Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tours
Grimaldi's Pizza (Oven Charred and Fresh Basil)
This isn’t called “Slice of Brooklyn” for nothing! Sure it’s about the pizza and they cover that in spades. Tour leader Tony Muia knows Brooklyn and his pizza as he takes you on a 41/2-hour, $75 bus tour. You’ll stop for 2 full sit-down meals at the beginning and end of the tour. Typically, it will be Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, once a favorite of Sinatra, with thin crust and stretchy cheese pizza done within 3 minutes in 900 degree ovens. L&B Spumoni Gardens is another known for its high grade Spumoni as well as Sicilian pizza with just the right combination of Pecorino and Romano cheeses.
But in between meals, the tour bus takes you through all places Brooklyn. You’ll head through neighborhoods like Red Hook, named after the red dirt that Dutch settlers found, and where Al Capone grew up; Bay Ridge, NYC’s largest Irish community; and the cultural melting pot of neighborhoods lining 5-mile long Coney Island Avenue. Best of all, as you’re passing through these areas, Mr. Muia plays clips from films shot in Brooklyn at the moment you pass by where the scene was shot. As you drive under what is now the D line in Bensonhurst, you’re watching “The French Connection” chase scene. When driving down 86th Street in Bay Ridge, John Travolta is strutting his stuff in the opening of “Saturday Night Fever.”
