The oven at work

        Despite the filet mignon crudo and homemade linguine with clams, it’s hard not to focus on the pizza at Tresanti.  Smack in the middle of the restaurant, the mammoth brick oven takes up almost the entire back wall.  Tables are scattered around it so that diners can ogle while pizza-master Lorenzo shapes, thrusts, and retrieves pie after pie from the Goliath’s mouth.  Both the fire-breather and its tamer are Italian imports, but the pizza is purely Longi. “It’s our version of Neapolitan,” Gerry explains as I crunch into a slice of Margherita, the thin, blistered crust retaining its crispness all the way to the middle.  A mere three minutes at 700 degrees melts the house-made mozzarella, heats the sheath of tomato sauce that’s been a Longi heirloom for thirty-one years, and wilts the dusting of basil.

        While Lorenzo steals sips of an espresso and chomps Trident gum and Chef Navarria darts from the kitchen to the dining room, the Longis schmooze the crowd. Low lights tinge the room yellow, creating a scene reminiscent of an early Technicolor movie. Moody jazz plays in the background interrupted every now and again by a guffaw or a gulp.

        15 Watts Street at Thompson 212 300-3162

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