Pizzette Serves Tradition and $1 Oysters in East Williamsburg
Steve Sciacca, longtime Bushwick restauranteur (Mominette, Bushwick Bakery), takes his last name from the coastal Sicilian town from whence came his ancestors. (“Just like Vito Corleone!” you exclaim, before being sharply admonished in the most scandalized of tones for saying something so insultingly reductive.) But his newest venture, Pizzette in East Williamsburg, borrows from Sciacca’s Sicilian heritage something far more profound than a mere name; an entire philosophy of food is embodied by this congenial sit-down pizza restaurant.
Sciacca’s inherited culinary modus isn’t by any means baroque. Aside from invoking triumvirate that forms its back bone (pizza, oysters, cocktails) it can be handily summarized using everyone’s favorite punk rock-derived cliche, “DIY.” But long before that particularly worn phrase entered common usage, and before it became de rigeur for ambitious chefs to boast of making everything in-house except the cockroaches, the DIY ethos was for Sciacca’s Italian ancestors a fact of life; widespread industrialization and...to view the full article, click here.