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Comment by ardit33 | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact, some of the best "italian" pizzeria's in NYC are actually owned and/or run by Albanians.

There is a whole generation of Albanians that moved in Italy (after the 90s), learned the trade there and eventually moved in NYC and opened their places.

Fun fact number 2: A lot of greek places in NYC are actually operated by albanians. (for the same reasons as above).

The main reason is marketing: People in the US know italian and greek food very well, but they are not familiar with Albanian food (which is just as good), so it is much easier for Albanians to market/open a italian/greek restaurant.

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Albania and Italy are only as far apart as New York and Philadelphia, and Albania and Greece are adjacent. Americans are not inclined to draw a distinction between regions separated by so little distance. It would be like you saying that you have a favorite Mission-style taqueria in Tirana, and I countered that it's actually run by people from Sacramento. There is no difference!

>No distinction between Albania and Italy

Il Duce ha sempre ragione!

By this same logic there is little difference between food from southern England and northern France.

No, im saying it's no surprise that someone can learn to cook the cuisine of the next town over. In California all cuisines at every restaurant are cooked by Mexicans. Or maybe Salvadorans but again you can't expect Americans to make that distinction.

It seems you forgot about the little obstacle called the English Channel

A mere inconvenience when compared to the obstacle that is the English kitchen.

I’m Albanian and can confirm. Numerous people in my family are in the pizza business. Most the Albanians I know in general are either in tech or the restuarant industry (more so restaurant industry).

I want to preface by saying that I have no issues with Albanians, this is just based on what I know of how some Greeks fell about Albanians.

Given that plenty of Greeks are, to put it mildly, less than fond of Albanians, is there a lot of tension in the Greek Diner/Pizzaria run by Greeks, and those run by Albanians? I hope not, but I’d guess that there is.

No, not that I know off...

Sure, there will be some greeks that don't like Albanians, for x or y reason, but it is not universal.

Also, there substantial number of greeks with Albanian origins: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvanites ) and Albanian and greek food is very similar as there has been a lot of cross cultural pollination.

Both Albania and Greece were part of the "same empires" for millennia. First the Roman Empire, then Byzantine Empire, then eventually the Ottoman Empire.

Even before that they were either in alliances, or fought each other. Alexander's the great mother was of Illyrian origins.

That’s good to hear, I always found the antipathy between culturally similar groups tragic and weird. Good link too, thanks.

A lot of Far Eastern cuisines are not made by the people you think. My parents ran a Thai/Viet mix place for a while, after having run a Chinese place. If you go to one of my favorite sushi shops in London you'll find people speaking Cantonese.

I think what happens is the restaurateurs see what's popular and figure they can pass for whatever other group it is. And the food is like software, you can learn another framework reasonably well if you have the fundamentals and a little experience.

My parents' Chinese restaurant sold sushi. The Thai restaurant in our town sold both Chinese food and sushi and was run by Laotians. In a small town like mine, Asians are pretty interchangeable and sometimes it can be to ones' advantage.

Same thing happened in Philadelphia with Italian communities / restaurants being replaced by Mexican immigrants. This has led to a few pretty righteous Mexican pizza joints. Pizza al pastor is surprisingly good.

Its also changed the flavor of many historic areas. In the 9th Street Italian Market, many of the shops have painted the eagle, snake and cactus on top of the ubiquitous Italian flags.

Pizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though.

Another pizza place near where I used to work was run by an Irish guy, who then later sold it to a Chinese guy.

Oh, and my favorite pizza place near where I used to live was run by a Dominican guy.

I think that pizza place food is not really connected with Italians in the US any more; it's pretty much just become mainstream American. Though there is still a trend for them to have Italian names.

Oh man, their loss! It may be sacrilege but I'm a huge fan of "desi pizza", and there are a lot of places like that in Fremont CA near where I used to live. One place: http://www.bombaypizzahouse.com/

> Pizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though.

Oh that's too bad. There are a few Indian pizza places out here. Some are mostly Indian food on pizza dough, and some have embraced the hybrid (mozz + chicken tikka masala on dough). It's a great combination.

Zante in the SF Mission District serves Indian pizza:

http://zantepizza.com/

In SF the only pizza place I ate at over a six-month period was owned by jwz, and the only pizza slices I ate were vegan ones. I'm not vegan, but I'm slightly lactose intolerant (or something).

I think that pizza is probably a blind spot for many SF/SV startup people. Not surprised this startup is based in NYC.

Is there an avocado toast startup?

Edit: come to think of it I had vegan pizza in NYC a year and a half ago (and on other days while I was visiting, I had some non-vegan pizza). I wonder if it was at a pizza place run by Albanians.

vegan pizza? you must be from San Francisco :)

There's plenty of tremendous pizza in San Francisco. Hell, we even have Zante's, which makes quite unique Indian Pizza. The stuff at DNA Lounge is frankly crap compared to some of what you can get from the lesser known places.

With that said, we're still nowhere on the level of NYC.

Please share some, i have had a few decent slices but they are few and far between. Arinell in mission is closest I’ve gotten to an NY slice.

The only slice worth a damn in SF is Golden Boy.

Yeah, if you're looking for New York style, you're pretty much limited to Arinell.

For Neopolitan, you've got Tony's (actual restaurant, not the takeout shop), Il Casaro, and Carmel Pizza Co. in the North Beach area. Elsewhere, you have A16.

Golden Boy is good pizza, but it's in its own category of American pizza.

Can confirm. The only thing I remember about DNA Lounge pizza was that it was hot.

> I think that pizza is probably a blind spot for many SF/SV startup people. Not surprised this startup is based in NYC.

Really? I found New York pizza to be pretty mediocre in general (Joe's on Bleecker is pretty good if you're okay with burnt dough). DNA Lounge's pizza is not known to be great though. Out here, Patxi's does a good deep dish vegan pie, and there are plenty of places to get a good New York style slice.

wut? I lived 7 years in SF, and 5 in NYC, and there is no comparison.

SF has good deep dish (Little Cesar and Paxtis), and maybe one good true Italian/wood/brick pizza in Northern Beach but that's it.

In NYC you have good pizza every other block (as well as crappy $1, or $2/slice type of places ). Once you try few places, you find which ones are good/legit, and stick with them, and avoid the crappy ones.

For pizza and bagels there is just no comparison between the two places.

Bagels are a whole different ballgame, you can't find a decent bagel in the Bay Area.

But pizza? Your typical place in New York isn't a whole lot different from what you'd find at New York style places (e.g. Escape From New York, Serranos, Arinell's). The 99 cent chain isn't as bad as folks make it out to be IMO.

Out here you've got plenty of wood fired places 'authentic' and not (e.g. Zuni, Tony's, Una Pizza Napoletana, Pizzaiolo); Indian (Zante, Brother's); California (Zuni again, Goat Hill, Arizmendi / Cheese Board -- their sour dough puts puts anything I had in New York to shame); deep dish (Little Star, Patxi's, Zachary's); and, of course, Delfina.

The typical New York pizza isn't significantly different in overall quality than the stuff you find in the Bay Area. If you go looking for it you can find excellent pizza in New York I'm sure (but the same is true in the Bay Area).

err, surely NY is known for its pizza for a reason. All good if you don't like it, but I don't know how you could be surprised that other people don't share a minority opinion

>Out here, Patxi's does a good deep dish vegan pie

That ain't pizza.

Not quite an avocado toast startup, but The Melt is a grilled cheese startup:

https://themelt.com/

The exact same thing happened with Indian restaurants in New York:

> "We give our restaurants Indian names," the Bangladeshi manager of another Indian restaurant said, "because people in America know about India, and maybe they wouldn't come if we said we were from Bangladesh."

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/07/nyregion/the-star-of-bang...

Very common to have cross-culture interests these days. In my neighborhood, Koreans run a sushi restaurant, Irish a Sicilian restaurant, and Indians a burger joint.

Interesting. Here in Switzerland this is also true. A lot of Pizzerias are operated and owned by Albanians. I always thought that this only „happened“ here.

In Sweden, pizzerias are generally run by Turks or Syrians.

Its a generational thing. The children of Italian pizza guys grew up middle class and got homogenized into standard issue Americans. Who wants to toil in a pizza shop when you can be a banker, project manager, IT guy, etc.

Ditto with Jewish delis. One of my dad’s good friends shut a very successful deli down because the family wanted nothing to do with it.

The other reason is that the Italians and Greeks that were running those restaurants made a lot of money and their kids (next gen) went off to college. Having noone to operate those stores, they had to sell or find people that would operate them.

Sounds like a feedback loop. They ought to slowly introduce "Albanian" options to their Italian and Greek menus.

Ask the Cambodian guy who runs a Chinese restaurant how that’s workin out ;)

Ask Babu Bhatt

[Elephant Walk](https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-elephant-walk-boston-2), one of the best restaurants in Boston, is French Cambodian.

In a similar way, most Indian restaurants have Bangladeshi or Nepali cooks.

Fun Fact #3:

There's always a Mercedes Benz in the parking lot.

Any recommendations?

If you want good Italian in NYC go to Celeste, owner is actually Italian too

For pizza I usually go by the slice, (eg. some pizza places have one or two type of slices that are the best, and the rest might be ok). I almost never go at sit down pizzeria. Usually the "by the slice" places are better than sit down restaurants (which usually cater to tourists).

My favorite slice by far is the marinara and sausage/meatball (the pizza on the background):

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipP3K30cRMfe41WljFJP...

The place is called "Stromboli Pizza" and is in the middle of East Village. When the weather is great is just grab a slice and sit down at the stools outside "The Bean", which is next door on 9th st.

http://www.strombolipizzanewyork.com/menu.aspx

Just like the best Pizza is actually across the border from Italy in Slovenia. We even have a common pizza variation with caviar.

Most pizzerias offer 10+ types of pizza. Pizza life is pretty boring in the US by comparison.

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