NY Pizza Maker Revisits His Italian Roots

When Brooklyn-born Tony’s Pizzeria opened its doors in 1975, it served a com­pletely dif­fer­ent ver­sion of Bushwick than it does today. Over the course of the establishment’s sto­ried exis­tence, the demo­graph­ics of the neigh­bor­hood have con­tin­u­ally shifted.

The company’s staff has also changed, as the Italian cou­ple who opened Tony’s doors even­tu­ally passed con­trol of the restau­rant down to their five chil­dren under the lead­er­ship of their sec­ond eldest son, Salvatore Polizzi.

Tony’s has man­aged to stay strong in a rapidly-evolv­ing Bushwick by adapt­ing to con­sumer tastes. While other New York pizze­rias might admirably stick to the basics, Tony’s offers inno­v­a­tive vari­a­tions to accom­mo­date cus­tomers with vary­ing pref­er­ences and dietary needs.

This culi­nary acu­men, paired with cus­tomer ser­vice that con­tin­u­ally war­rants five-star Yelp reviews, has allowed the Bushwick restau­rant to stand apart from the hordes of Tony’s.

A Google search returns 70,000 results for ​‘Tony’s Pizzeria’ but this one in Bushwick man­aged to grab the cov­eted tonyspizzeria.com domain. Under the aptly cho­sen han­dle ​“BestPizzeriaInBrooklyn,” the team at Tony’s has been tak­ing advan­tage of social media to con­nect with their loyal cus­tomers.

Still, Sal said he had longed for the old days of fam­ily tra­di­tions, espe­cially those derived from his Italian her­itage. He recounted mas­sive Sunday feasts of freshly made spaghetti with his rel­a­tives, mak­ing wine through the infa­mous stomp­ing method.

The #Beast broth­ers and #TeamTonys @bestpizzeriainbrooklyn return to #ThePolizziEstates in Italy 🙌 #LetsDoThis #ItalianAdventure #BiancoNeroExtraVirginOliveOil2017 #FamilyAboveAll #BellaItalia #RoadTrippingItaly Tony’s 2017 #Harvest at the #ThePolizziEstates in the heart of Italy gets rolling. Time to get to work!! Tony’s @bestpizzeriainbrooklyn #ArtisinalExtraVirginOliveOil #ExtraVirginOliveOil #BiancoNeroEVOO #BiancoNeroExtraVirginOliveOil #TonysOliveOil #Tonys #TonysPizza #TonysPizzeriaAndRestaurant #Italy #Sicily #brook­lyn #BestPizzeriaInBrooklyn #bush­wick #ForzaFamigliaPolizzi #ThePolizziBrothers #BoysOfBrooklyn #40YearsInTheMaking @antpolizzi @bestpizzeriainbrooklyn @andrewpolizzinyc @sbp1107 @justjacko @polizzijoseph

A post shared by Tony’s Pizzeria and Restaurant (@bestpizzeriainbrooklyn) on Nov 11, 2017 at 1:02pm PST

​“The world did­n’t revolve around us dur­ing those times but in those moments we all felt as if it did when fam­ily mat­tered above all else.”

“Before we knew it, those fam­ily gath­er­ings became a thing of the past. It was­n’t inten­tional but, rather, the given tra­jec­tory of the work ethic our immi­grant-natured fore­fa­thers instilled in us.”

Now, in an effort to re-con­nect with his family’s rich his­tory, Sal has set out to pre­serve a cru­cial ele­ment of their her­itage: a close rela­tion­ship with milling olive oil.

Sal’s fam­ily hails from their Polizzi Estate in Sicily, the land that his grand­fa­ther Benedeto, a goat herder and dairy prod­uct ped­dler, once used in his work as a vac­aro.

Tony’s has pro­duced their own olive oil in very small batches over the past few years, giv­ing bot­tles to friends and fam­ily, and using the oil in their own recipes. Sal said he learned about the pal­pa­ble dif­fer­ence that high-qual­ity oil can make in any recipe. ​“Olive oil is the base.”

With the suc­cess of his small-scale pro­duc­tion, Sal decided to move for­ward and grow his com­pa­ny’s foray into olive oil, and he’s tak­ing his 900 Instagram fol­low­ers along for the ride.

#TeamTonys @bestpizzeriainbrooklyn return to #ThePolizziEstates in Italy. #LetsDoThis #ItalianAdventure #BiancoNeroExtraVirginOliveOil2017 #FamilyAboveAll #BellaItalia #RoadTrippingItaly Tony’s 2017 #Harvest at the #ThePolizziEstates in the heart of Italy gets rolling. Time to get to work!! Tony’s @bestpizzeriainbrooklyn #ArtisinalExtraVirginOliveOil #ExtraVirginOliveOil #BiancoNeroEVOO #BiancoNeroExtraVirginOliveOil #TonysOliveOil #Tonys #TonysPizza #TonysPizzeriaAndRestaurant #Italy #Sicily #brook­lyn #BestPizzeriaInBrooklyn #bush­wick #ForzaFamigliaPolizzi #ThePolizziBrothers #BoysOfBrooklyn #40YearsInTheMaking @antpolizzi @bestpizzeriainbrooklyn @andrewpolizzinyc @sbp1107 @justjacko @polizzijoseph @paceuniversity @paceualumni

A post shared by Tony’s Pizzeria and Restaurant (@bestpizzeriainbrooklyn) on Nov 21, 2017 at 1:58pm PST

The Polizzi Estate is home to 3,800 olive trees, while the fam­ily buys more land to be annexed into the estate. Sal is work­ing to pre­pare the land for com­mer­cial use and in February he plans to plant an addi­tional 5,000 trees.

They use one of the area’s com­mu­nal mills where they gain insight from expert Italian pro­duc­ers who have been in the busi­ness for gen­er­a­tions.

The olive oil will ten­ta­tively be bot­tled under the brand name Bianco Nero, sym­bol­iz­ing the dichotomy of ​“night and day, black and white,” or what Sal describes with the char­ac­ter­is­tic con­fi­dence of a New Yorker as the dif­fer­ence in qual­ity between his prod­uct and other oils in the mar­ket­place.

While Bianco Nero will be sold in Tony’s Pizzeria and used in their recipes, Sal is also work­ing on dis­tri­b­u­tion through retail­ers from small Brooklyn bou­tiques to large organic chains.

Of course, tak­ing on a project like reviv­ing the ances­tral farm is accom­pa­nied by a cer­tain level of ner­vous­ness, but Sal asserts that he has his fam­ily tra­di­tion back­ing them. He plans to mea­sure the company’s suc­cess in terms of cus­tomer hap­pi­ness.

Above all though, he hopes his efforts will assert the impor­tance of tra­di­tion. ​“Much like the sacred vir­gin­ity of our extra vir­gin olive oil, the sacred nature of fam­ily is all we have in this world of untruths and mis­char­ac­ter­i­za­tions.”

“Family is all we have to keep us grounded in the chaos of every­day life. In its purest form, our Bianco-Nero brand and its devel­op­ment is the liv­ing embod­i­ment of fam­ily and tra­di­tion and the belief we have in its strength and honor.“