D’Amore’s Heart-Shaped Pizza Is A Perfect Valentine’s Day Dinner – The Bite

THE BITE: I’ve been on a personal pizza kick lately, sampling about a half dozen of the pint-sized pies at joints across Sheepshead Bay. It was a tedious enterprise – most were half the size and a quarter of the quality, improperly cooked and often soggy. But when I ordered a Pizza Naturale mini pizza from the relatively new Pizza D’Amore (3003 Avenue U), I knew I struck upon greatness just in time for Valentine’s Day.

First of all, it’s heart-shaped. Really. And it’s not just a Valentine’s Day gimmick – they serve it like this year-round. It may be a gimmick of a different sort – branding – given that “d’amore” translates to “love,” but I’ll take it.

Let’s back up and talk a little about Pizza D’Amore and the storefront’s history. The Avenue U spot is the latest outpost of the Mill Basin-based pie-tosser at 2147 Mill Avenue. I’ve never been to the original, but have heard pretty good things coming from our neighbors out east. The Avenue U spot opened in late summer 2014.

The storefront is the former home of Nino Coniglio’s Pizza Del Corso, a place that vanished before its time (Nino has since launched Williamsburg Pizza and is getting the attention he deserves). The very forgettable Sammie’s Pizza replaced Del Corso while we quietly wept. It seemed that corner of Sheepshead Bay would never again have decent pizza.

Enter D’Amore, which overhauled the space, providing two dining areas – a casual, pizza cafe upfront and a proper, slightly upscale dining room in the back. Both are inviting, and so is the mouth-watering display of steaming hot pizzas when you enter.

Shortly after they opened I stopped by, and fortuitous timing got me a slice from a just-out-of-the-oven pie. Cheese and sauce swished around on a nice, crisp crust and I left impressed, but not yet experienced enough to write about the place.

Thanks to a couple of terrible winter storms and online ordering, D’Amore turned up on my radar once more – and so did this heart-shaped bliss.

The pizza naturale comes with “layers of homemade mozzarella, bits of San Marzano plum tomatoes, fresh garlic and a touch of Tuscan olive oil.” That first bit should catch your eye: homemade mozzarella. Like Del Corso before them, D’Amore makes its own, and the result is something more substantial than retail “fresh mozzeralla” – it’s thicker and with more chew, and is free of the greasiness or plastic texture of the more processed version. It’s a Brooklyn mozz, for sure.

The pie comes with rich dollops of tomato sauce that are sweet, tangy and with a noticeable amount of basil cooked in. It’s not so overburdened with sauce that anything is sliding around, but the perfect amount for a sauce lover like me.

Then there’s the garlic. It’s without a doubt the strongest flavor packed into this barebones pie, and lingers long after your done – a heady reminder of the satisfying meal you just packed away. There’s a few spurts of pesto, some small olive oil reservoirs, and sprinkling of what appeared to be pecorino romano, all of which rounded out the flavors.

Earlier I mentioned the uninspired lot of other pies, and much of that was due to the crust. A different size calls for some changes to the process to ensure the proper crunch-to-chew ratio, and not many were up to the task. It seemed others were using a different dough altogether, and they were bland, soggy sadness in bread form. Also, ranging in price from $7-10, most personal pies only came to equal about two regular slices of pizza – a shoddy deal.

But at D’Amore, none of this is an issue. The whole thing comes just shy of four slices, so for $9.25, it’s a solid deal for the fresh ingredients. The crust itself? D’Amore! It’s thicker than your usual slice, soaking up the sauce,  and perfectly charred on the edges (even the heart’s cleft), a solid crunch all along the bottom, and good chew to go with that sauce. There’s nothing bland here – the crust itself is a touch salty.

This is a personal pizza worth sharing – the first I’ve found locally. With a salad or perhaps their fried ravioli accompanying it, the personal pie will comfortably feed two on Valentine’s. But you’ve both got to eat it – you don’t want the holiday soured by just one of you sporting garlic breath.

Pizza D’Amore, 3003 Avenue U, (929) 333-9552.

The Bite is Sheepshead Bites’ column exploring the foodstuffs of the Sheepshead Bay area. Each week we check out a different offering from one of the many restaurants, delis, food carts, bakeries, butchers, fish mongers, or grocers in our neighborhood. If it’s edible, we’ll take a bite.