This New York pizza spot is trying hard to understand Miami — with mixed results
Paulie Gee’s Miami: ⭐️⭐️ 1/2 (Good)
No matter how many Passovers and summers Jason Weisberg spent visiting his grandparents in Bay Harbor Islands, nothing prepared this Long Island native for the reality of living in the 305.
“It’s like the Twilight Zone,” he said.
He came with a mission: to bring pizza. Specifically, Greenpoint’s Paul Giannone’s style of pizza.
The thing is this pizza is not for everyone. Many people don’t like or just have never met a Neapolitan-style pie quite like this.
What distinguishes Paulie Gee’s — in addition to some very inventive topping combos — is dough that has been proofed for three days and then cooked in a wood-burning oven at temperatures around 1,000 degrees. In and out in 90 seconds.
The result is a somewhat doughy — seemingly raw — center and a cornicione or ridge that is pocked with big, black blisters that the untrained eye would see as burned. The bottom of the pie is spotted in black char with a layer of ash. It is pliable and airy without the crackly crust of a Roman pie or a New York style slice that many expect.
It’s still easy to spend a C-note on date night. Which would be OK if the service and the setting were better and the food more consistent.
For now, as Rod Serling might say, Paulie Gee’s finds itself in “a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.”
Or, in other words, Miami.
Paulie Gee’s Miami
8001 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
786-558-8315; PaulieGee.com/Miami
This story was originally published April 13, 2017 at 9:04 PM.