Roberta’s: Artisan Pizza At Its Most Colorful, Brooklyn

It is said that every 10 minutes, 100 new fast-food restaurants are brought to life around the world. How many, do you think, of their customers leave the restaurant not only with a full stomach but also satisfied in other terms?

As we have more restaurants day by day which focus on easy money by means of mass production using ingredients of cheap quality, it has become hard to find a place where we can eat an artisan pizza made with original ingredients which are sourced from their original places if necessary and slowly baked in an oven heated by wood. The consumption frenzy that started following the 90’s made me quite pessimistic about the culinary world for that matter.

However, thanks to the recent Slow Food and Naturalism trends pioneered by the chefs with sensibilities, the tables now have turned against consumerism. Thanks to that, we have started to see artisan restaurants coming up on the scene and make their impact on the culinary world. I too ran into one of those colorful artisan pizza restaurants in Brooklyn.

With the graffiti artworks warming up its streets, liberal youngsters peopling those streets and its gastronomic profile on the rise, I could define Brooklyn as “New York City’s child, a mash-up of Izmir’s Alaçatı and Istanbul’s Karaköy.” This definition greatly applies to Roberta’s Pizza in Bushwick as well.

Opened its doors to its customers 8 years ago, Roberta’s has been run by 2-star Chef Carlo Mirarchi.

The majority of customers of this casual and enjoyable pizza restaurant is mostly youngsters. Mirarchi flavors his pizzas for them with the herbs he grows on the terrace of the restaurant.

The stone oven where the pizzas meet fire has a full history behind it. It was originally brought to Brooklyn from a bankrupt pizza restaurant in Italy.

The most popular pizza is “Bee Sting” which is prepared with tomato, home-made mozarella, pepper, fresh thyme and soppressata, a bigger and dried version of the Italian pepperoni. The pizza got its name from another ingredient: honey. Next to all those salty flavors, honey takes the pizza to new heights. Its popularity is totally justified by its genuine mixture of tastes.

Other pizzas that I’ve found successful are margarita and pepperoni pizza. Colored in red, green and white thanks to its ingredients tomato, thyme and mozzarella, margarita symbolizes the Italian flag, making it the national pizza of Italy.

When the orders are given, the pizzas are started to be made from scratch, a process you can also watch too. So it takes a bit of time to take the first bite from that pizza. I think that should be the only negative side of the restaurant.

Those who cannot skip the desserts may choose “sticky bun.” It won’t take time to choose though since you’re not offered many options. Sticky buns is a sort of muffin made with mille-feuille and cream. However if you visit the place on Saturday; for a dessert, I recommend you to go to Smorgasburg, a popular food hub located on the coast of the East River. Well, if you happen to get overdosed by all the variety of desserts you could find at Smorgasburg, you should definitely go for a walk around the popular flea market too: Brooklyn Flea!

Bon appétit and enjoy the taste of life…