1972, a year in which tiki bars were on their way out, culturally speaking. But it became a favorite with locals, and has survived for four decades, recently fighting off a near-death experience with its landlord before signing a new lease for 10 years.

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Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Joe and Pat's Pizzeria?"

Another "Who Goes There?" from Staten Island, and another pizza joint. I'll be filing a few more of these before I run out of column-worthy S.I. pizzerias.

Who Goes There? Joe and Pat's Pizzeria

The unending debate about who makes New York's best pizza rarely ranges beyond the usual suspects in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Yet lowly, ever-disrespected Staten Island has more than a few seasoned veterans in the game.Denino's is the best known. But Joe & Pat's Pizzeria on Victory Boulevard is hardly a neophyte. Giuseppe and Pasquale Pappadardo, from Naples, opened the restaurant in 1960. The only trace of the old building is the neon sign, for the old place burned down in 1999. It was a rebuilt in an anonymous fashion, with Greek diner-like tables protected by a long barrel ceiling painted with a cloudy blue sky and a mannered sunrise and crescent moon. Call the style Pizzeria Tiepolo.

Better to sit at one of the small tables in the less glamorous front room, opposite the enormous pizza ovens and near the rear table where the waitstaff and Joe Pappadardo hang out when not working. Pappadardo himself—sporting an alarming, but endearing, toupee as thick as shag rug—helped push together two small tables together when my wife asked if it could be done. "The wife's always boss," Joe said with a smile. Joe's brother Pat left the business in 1974 to start a real estate company that still stands across the street. A picture of the two young men back in 1960 hangs on the wall. The resemblance is hard to catch. There are also a lot of framed reviews and articles on the walls, but one doesn't get the impression that the restaurant's reputation has gone to Joe's head. It's still very much a workaday pizzeria.

Joe & Pat's pie is known for its crust's delicate thinness and the sauce's sweetness. As with the pizzas made in Naples, a grown man would have no trouble eating a whole pie. There's a menu full of other dishes, of which my wife was perfectly happy with an angel hair pasta with broccoli, eggplants, garlic and oil. The cashier told me that people come from all over to eat at Joe & Pat's, but that the clientele is mainly Staten Islanders. And, yes, pizza people on the Island have their fierce allegiances. Joe & Pat's devotees stick to Joe & Pat's.

When I profiled a rival pizza joint, Lee's Tavern, on this site a month back, a reader commented "I guess this place is technically within New York City [but] probably 90% of the viewers of this site are more likely to get pizza in Moscow or in Tokyo in their lifetimes than in Staten Island." Perhaps true. But I'm going to continue to visit Staten Island in the future, just as I will pay calls on The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. The outer boroughs have done the better job these last ten years in preserving their mercantile masterpieces. While the avenues of Manhattan increasingly drown in an ocean of Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks and Applebee's, the sprawling lands beyond the bridges still have places that make you ask, "Who Goes There?"

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Lee's Tavern?"

My first "Who Goes There?" column in Staten Island, and ain't I but proud?

Who Goes There? Lee's Tavern

Yeah, it's called Lee's Tavern, not Lee's Restaurant. And it is a tavern. An old one. It's got an old wooden bar, tin ceilings, tile floors, TVs showing sports matches, serves Bud and Coors, the whole nine yards. So what's it doing in this column? Because Lee's also serves what some think is the best bar pizza in the five boroughs, and has been doing so for decades. And because there are plenty of tables. People find this place and sit down for dinner every night of the week—despite the fact that the blonde-brick building, in this lonely corner of Staten Island known as Dongan Hills, has no signifying features, least of all a sign.

Lee's has been around since 1940, when it was founded by Leroy Moresco, known to all as "Mr. Lee." Diego "Dickie" Palemine (everyone has a nickname) bought the place in 1969. After Diego was killed in a hotel fire while vacationing in San Juan in 1986, his family continued to run the bar. Today, his strapping son, also called Diego, does double duty, manning the bar, and walking out to the floor when someone makes a food order.

The Lee's menu includes salad, garlic bread and scungilli—all of it cheap—but pizza is the thing here. Bar pies are an odd subset of the American pizza world that typically connote a smaller size, a thin crust and sub-standard ingredients. All of that is true here, except the last one. The ingredients here are good and the skill with which they're put together is considerable. Lee's cheese pie is sweet, subtle and tasty. And the clam pie is as good as anything I've had in New Haven. If you think you're gonna get better at $5.75 and $8 a pie, respectively, you're a putz.

I suppose Lee's gets a questing foodie like me every now and again, but mainly this is a Staten Island-sustained joint. If any of the patrons were from outside the immediate area, my social antennae didn't detect them. All the customers strolled in like they had just come from around the corner. Lotsa back-slapping going on here. Fat hands on sweatshirted backs again and again. Everyone knows each other. Everyone knows each other's sister or mother, and they all ask how that sister or mother is doing. Ninety percent of the drinkers and diners were dressed in athletic gear: track suits, warm-up jackets, sweat pants, basketball jerseys, athletic shoes. That not a single one of them had just come from doing anything athletic was a dead certainty. Staten Island folk don't seem to know that they dress like extras from "The Sopranos" and "Working Girl." Or they do know it, and don't care. Or they do, and are proud of it. I don't know. If I could call Lee's my local pizzeria, I'd be kinda proud too.

—Brooks of Sheffield

A Good Sign: Bigzee's Tavern

I include this Staten Island bar for several reasons. One, Bigzee's is such a great name for a tavern. Two, you can still see that the place used to be called Donovan's, as nobody has bothered to paint over the sign above the awing sufficiently. And third, because of the odd, oval signs to the left in which Bigzee's proclaims its many attractions.

Brown's Fuel Service, Carving a Name for Itself in Staten Island

Brown's Fuel Service has been in business on Staten Island for more than 50 years, providing oil, gas and electricity to island residents. It's a family business, now run by the second the third generation (though the family name seems to have switched to Palmese). I was struck was the simple, yet bold elegance of the carved sign on their Sommers Lane headquarters. I also very much like the old clock on the side, which told the correct time.

Frank's of Dongan Hills

Just a few steps from the Dongan Hills station on Staten Island's only subway line there is Frank's Barber Shop. There isn't much in Dongan Hills, commerce wise, so I would guess Frank's might count as a sort of community hub, even though there are two other barbers within walking distance of the business.

It's an old-fashioned barber shop with old-fashioned chairs, a lot of old photographs on the wall, and a display case full of old barbering equipment. I have no idea how long it's been there. 1950s, at least, but probably earlier.

I like this sign. I imagine it once hung outside the shop. Today, it sits inside the display window.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

The economy changes everything: Maybe the Hotel Pennsylvania won't be demolished.

A foul-mouth idget blogger defamed Dominic De Marco of Di Fara's and Grub Street defamed the blogger in return.

Rich folks can't afford for Bloomberg to lose his job.

Porkchop Express reports extensively on the changed look of the Red Hook Ballfield vendors.

Cool pictures of Staten Island's Ship Graveyard.

And, as usual, the MTA sucks.