vip in the city

Grandaisy Bakery

Grandaisy Bakery was known as Sullivan Street Bakery until sometime in 2006 when the original partners parted ways. Despite the separation, the two bakeries seemed to maintain almost identical models: Jim Lahey took the brand (and the wholesale business) to the location on far West 47th Street; Monica Von Thun Calderón stayed on in SoHo, keeping head baker Cristobal Julio Guarchaj and head pastry chef Peggy Jacobs. In the process, Calderón rechristened the Sullivan Street place “Grandaisy Bakery” after her grandmother. Food writer Ed Levine explains the history better; he’s partial to their olive roll — one of his “favorite rolls in New York.”

Excitement spread when word of a second Upper West Side location opening first circulated in September, and then again earlier this week, as the bakery’s Italian-imported pizza ovens fired up for the first time.

This afternoon, Grandaisy had four varieties of pizza – identical to the ones available at Sullivan Street Bakery: their pomodoro (tomato sauce, olive oil and sea salt), cavolfiore (cauliflower, Gruyère cheese, bread crumbs, olive oil and black pepper), patate (potato, onion, olive oil, rosemary and black pepper) and funghi (cremini mushrooms, onions, olive oil, sea salt and thyme). Not offered today: the zucchini and the pizza bianca, hand-formed slices of flatbread, dressed simply with extra virgin olive oil, coarse sea salt and rosemary.

It’s not typical New York City pizza: with the exception of the bianca (which is plain), these are small rectangles of thin, crispy flatbread, covered in high quality toppings, and served at room temperature… or given the exposure of the trays to today’s chilly outside air, just a little cooler. Nonetheless, New York magazine named their pomodoro among the “Best Square Pizza” in 2006; the Voice has lauded their potato pizza. The unconventional pizza also was named the third best in New York by Time Out – the best in Manhattan, but lagging behind Brooklyn’s Di Fara Pizza and Staten Island’s Denino’s Pizzeria & Tavern.

My funghi slice was good. Slightly soft in the center, with a dense, layer of earthy, salty mushrooms — but at $3.25 a slice, a small extravagance.

Related: this week, Serious Eats posted an informative rundown of the regional variations of pizza in the United States.

Tags: Grandaisy Bakery, pizza, UWS