FOR FRANK PINELLO,PIZZA IS MORE THAN FOOD, IT'S LEGACY.
A Brooklyn kid with Sicilian blood and flour on his hands, he represents a new wave of pizzaiolos who honor tradition while still pushing how people think about pizza.
he hosted the pizza show for vice's munchies, taking viewers from naples to new haven and telling stories about family, hustle, and history-all through the lens of pizza.
you'll find him at best pizza in williamsburg. the space is classic, unders-tated, and warm with community energy. best pizza isn't about reinventing the wheel; it's about keeping it turning the right way. classic new york slices. wood-fired. charred just right. sauce that tells a story.
at the end of the day, pinello is about craft. culture. community. and, of course, a good slice.
i come to these shops, and everybody knows me and i know them. it's just that feeling of being part of something.
ept: you've been in williamsburg for a long time. tell us about that and what brings us to la bicyclette today.
f: the neighborhood has changed a lot in the last 15 years, but it's always been amazing. williamsburg is obviously so close to manhattan, and originally it was just kind of like an immigrant neighborhood-we had the ita-lians on the northside, the polish in greenpoint, and puerto ricans on the southside traditionally. when i came here in 2010, you could already see the transformation starting.
basically what happened with the neighborhood was-it was really crea-tive. the first wave was here early, in the '90s. that first generation of hipsters set an amazing tone. they were super creative, opened amazing res-taurants, and i feel like they created a foundation.
after that came all these crazy cool shops, bakeries-you know, people weren't worried about me selling pizza, they were more worried about whole foods moving in. i feel like we're spoiled now.
la bicyclette is a little french bakery that opened not too long ago. at first, they had just one location, but now there are a couple. they bake bread here every morning and make these delicious fig jam sandwiches. amazing pastries. beautiful breads. i'll always walk out with something sweet for the guys.
ept: what's casa cugine?
f: casa cugine-yeah, this is one of our friends in the neighborhood. basi-cally, on this block there's always a lot going on. anthony and sons is the panini shop, and the owner's son is a guy named sabino.
he started growing up italian, which is a pretty popular instagram and tiktok. so on any given day of the week, even before casa cugine opened, there was just a lot of activity here-rappers hanging out, very creative people. sabino's always around. upstairs they have a studio, so i did the podcast with them in the past. anytime i'm on this side of the neighborhood, i stop by to say hello.
then when i found out that cug-meals by cug, another popular instagram personality, a staten island kid —was opening up this spot, i was hyped. he shows his personality on instagram with all types of funny, crazy videos. i think last time i was with him, he was making chicken cutlets with quavo. it cracked me up because quavo didn't want to eat the cutlet since cug touched it with his hands before frying.
cug ended up opening cugine as this typical old-school social club or café, but with a new spin. it's brand new, maybe two or three weeks old. i was just telling the guys: i brought them a plant for the window with a little note from best pizza, just sending love. we try to support each other. they've supported me for years, so it feels good to come here and spend a little money.
"i brought them a plant for the window with a little note from best pizza, just sending love.
we try to support each other. they've supported me for years, so it feels good to come here and spend a little money."
ept: what makes model barbers your go-to for a haircut?
f: they're just great people. jack is the father, roman is his son, and alex-who's on vacation right now-works right next to them. russian guys. since day one, when i came to this place for a haircut, i walked in and it felt like i was their number one customer.
and when you get your haircut, jack always says, "brand new man." every single time. little things like that. so if a customer comes to best pizza from the barbershop, they say "brand new man" and get 10% off. it's really amazing. precious, even.
and not only that, but these guys are all small business owners, many of them around much longer than us. they've become mentors. like jd at the coffee shop helped me out-i got my atm through him. or jack-we'll talk business in the barbershop. business here is very similar to the pizzeria, so we talk trends, what's going on.
it really feels like a community. when i walk out of the pizzeria, i say hello to ten people on the block. i come to these shops, and everybody knows me and i know them. it's just that feeling of being part of something.
"basically what happened with the neighborhood was—it was really creative. the first wave was here early, in the '90s. that first generation of hipsters set an amazing tone. they were super creative, opened amazing restaurants, and i feel like they created a foundation."
ept: what role does oslo coffee play in your day?
f: yeah, so for a long time it's kind of been my safe place. the pizzeria is right around the block. the restaurant business-it's just nonstop. my guys get there at 9 am, and we don't close until midnight on some days.
oslo has kind of been a place where i can go get my coffee in the morning or midday. i love reading the paper, so i'll sit down-and i've been known to read two papers a day. i'll read the times and i'll read the post because it's there.
the owner jd is like a mentor to me. a friend, a mentor, somebody i've always admired. i love the coffee and it's just one of those community places. when i walk in, there's always usually a crowd of people i'm friends with. in the morning, i drink coffee with this guy mikey, an eighty-year-old dude who's lived in the neighborhood forever, so we're just talking about brook-lyn and our families. or there might be some neighborhood kids there too, sitting down having coffee. they come say what's up to me. it's just always that kind of place.
we made our way over to best pizza, where the walls are covered in hundreds of paper plates drawn and colored on by customers. from crayon portraits of families with dates signed on them to detailed pizza wizards, the place teems with community warmth. we ate pizza and got a history lesson from frank about the festival they used to keep on this street and how the giant oven in the building would bake treats for the whole neighborhood.
knowing that he is part of continuing that legacy for the community brings him a lot of joy.
ept: what characteristics does it take to run a restaurant? what do you feel like you andyour team have in common?
f: that's a great question. i think it's important to really love hospitality. i come across a lot of people in this industry that want to make money, and i feel like that's the wrong perspective. if you love hospitality and you do your job well, then the money comes. but if you're just strictly in this trying to make money-you see it doesn't always work out.
you have to like people. you have to enjoy food and enjoy cooking. you have to be okay with being on your feet, because it's a lot of hours. it can be tough-you're in a hot area, usually in small spaces, conditions aren't easy. but when you have a good crew of good people, it's very rewarding.
i always say i meet the best people in the food industry. it weeds out the shitty people, because you have to work really hard, you have to like people, you have to be willing to work with different personalities and still come in every day with a positive attitude. positivity helps a lot.
i think all those things together can help make a really great restaurant. one thing i've noticed is there's a lot of ways to skin the cat. success in this industry comes in all kinds of unconventional ways. but here at the pizze-ria, i feel like being open and available for the community is one of the key things. like-we're here. come on in if you need to use the bathroom, if you want a sip of water, if you need to leave the keys for your neighbor, or even if you need a piece of mail delivered here. we'll take care of you. that makes the neighborhood trust us.
unconsciously, i kind of followed my heritage and how i grew up, and that ended up being my career. what do i mean by that? owning a pizzeria in brooklyn. i'm an italian kid from brooklyn, so by opening up the pizzeria here, i didn't realize how much growing up and my culture added to it.
when we opened, the neighborhood really took us in. at the time, dollar slices were really popular in new york, and that used to bother me. i felt like if we opened this place and did it really well, that would change things. maybe people would see how good pizza can be. and sure enough, since we opened i don't think another dollar slice shop has opened in the city. all you see now is great pizzerias opening.
doing the show with vice, we influenced a whole generation of cooks. but to really see how it transformed the city is crazy. for a long time, i wasn't even okay accepting that. now i go to these pizzerias and they say to us,
"we watched you-this is how we learned what this game was about." that feels really good. i feel like i did my city well, and it feels good to be representing pizza and brooklyn this way.
"unconsciously, i kind of followed my heritage and how i grew up, and that ended up being my career. what do i mean by that? owning a pizzeria in brooklyn. i'm an italian kid from brooklyn, so by opening up the pizzeria here, i didn't realize how much growing up and my culture added to it."
