The Best Dishes Eater SF Editors Ate This Week: Spring 2023

If You're Making Vegan Pizza, Say No To Imitation Cheese

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Vegan cheese substitutes are not what they used to be. Ten or 15 years ago, you were lucky to find even one variety of the shredded, vaguely plasticky stuff that never quite melted properly. Now, it's a different story. It's much easier to find vegan cheese at your grocery store these days, including a variety of different brands, styles, and ingredient bases, designed to suit a wide array of dishes.

But non-dairy cheese alternatives do have their drawbacks. Depending on where you shop, you could have trouble finding the kind you're looking for. They're often unsuitable for people with nut or soy allergies. Truth be told, they can run a little pricey, which for you may defeat the purpose of cooking at home to begin with. But hear us out: Pizza, vegan or not, does not need to have cheese. Some traditional kinds of pizza don't include it at all but are balanced and flavorful enough that it doesn't feel like anything is missing. If you cannot swing your preferred vegan cheese or cannot find one you're happy with, just skip it. You can still have a delicious vegan pizza without it.

Read more: The 101 Best Pizzas In America

The First Pizzas Were Cheeseless

Pizza marinara and ingredients on floury countertop - Sebasnoo/Getty Images

Believe it or not, cheese wasn't originally a standard ingredient on pizza. Ancient people had long been making flatbreads with various toppings, but pizza as we know it today was born in the coastal city of Naples in the early part of the 1700s. The very first variety was pizza marinara, topped only with tomato sauce, garlic, and oregano. It actually wasn't until the late 1800s that we have any record of pizza being made with cheese.

Over the past couple of centuries, pizza marinara has become anything but a relic, still highly respected — and legally protected — in Italy. Seriously, there's a regulatory body called the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which dictates certain standards that a pizza has to meet to be considered true Neapolitan-style pizza. According to the association, there are only three true styles of Neapolitan pizza: marinara, Margherita, and "extra" Margherita. Marinara, by definition, includes only tomato sauce, garlic, and oregano as toppings. If you try to add cheese to a marinara pizza, you run the risk of the pizza police coming after you. (Okay, not really, but the fact that pizza styles are regulated by law should demonstrate how important Italians consider their recipes, even the humble marinara.)

Painting The Town Rosso

Cheeseless pizzas topped with veggies - Luchezar/Getty Images

All of this is to say, there's nothing wrong with a pizza topped with sauce, seasonings, and nothing else. If anything, a simpler pie really showcases the quality of ingredients and the craftsmanship of the dough. And since your home kitchen isn't governed by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, you can feel free to add whatever other, vegan-friendly topping you want — capers, mushrooms, fresh basil, what have you.

Of course, your culinary horizons are probably a bit broader than that of the average 18th-century Italian fisherman, so go far beyond the traditional toppings and build a truly original pizza that just happens to not have cheese. You're not even beholden to using red sauce — a homemade cheeseless pesto pie, topped with fresh greens and garden veggies, is a celebration in and of itself. Heck, you could go really out of the box and dress it up with barbecue sauce. Look to some of your favorite bloggers and chefs for inspiration, and then let your pizza fantasies take flight.

Read the original article on Daily Meal.

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Caulipower Expands Pizza Offerings

Caulipower recently updated its line of pizza offerings with Pizza Roma hand-stretched cauliflower crust pizza, Over the Top cauliflower crust pizza, and baked cauliflower crust pizza bites. Pizza Roma is a crispy, airy cauliflower crust made in Italy. It is available in Margherita with Pesto and Mushroom & Caramelized Onions. Caulipower Pizza Bites, available in Four Cheese and Uncured Pepperoni, have 22% less fat and 29% less cholesterol than top frozen pizza bites on the market, according to the company. Over the Top Pizza offerings include The Dream Supreme, Spicy Chicken Sausage, and Trufflicious Mushroom. They are certified gluten-free and made with stone-fired cauliflower crust. They start at 280 calories per serving and 380 mg of sodium per serving. www.Eatcaulipower.Com 

Rebecca Viscomi is the Multimedia Editor at WholeFoods Magazine. She joined the team in 2021, after obtaining her Masters from The College of New Jersey. She brings her passion for natural food and grocery products to the team, as the resident foodie. She graduated in 2014 from Susquehanna University, majoring in Communications. When she's not writing or in the kitchen trying out recipes, Rebecca is spending time with her two dogs, reading, or traveling across the country. 

Marinara Pizza Opens In Greenvale

A slice of MVP pie (with stripes of marinara, vodka and pesto sauces) at Marinara Pizza in Greenvale. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus

At 35, Gabi Weiser is a bona fide pizza mogul: He and his wife, Brittany, own a burgeoning local seven-link pizzeria chain. But the East Hills resident hadn't opened a Long Island shop until earlier this month when Marinara Pizza debuted on Glen Cove Road in Greenvale.

The fare may look familiar — simple cheese, Margherita, white, Grandma and Sicilian pies; more elaborate ones topped with Buffalo chicken, eggplant Parm, Caesar salad or spinach and artichoke — but the presentation is outstanding. Weiser said, "I want the counter to look like a Picasso. No old pies, every slice has to make people say 'wow.' " (Large pies range from $23 to $30; slices, $4 to $5.50; personal pies, $17 to $19; personal pies with cauliflower crust, $22 to $26.50.)

The most striking pie may be the MVP, with its bright, regimental stripes of marinara, vodka and pesto sauces. Weiser says that he was the first to serve it. 

The rest of the design is as captivating as the pizza: A harmonious blend of old-school (black-and-white hexagonal tiles, rattan bistro chairs, exposed brick) and new (sleek marble counters, soaring ceilings, pendant lighting). Even the red pizza boxes have style and, stacked high on the counter or slotted like vinyl albums inside the dining room's soffit, add an intentional pop of color. "I wanted to keep that red-saucy vibe but add a modern twist," he explained.

Marinara Pizza in Greenvale. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus

A Long Island native, Weiser went to college in Arizona, where he missed New York pizza but appreciated the elevated design of the national quick-serve chains he frequented. "When I came back to New York, I realized that the classic slice shop could use an upgrade."

At 21, he put together enough money to establish a small slice shop on the Upper East Side, Saba's, which was soon joined by a second location on the Upper West Side. "It was kosher," Weiser recalled, "but I was proud that we had a lot of customers who were not kosher." In 2017, he decided to try the "big leagues" of the non-kosher pizza world and opened his first Marinara on 91st Street and Lexington Avenue.

Chic and spiffy as Weiser made the six Manhattan shops, however, they all contain more than a little Long Island DNA. "The pizzerias in the city concentrate on the slices — everything else is an afterthought," he said. "On Long Island, people expect to be able to have a meal, with a good salad, pasta, entrees." He wanted to bring that Long Island pizzeria-trattoria tradition into the city and is very proud of his "steakhouse-quality" chopped salads ($16.50), pasta ($14.50 to $18.50, $4 more for zucchini noodles) and seven Parm / piccata / Francese / paillard entrees ($22), all of which come with pasta and salad.

So, if the average Long Island pizzeria delivers the pizzeria-plus experience, what was he hoping to contribute to the local landscape by opening in Greenvale? "The pizza scene around here seemed tired," he said. When he came upon the still-vacant former home of Lo-cal Kitchen at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Northern Boulevard, he jumped. At 3,000 square feet, the new store is about twice the size of his city shops. He hopes this will be the first of a few Long Island locations.

Marinara Pizza, 5 Glen Cove Rd., Greenvale, 516-559-5100, marinarapizza.Com. Open Monday to Sunday 11 a.M. To 9 p.M.

Erica Marcus, a passionate but skeptical omnivore, has been reporting and opining on the Long Island food scene since 1998.

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