The oldest pizza there is, and the cheapest
Marinara
No cheese, and none missing: crushed tomato, sliced garlic, dried oregano and olive oil on a blistered Neapolitan base.
The marinara predates the margherita and it has four ingredients on it. There is nowhere at all to hide: no cheese to cover a dull tomato, no topping to distract from a badly opened base. Marco regards it as the only honest test of a pizzaiolo, and he is not entirely wrong.
Without cheese the pizza behaves differently in the oven. There is nothing insulating the tomato, so it concentrates fast, and the base takes more colour because there is no moisture on top holding it back. It comes out drier, crisper and considerably more intense than a margherita.
It is also, by a distance, the cheapest thing on this menu and the one most likely to surprise somebody who ordered it expecting to feel short-changed.
What goes on it
The tomato
Crushed plum tomato and salt, uncooked, and slightly more of it than a margherita gets.
The garlic
Sliced thin and raw, scattered over before the bake.
The oregano
Dried, not fresh. This is one of the few places dried herb is genuinely the right answer.
The oil
Extra virgin olive oil, before the bake and again after it.
How it is made here
Same dough, same oven
The Neapolitan base, opened the same way, on the same 900°F brick floor.
Sauced a little heavier
With no cheese to hold moisture, the tomato reduces fast and needs the extra.
Ninety seconds
It colours quicker than a margherita — there is nothing on top slowing the top heat down.
Oiled twice
Once going in, once coming out. The second one is the one you taste.
Marinara — what it costs
- 12" pie$18
Prices include every topping listed above. Extras are $3 for vegetables and $4 for meats. Prices change when our costs do; the menu here is the menu in the shop.
Before you order this
A shared flour kitchen, and what that rules out. Our kitchen handles wheat flour in open air all day, along with milk, eggs, soy, tree nuts and fish. Flour becomes airborne every time a dough ball is opened, and it settles on every surface in the room, including the peels, the oven floor, the cutting board and the wheel. We can tell you what we put on a pizza, and we will tell you honestly. We cannot tell you that anything leaving this kitchen is free of an allergen, and we will not say it. If a reaction would send you to hospital, this is not a safe kitchen for you, and we would far rather say so than take the order.
The kitchen is one room. Every pizza here is opened on the same bench, baked on the same floor and cut with the same wheel, and that is true of this one as much as any other. The pages on allergens and cross-contact and vegetarian, vegan and dietary questions set out plainly what we can and cannot tell you, including the things most shops leave you to assume.
The rest of the menu
Other things worth ordering
Margherita
The Neapolitan build: a puffed, leopard-spotted rim, fior di latte in patches rather than a blanket, basil and a thread of olive oil.
From $22
Diavola
Spicy soft salami and chilli over tomato and fior di latte, hot enough to notice and not hot enough to hide the pizza.
From $25
Prosciutto & Arugula
A margherita that leaves the oven and is then covered in dry-cured ham, a handful of rocket and shavings of hard sheep's cheese.
From $27Asked at the counter
Marinara — questions
Is it vegan?
As built, there is no animal product on it. Read the dietary page before relying on that: it is opened on the same bench and baked on the same floor as everything else.
Can I add cheese?
Then it is a margherita, and we would rather sell you one of those — it is built differently, with less tomato, because the cheese changes how it bakes.
Why is it so cheap?
Because there is no cheese on it, and cheese is the most expensive thing on a pizza by a wide margin. The price is simply what the ingredients cost.
Twelve to fifteen minutes, and worth the wait
Order a pie
Telephone the shop and we will tell you honestly how long the kitchen is running before you commit to anything. Collection is always quicker than delivery and the pizza is always better for it. If you are ordering for a crowd, the catering page has the trays and the notice we need.