Last updated on January 9th, 2021 at 07:41 pm
I’m so glad you asked. White pizza is a culinary mystery with the secrets baked into the crust. There’s a place for it in the Old Country, but the New World had its way with this carb-heavy treasure to deliver a truly extraordinary pie.
What Is White Pizza?
I thought I knew what white pizza was—a plain, thin-crust pizza with a garlicky sauce topped with blobs of fresh mozzarella and herbed ricotta cheese. It was a late-night snacking staple when I was living large on the bustling UES of Manhattan in my early twenties (to be clear, the only reason to be on the Upper East Side on a Friday night was this pizza, but that was a little known secret). If you’re imagining it, you might be thinking that it’s just cheese pizza without the tomato sauce. It’s so much more special than that.
I’ve tried re-creating it—I used the white pizza recipe from Serious Eats. I followed the recipe as it was written. I used my own homemade pizza dough recipe, rolled it out on a lightly floured surface, sprinkled it with minced garlic, drizzled it with olive oil and topped it with mozzarella cheese and ricotta blobs…but it wasn’t quite right.
Something was missing. I then went down an internet rabbit hole. I found that this was only one type of white pizza among many. Mind blown. Sharing is caring, so here’s a breakdown of the types of white pizza and where you find them:
Pizza Bianca, Italian Style
“Pizza bianca” (Italian translation: white pizza), I can safely assume is the O.G. white pizza. The term comes up quite a bit when you’re booping around the internet, but it’s nothing like what I know as the paler pie. Turns out, Roman pizza bianca is something akin to focaccia.
According to Ed Levine, pizza bianca is an experience. He got intimate with the toast with the most on a trip to Rome (read: he knows what he’s talking about). He claims it’s the acme bread for sandwiches—oily, crispy, chewy and tender—there’s no cheese and no sauce.
Apparently, that’s just the type he likes. You can get all sorts of toppings—the Italian term just means there’s no sauce on the pie. Americans kind of ran with the idea and made it their own, to a degree.
New Haven White Clam Pizza
If you’ve never been to New Haven, it’s worth the trip just for the apizza. It’s Neopolitan pizza which means it has a coal-fired pizza crust. It comes out of the oven chewy with black blisters (you can recreate this crust using a pizza stone). It’s amazing. And it’s where Frank Peppe made a name for himself and his apizza.
Frank Peppe is known for being the originator of the white clam pizza, which is, by Italian standards, pizza bianca. He came up with the idea in the 1960s. It was his answer to the surge in these new celebrity clams as well as showcase the famous New Haven apizza.
The base is also similar to what I came to know as white pizza—but no ricotta and lots of Parmesan cheese.
New York/New Jersey White Pie
From what I gather, white pizza around New Jersey and New York City are derived from the same pie (similar to the one I remember fondly). And we have Louie, Ernie and Ronnie to thank for that.
Local lore suggests a guy named Ronnie in Throgs Neck came up with the idea in the 1970s and it took off. BUT his father-in-law had been making white pies since the 1950s. He had a place called Louie & Ernie’s on Crosby Avenue in the Bronx. Two brothers who worked under Ernie bought the pizzeria. They still run it.
However, on the menu, there’s no description of what goes on a white pizza. I only know from word of mouth that this is the pizza I’m so fond of.
It’s unclear how word got to New Jersey (or even if New Jersey was where the idea spawned), but white pizza is a thing there, too.
Lombardi’s Pale Pie
It’s hard to say if the idea spread to Manhattan where Lombardi’s got a whiff of it.
Lombardi’s is, arguably, the most famous pizza place in New York. But it’s not like the Sbarro up in Times Square. Or those pizza joints on the corner where you walk in, grab a slice and walk out. It’s a sit-down place where you can bring the family. They bring the whole pie out on a pizza pan and let you serve yourself.
Legend tells the story of Gennaro Lombardi opening America’s very first pizzeria. That happened in 1905 on Spring Street in New York’s Little Italy. It’s still there today.
White pizza is on the menu as a “best seller.” Toppings listed: mozzarella, ricotta, Romano cheese, oregano, basil, black pepper, and garlic Infused Oil. No sauce.
If you’ve never had white pizza, now you know where to go for your next pizza night. Come armed with red pepper flakes.
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