The Coal Oven Pizzerias of NYC

What coal does to a pie

A coal oven runs somewhere between 800 and 1,000°F, close to double a standard gas oven. A pie is done in a few minutes instead of 15, so the crust sets before it can dry out and stays nice and crispy, with that charred crust you can only get from a coal-fired oven.

• 800–1,000°FWhere a coal oven lives. A home oven tops out around 500.
• A few minutesHow long a pie spends in there. Blink and it's out.
• Whole piesWhat most of them sell. A few, like Patsy's in East Harlem and Table 87, will do a slice.

Why there aren't more of them

In 1934 Frank Mastro, a restaurant supplier on the Bowery, adapted the coal oven to run on gas. Gas was cheaper, nobody had to tend a fire all day, and the lower heat made a drier pie that held up and reheated, which is how the slice shop was born. Almost every pizzeria that opened after that went gas.

The city's air rules did the rest. New coal ovens are hard to get approved, so the old ones are treated like heirlooms. When John Sasso lost his lease on Sullivan Street, he took his oven apart and carried it to 278 Bleecker Street, where it still burns. When Grimaldi's moved two doors down Old Fulton Street, Patsy Grimaldi came out of retirement to reopen the original room, coal oven intact, as Juliana's.

The trail from Lombardi's oven to the rest of the city is laid out in The Family Tree.

Why coal oven pizza is unique

A crisp bottom and a dark char around the edges — that's the appeal of a coal-oven pie. The intense heat gives the crust a distinctive texture you just can't replicate in other ovens. The inferno that rages inside a coal oven is unlike any other oven for making pizza.

The coal oven is also a huge part of New York's pizza origins. All of the pizzerias in the NYC Pizza Family Tree used coal ovens. Gotta respect where it all started.