48 new york | july 8–21, 2019
eating outside
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, the act of wolfing
a slice of pizza while tottering along city
sidewalks trying to prevent dribbles of hot
orange grease from splattering your
Birkenstocks could be classified as a form
of outdoor dining. But alfresco pizza eating
during the sunny season should be a more leisurely pursuit, preferably
one that involves comfortable seats and shady trees or umbrellas. Hap-
pily, there are a few excellent places to practice this fleeting pastime.
One is Adrienne’s in Fidi (54 Stone St.), where the thing to get is the
“old-fashioned” pan pizza (a.k.a. grandma pizza), and the place to get
it is outside the restaurant in the middle of the street, which is quaint,
cobblestoned, communal-tabled, and closed to traffic. ¶ Another is
Saraghina in Bed-Stuy (435 Halsey St.), where the crust on the Nea-
politan pizza exhibits a range of appealing textures, from crisp and
chewy to light and airy, and the tranquil garden out back successfully
mingles the barnyard with the junkyard. And then there’s Roberta’s
(261 Moore St., East Williamsburg). The last time we dined alfresco
here, it took about 12 conversations with ten eccentrically costumed
servers before our margherita arrived at our picnic table, by which time
we had grown a full beard and seemingly aged five years. Now this place
runs like a Swiss watch: You place your order at the assembly-line take-
out annex down the street and return at the appointed time. Then you
toddle over with your pizza to the adjacent and spacious so-called tiki-
bar patio, where you can wash it down with an Aperol spritz in a plastic
cup. If you want the ultimate pizza-en-plein-air experience, though,
you’ve got to travel farther south and also back in time, to the holy grail
of the Sicilian square, to L&B Spumoni Gardens in Gravesend (2725 86th
St.), where the scene on a recent Saturday night was like American Graf-
fiti meets GoodFellas with a little Fellini thrown in for good measure. The
square pizza is probably as good as it was when Ludovico Barbati debuted
it some 80 years ago. But what’s great and amazing about L&B Spumoni
Gardens, besides the name and the pizza and the ritual and the fact that
it’s essentially a slice joint with a parking lot, is the very idea of L&B Spu-
moni Gardens. How could such a wonderfully weird place ever exist?
Imagine if it never did, and some budding young gastropreneur were
giving a Shark Tank–like group of investors the elevator pitch today:
“Just picture it: Sicilian pizza but—get this—with the cheese under the
sauce, sold by the slice or whole pie from separate takeout windows, and
eaten in what looks like a beer garden with the feel of a ’50s-era drive-thru
burger joint, named after an Italian immigrant and the horse that pulled
his food wagon. Plus, of course, spumoni.”Pizza en Plein Air
Since we last
dropped by Roosevelt
Deli Grocery Corp.,
management spruced
up the joint, replacing
a cramped shelf or two
with spiffy new tables
and chairs. These, alas,
are for the benefit of
customers filling out
Lotto slips, not those
partaking of the
excellent seafood
antojitos that emerge
from La Esquina del
Camarón Mexicano,
the independently run
hidden kitchen that
Pedro Rodriguez rents
in the back of the
bodega. But don’t
despair: The best place
to satisfy a craving for
his handiwork is
outside anyway, at the
sidewalk stand he
mans on weekends.
That’s where he can be
found communing
with fans while
dispensing plastic cups
brimming with chewy
octopus and firm
shrimp submerged
in a sweet and briny
tomato-based sauce
enhanced with clam
juice and orange.
Crumble some saltines
on top, as tradition
dictates, and stake out
a spot on the single
bench along the wall.
You may not be
transported directly
to the coast of
Veracruz, but you’re
unlikely to find a more
invigorating bite on a
hot summer afternoon
anywhere in the
vicinity of the Corner
of the Mexican Shrimp.LA ESQUINA DEL
CAMARÓN MEXICANO
80-02 Roosevelt Ave.,
Jackson Heights
347-885-2946 10SHRIMP
COCKTAIL
Outside a
Queens Bodega