Sal’s Pizza Serves a Serious Pie in the Catskills
Ten or so years ago, Alex Napolitano was a young cook in his early twenties, in the midst of a not-so-casual immersion in Italian cuisine while interning on the Adriatic Coast at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Cattolica. What he learned in Italy — a commitment to simplicity and quality, and letting flavors speak for themselves — shaped his entire outlook on cooking. This led to stints at crowd-pleasing spots in Manhattan like A Voce, Charlie Bird and Rubirosa. Of late, Napolitano is the Executive Chef at Scribner’s own Prospect restaurant.
This year, Escape Hospitality, the manager of Scribner’s Catskill Lodge, opened Sal’s Pizza in Tannersville, a new venture led by Napolitano that brings a slice of NYC-style pie to the Catskills.
On Main Street, in what previously housed a local pizza shop for decades, Sal’s Pizza is bright and clean-lined with booths, banquettes, and tables, but with none of the hometown tropes you might expect from a local pizzeria; you’ll see pops of color, sure, but no questionable murals of Ancient Rome or of gladiators chewing pizza. No stained-glass “Tiffany” lamps dangling above each booth. The spare design, as Napolitano sees it, brings clarity to the process. Through an open kitchen, Napolitano’s team is in full view so that patrons can watch every step of pizza making — from the moment they stretch the dough to the moment they cut the final slice.
In Napolitano’s mind, Sal’s Pizza is more akin to a slice joint, which is a touch more nostalgic than nascent styles. This isn’t the charred and wood-fired Neapolitan-style pie that has bubbled its way from Brooklyn to Manhattan over the past fifteen years, nor is it like the pies at Rubirosa, a variety so paper-thin that its edges crunch like crackers.
“It’s not woodfired, not coal,” insists Napolitano of Sal’s no-frills concept. “We’re using a straight up gas-fired pizza oven.”
It seems simple, but bringing the definitive NYC slice to the Castkills was no small task. Napolitano already knew how to crank out pies in the city, but the Catskills altered the conditions. “We had to tweak and create a signature dough recipe because of the elevation and the water,” says Napolitano. “We did research and development for months so that the recipe was specifically tailored to the Catskills area.” This means that the dough at Sal’s, slightly thicker than your typical slice, can hold up to longer drives (Tannersville isn’t the East Village, so the recipe needed to consider that guests might be driving from far away to pick up their pie, rather than simply walking across the street). The result is a crust that’s tender, yet crispy — chewy but not too thin — and topped with a layer of sauce that goes into the oven raw (“If you use high quality tomatoes they don’t need to be cooked twice to accentuate their natural sweetness,” says Napolitano).
Sal’s features all of the familiar pies you grew up with at your corner slice shop (think Margherita) with an occasional twist. The restaurant gets creative with their White Pie (made without red sauce, but with plenty of ricotta, mozzarella, fontina, and roasted garlic) as well as The Salvatore (which gets a slick of spicy local honey on top of mozzarella, fontina and soppressata).
The menu also brings a handful of salads to the table, as well as those quintessential snacks that have earned their place on letter boards across the country: mozzarella sticks, boneless wings, garlic knots.
All in all, it’s a boon for Tannersville’s commercial stretch which, at just a few blocks long (with a single traffic light), has steadily grown with elevated staples like a soon-to-open provisions store, token donut shop, and a handful of antique shops. With the addition of Sal’s, it’s the type of pit stop that out-of-towners (perhaps those seeking options near Hunter Mountain) can appreciate, while also offering something different for the local community.
It’s a serious pie, served casually (its namesake, after all, is from Napolitano’s albino chihuahua, Sal), and the objective is simple, but ambitious: If there’s going to be one pizzeria in town, Sal’s had better be the best.
Written by Keith Flanagan
Photography by Read McKendree
