Totonno’s Manhattan

Fantastic pizza! Very basic ingredients done well, and definitely one of the best coffee ice creams I’ve had in the city.

I was really impressed. I, with company, had a pitcher of sangria, rice balls for an app, Caesar salad, and Tuscan chicken. The Tuscan chicken came with mashed potatoes and beets. The rice balls and mashed potatoes were so good. I wasn’t crazy about the chicken– it had good flavor but I didn’t realize it was on the bone and I’m not a huge fan of da bone. The sangria was $ 16 for a pitcher, strong and really fruity. Yum.

Walked by tonight and this place is gone. Now it is another italian place called Toscanos. Looks generic to me.

This is a review for delivery only.
Two Wednesdays ago, my friend and I were trying to figure out what to eat for dinner. We had heard about this place from other friends and decided to try it out.
We got the margherita/​bianca combo pizza. The guy who took our order on the phone was pretty short and seemed like he wanted off the phone as quickly as possible. He didn’t even give us an order total, but just told us 45 minutes.
About 15 minutes later, the pizza delivery guy is at the door. I actually get excited when things come a lot faster than the time estimate given. So as soon as the guy is paid, we shut the door, rip open the pizza box and start to dig in.
Although this is a thin crust pizza, the bianca pizza is actually pretty heavy and a little bit too oily. Its nice and garlicky when it’s hot, but as the white pizza cools, it begins to lose all of it’s flavor and tastes oily and bland.
The margherita pizza is much better — it’s more flavorful than the bianca and you don’t feel like you’re eating a block of cheese. I only wished that there was fresh basil on top, although I suppose I could have added toppings to the pizza.
I did have one problem with the pizza — when you get to the end of the pizza slice to the crust — the crust is hard and dense. It has no chew or bite to it, and it’s extremely hard to get through. I ended up throwing the crust away, which I normally hate doing.
My overall impression is that, while delivery is fast, the pizza was nothing special, and not worth the price tag, especially when an essential part of the pizza, the crust is basically inedible. I would not order from here again.

In Short: Reliably great pizza for all you thin-​crust fans. Beer in pitchers and a few Italian staples. If someone is visiting New York, stop here for lunch after a visit to the Met and Guggenheim.
The venue and service are unremarkable and if you are looking for great quality in either of those, go somewhere else.
The food is what Totonno’s is about, and specifically, the pizza. The crust is always thin and never chewy. It even has that perfect amount of carbonized burny-​ness on it to add a satisfying crunch without filling your mouth with ash. The sauce is good and not overly sweetened and the cheese is of good quality. Fresh basil is a default on the Margarita which is so good in its simplicity that it begs the question of whether anything else is really necessary. This is a perfect hangover remedy joint to head for for a good solid meal and a hair-​of-​the dog. I also bring out-​of-​towners here to get them an experience of good New York style pizza without having to head to the outer boroughs. It may lack the sophistication you can find at Keste, but then it dosesn’t charge $ 24 for a 10″ pizza, so I guess fair is fair.
I am a native New Yorker and this place is my favorite pizza in New York without heading to the artisan pies.

NEVER AGAIN!
before i go into it lemme preface it by saying i am not one of those annoying stickler people online who try to find bad things to say. i’m an affable, reasonable, nice and friendly guy who gives people and places the benefit of the doubt. i only have one pet peeve: paying for X and not getting X. sorry, but there is no excuse in 2010 nyc for shitty brick oven pizza joints. none at all.
SERVICE: let’s start with this. we walk in, there are four empty 4-​tops (tables) in sight. still, hostess says it’s a 15 minute wait. really? ok. we’ll sit at the bar. 2 glasses of Chianti we order: «‘that’s 8 dollars a glass, plus tax». really? so my bar tab is $ 17.41? that’s pretty fucking tacky. moving right along:
the ‘owner’ or manager is barking orders yelling at his servers and snapping «get this table this» or «get them waters» that pointing and walking around the place, too busy to do anything himself because he was… changing the channel on the tv.
also: note to self — when you go to a place with a bar and there is a touchscreen trivia game atop the bar, you should expect a crappy meal, plain and simple.
some guy comes over after 10 mins of nobody paying us any mind, but only after i wave him down. «you guys ready to order?» yes, we’ll have the blah and the blah with blah toppings.
FOOD: we ordered an arugula/​gorgonzola salad. this was the best part og the whole experience. lots of cheese, but not real gorgonzola, but hey. that stuff is expensive, i understand. still, dressing was not bad.
mind you, we’re still waiting for glasses of water at this point.
we ordered a large margherita pizza with pepps/​onions/​sweetsausage/​freshmushrooms. pizza comes out, no mushrooms. maybe they didn’t hear me, fine. no big deal.
the tray of pizza comes out on one of those wire racks that sit atop the table. it’s all bent out of shape and the tray slides off every time we go to grab a slice. ok, not a big deal.
but the PIZZA ITSELF: burnt and black on the bottom. not in a good crispy brick oven way, but in a we-don’t-give-a-shit-b/c-we-know-you’ll-pay-anyway kind of way. this is not okay with me.
soggy.
huge pieces of toppings.
and something one should never have to do to sausage pizza: SALT IT.
bland sausage onion and pepper pizza?! really??? how does one even do that?
not the good little balls of ground up sausage, but those little pepperoni slice looking bullshit sausage pieces. another bad play.
my girlfriend, after me having to save the tray from sliding off the rack twice, accidentally turns the tray to get another slice too fast and the tray heads to the floor. she makes a save last minute, and saves the tray, but a slice escapes and hits the floor. the servers are oblivious. nobody comes by to help out til i stand up and wave my arms.
*by the way, this is Friday at 9pm. as a former waiter, i can say this is when the staff should be totally on point. it’s winter, on a friday, at a pizza joint in manhattan. likely it will be busy. put on your A — game.
DO NOT GO HERE. DO, NOT, SPEND, YOUR, MONEY, HERE.
shoulda stuck with something we know and love: patsy’s. Grimaldi’s. so many other joints to hit up. this place was beyond bad.

After traipsing around in the frigid snowmageddon in the days after Christmas, two pizza-​deprived Midwesterners visiting family fought their way back to the place they were staying. The question… run out into the mounds of snow and whipping winter wind again to forage for food, or stay put and have local purveyors of pie do their thing? Easy choice.
Turns out Totonno’s Manhattan was just down the street a couple of blocks, and despite the arctic tundra conditions, the two pies arrived piping hot… at our host’s recommendation, we got a spicy pie with onions and jalapenos, and a more traditional one with pepperoni. And between the four of us, proceeded to DESTROY them in short order. Crispy crusts with just enough char to taste toasty but not burned, perfect amount of sauce… not too greasy, but not too sanitized, either… a good amount of artery-​clogging! Perfect snow day food.

I first heard of Totonno’s 2 summers ago when I was at Coney Island with my friend. After some relaxing beach time, we headed over to Totonno’s because he was raving about it and I was excited. However, that location was closed for renovation and ever since then, I had been itching to try Totonno’s.
This past summer, we tried the Manhattan location (we are aware the Coney Island one is re-​opened, but never had a chance to make it over there). We ordered the sausage, onions and peppers margherita pizza. We waited patiently for our pizza. We came here on a Saturday night and every single table had children/​babies with their parents. We were the only table without children. Definitely threw me off a little with all the noisy children and bickering and parents trying to keep them under control. However, when our pizza arrived, I lost track of my surroundings.
The pizza was really good! The crust, sauce, toppings. Everything was perfect. The toppings were plentiful and the sauce was fresh and delicious. The only «complaint» I had was that it was really messy to eat because of everything on the pizza. Hardly a bad thing. I found myself forking up a lot of the pieces that fell off my slice as I bit into the pizza.
The service was pretty good for how busy it was and with all the demands of the parents for their children. It’s amazing how picky children are.
I would definitely recommend this place. My dining companion said the Brooklyn Totonno’s is better, but this place is really good too. I would definitely like to try that location someday.

Short and Sweet:
The best substitute for Grimaldi’s pizza when I’m unable to make the hike out to Brooklyn.

I avoided this place for some time under the gripe that $ 20 for a pizza is far too much (along with my personal rule against places that don’t sell by the slice), but I finally went. First of all, I realized that the $ 20 for a pie isn’t so bad considering how much a regular dinner out with a date costs (and if the pizza is actually good), Totonno’s is actually worth it.
The pizza is beautifully made and the crust is certainly the crispest I’ve had without the pizza being burnt. (was also great as leftovers).
This would have been five-​stars but, for some reason they forgot about my table completely! We ordered a pizza (the most basic margarita) but then sat for about an hour, figuring that one must have to wait for perfection to arrive. At this point though the waiter came back and asked «will that be all for you tonight» aka trying to give us the bill and send us on our way before we even ate!!! We told the waiter, «hey, we haven’t had any food yet», to which he looked shocked. But instead of giving us the next pie out of the oven (since this is their most ordered pizza, there is always a margarita being made), they made us wait another 25 min for the pizza to brought to our table! No concessions were made for our inconvenience (free refill on drink/​a free dessert), but for their sake, they are lucky their pizza is actually as good as people claim (certainly not the best though).

I just ate the traditional margherita made with mozzarella, tomato, grated cheese, and olive oil. It was the best pizza I’ve eaten in the longest time. I ordered delivery at 5:15 PM and it arrived 15 minutes early from what the girl told me. We also ordered the heath bar crunch homemade ice cream. It was very sweet and delicious.

Solid pizza. Good pitcher specials sometimes.
The pizza sorta tasted like an oversized pie from John’s (of bleeker), but it is certainly not that style – its more along the Grimaldi’s/Angelo’s style. It was pretty good, but I wouldn’t go out of my way. If I lived in the area I would probably go regularly.

Coal Oven Pizza. Yum. Is true New York pizza just a thin crust? Is it a Coal Oven Pizza? It is Neapolitan Style Pizza? If your definition on NYC pizza is one of these 3 things or for that matter ALL of these things, head to Totonno’s.
My only complaint about Totonno’s is the crust. It left something to be desired… to thick for my idea of think crust. It was good, don’t get me wrong. But I have had better in this area.
We ordered 1 pizza and 3 cokes and the bill was $ 42.00 We had the Margherita /​Bianca Combo. The extra toppings are what really drove up the price. We had pepperoni on the Margherita side and grilled chicken and bacon on the Bianca side. The chicken alone was an extra $ 5.00, but I think there was almost an entire breast on that half of the pizza. They were generous with the bacon too.

I thought it was cheap and funny marketing ploy hearing their ad «Only God makes better Pizza.»
But, was pleasantly surprised when I went there with a friend on a snowy night couple months ago. Have been eating in and ordering in from this place ever since.

Solid pizza. Fresh tasting mozzarella cheese, creamy tomato sauce, and a thin crust.
The individual can totally be split between two people. Especially with their vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Can’t wait to visit the Coney Island location when it re-​opens.

All the Zagat reviews are a bit over the top, and have been quoted ad nauseum, however, Totonno’s does make great pizza and is a very enjoyable experience if you are eating at the restaurant.
I have never ordered delivery, but every time I have gone to eat at Totonno’s, I have devoured the pizza and enjoyed a decent bottle of wine while there.
It’s a laid back experience, reasonably priced, and the wait staff has always been attentive and pleasant.
It’s not the best pizza I’ve ever had, but it is very good and I’ve never had a bad experience.

The awning quotes a Zagat review claiming that only God makes better pizza — honestly I think they’re being modest.
The pizza is truly excellent, and it’s the only pizza I’ve ever come across that you can reheat after a night in the fridge and still enjoy heartily.
Delivery is pretty quick too. The waiters are friendly and helpful, but the dining room is generally eerily quiet — I guess most of their clients are delivery.
But seriously — best pizza in New York.

Do I give it the fifth star?
Oh, OK — I feel generous. And the pizza here is even better than Patsy’s — who I gave 4 stars to,
Totonno’s makes a seriously delicious thin crust pie — just make sure they don’t burn it or char it — and it is a delightful treat.
The place can get MOBBED on weekends and they have been a neighborhood staple for a reliably good pie for years.
YUM CITY.

Totonno’s is a pretty solid UES pizza place. It doesn’t beat John’s, but now that I moved it is way closer. Its cheap, they have Moretti on tap, and they décor is pretty eclectic… it always feels like Christmas in there.
Stick to the pizza and salads, the pasta’s not that great.

My first pizza experience in NYC. We were referred to go here by our waitress at Gramercy Tavern. Actually, we were highly referred to go here for the pizza as this was one of her favorites.
Her reference did not disappoint. We ordered a large ½ sweet sausage and mushrooms and ½ sweet sausage and kalamata black olives. This size was more than enough to satisfy our mouths. It was just the two of us. We also ordered a plate of fried calamari with tomato sauce to which the sauce was very delicious. It’s like it was made by an Italian mother. I’ve never had tomato sauce like that before.
Our lunch was a bit expensive, but it was worth every penny in our minds. It was a great way to experience NYC pizza for the first time.