Dan's Papers - May 16, 2008 - All Fired Up Over Wood Ovens

If you are a pizza lover, you know the value of a wood-fired oven. The oven's design was originated in Italy, and it offers a superior cooking quality for certain foods, especially pizza, because of its natural ability to cook foods evenly on the top and on the bottom, as well as a natural smokiness that you can't get from traditional gas or electric ovens. In just about every town on the East End, you can find a restaurant that offers a wood-fired oven.

The legendary Nick and Toni's restaurant in East Hampton is famous for its Italian food and includes its wood-fired oven as part of the recipe for their unbelievable success. Nick and Toni's offers wood-fired pizza, but doesn't stop at just cooking pizza using the oven. Many of their meat and fish dishes are cooked in the oven as well. Not much can beat extra virgin olive oil, salt and a wood fired dish.

In Bridgehampton, there's a wood fired oven at World Pie, the popular restaurant and homemade pizza joint. World Pie has a variety of pizzas and a very creative menu that revolves around their oven. From a Margarita pizza to a Tuscan pizza, you can enjoy some fresh dough and your own personal pizza that's exceptionally good at a fair price in an upbeat atmosphere.

Fornos, which means oven in Italian, is a word used to describe wood-fired ovens of which there are two different types - black ovens and white ovens. Black ovens differ from white ovens because the burning wood is located in a chamber and the food is cooked next to that same chamber while the fire is still going. White ovens have coals in a separate chamber and the heat is transferred through a chute, keeping the oven free from charcoal, or in other words, "keeping it white."

In Sag Harbor, Spinnaker's offers a wood fired oven for its excellent variety of dishes that always seem to attract both local and tourist crowds to the restaurant. The restaurant, which was renovated last year, still has some regulars surprised by the excellent quality of all the new furniture and brickwork.

In Hampton Bays, try Boccacini's for a wood fired oven. Boccacini's is your quintessential Italian restaurant, offering just about everything you could ever hope for - be nice to the bartenders and don't be surprised if they offer you extra rum in your rum and Coke.

Back to Southampton, 75 Main presents a stunning bar menu thanks to their wood fired ovens and an equally stunning dinner menu. It is pretty hard to pass up a game on the large flat screen televisions at 75 Main, or a nice martini and a superb personal pizza cooked in their in-house wood fired oven. Fish dishes can't be beat and the atmosphere in the summer at this restaurant is extremely friendly, welcoming and elegant. The staff at 75 Main is very nice as well and in the summer you can eat with fresh air coming in through the large windows that open up completely out onto Main Street Southampton. If you want to walk by the restaurant, expect to be drawn in by the amazing aromas that come out the door.

Finally, up in Riverhead, there's Road House Pizza, which has fabulous wood fired oven pizza. The restaurant is fabulous, family friendly and easy on your wallet, which is never a bad thing.

Just remember that when you get a pizza at one of these places you're experiencing the best that oven pizza can offer. A wood oven can cook a pizza in as little as 90 seconds and gets the nod of approval for authenticity for Vera Pizza Napoletana pizza. Go out and get a pizza fired up over wood!