AlwaysStrong: Little Vincent’s (Huntington, New York)

Arthur Bovino — March 03, 2009

Restaurant: Little Vincent’s
Location: Huntington, New York
AlwaysHungry Grade: A
Signature Dish: The Cold Cheese Slice
AlwaysHungry Recommends: The Cold Cheese Slice, Pepperoni Pizza

“You’ll understand as soon as you have a slice,” explained a teenager. He and his friend were sitting on stools at the window of Little Vincent’s, a popular, no-frills pizzeria on Route 110 just south of 25A, in Huntington, Long Island. They were both about to eat pizza slices each one topped with at least a full cup of additional cold shredded mozzarella cheese.

Not extra cheese, extra cold cheese.

“Cold cheese?” you’re asking. “On hot pizza?”

“It’s the fucking best, especially when you’re drunk,” the teen added, carefully creasing his slice to avoid losing shreds of cold cheese.

But the teenagers eating the Cold Cheese Slices (as they’re called) weren’t drunk. Neither were the slender college-aged girls or the non-English speaking Japanese tourists also recently seen eating Cold Cheese Slices at Little Vincent’s. People here just like their pizza this way.

You may already have started calculating the culinary equations: hot slice + cold cheese = X. In this case, X isn’t a constant. The cold cheese allows for several effects and benefits.

First, and most obvious, more is just better. Second, any oil on the slice’s surface that you usually hold your slice tip down to drain off, now disappears— it seems to be absorbed by the cold cheese. Third, the introduction of cold cheese to the residual heat of a piping hot slice creates taste and texture nuances not found in average pizza. There isn’t enough heat in even the freshest slice to melt all the extra cheese but it does introduce three cheese stages to the eating experience: melted, beginning to melt and cold cheese.

This pre-slice skeptic was a post-slice convert. At Little Vincent’s, the bottom crust is thin and slightly textured by cornmeal and the edge crust has a good proportionality of crispiness to doughiness. Perhaps most relevant to the addition of extra cheese is the sauce—Little Vincent’s is superb. Not only is it well seasoned but there’s enough on a regular slice that the introduction of more cheese still allows for a good sauce to cheese ratio.

Aside from these nuances, there is another effect, perhaps the most important—oven-fresh, steaming slices can go: oven, peel, pan, plate, to mouth in seconds. The cold cheese prevents the burning of the roof of the mouth. It’s genius.

“It happened back in ’86 or ’87,” said Little Vincent’s manager, Daniel Rossi. “Some college kids started to ask for it and then it exploded from there.”

Ever since, on any Friday or Saturday night after midnight, Little Vincent’s has sold a lot of Cold Cheese slices, “More than I can count, I think,” said Mr. Rossi, chuckling.

The cold, shredded cheese used to top the slice is the same cheese used in its construction. The added cost is the same as any other pizza topping at Little Vincent’s, an additional $1.50 (25¢ more than their $1.25 plain slice). But at $2.75, the Cold Cheese Slice costs about the same as most city slices.

“Personally it’s not even my favorite,” said Mr. Rossi. “I don’t know. It’s a different texture, a different feel. You get the warm and cold at the same time. The pizza isn’t even supposed to be too hot. If it’s too hot it’s melting the cheese and then you lose the texture. It’s a love it or hate it thing. It’s not the kind of thing you have once in a while.”

It is a practice brought to Huntington by college students returning home to Long Island from school in Oneonta in upstate New York. There the students were introduced to the Cold Cheese Slice at a pizzeria called Tino’s opened by Agatino Garufi in 1985. Mr. Garufi’s son, Tino Jr., said the Cold Cheese started the year they opened.

“You know how you get a slice of pizza that comes out of the oven,” said Tino Jr., “this guy came up to the counter and asked for a slice. But it was too hot so he said can you put some cold mozzarella cheese on top so he could eat it right away.”

Thinking it a little strange, Tino Sr. shrugged his shoulders and acquiesced, tossing a handful of cold cheese on top of a slice.

At first it was free. But the pizzeria was the post-bar destination for students from SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College. As the students popularized the slice, Tino Jr. explained they had to start charging extra.

“My big thing was, what’s the big thing about it. But you’ve got to remember, it’s 2am, there’s a line out the door of drunk kids…you’re drunk and you can’t bite into a hot slice of pizza so…” so cold cheese on top just made sense.

Tino Jr. (his personal email address includes the letters, ‘cc’ for cold cheese) said that between midnight and 3am on a Friday or Saturday night, 95% of the slices sold were Cold Cheese. Tino Jr. sold his family’s Oneonta pizzeria in 2002 and opened a new Tino’s in Cooperstown. The original store in Oneonta, renamed Cosmo’s, is said to have continued the Cold Cheese tradition. But it’s the Cooperstown Tino’s whose window sign proclaims: “Home of the Cold Cheese.”

Tino recalls selling about 800 Cold Cheese slices on an average Friday night in Oneonta. He currently charges $1 for the extra cheese; the Cold Cheese Slice costs $3.25. He also sells a Cold Cheese Pie ($19.75), which when you take to go is accompanied by a container holding well over a pound of extra cold shredded cheese.

But before you go running to just any pizza parlor to ask for a Cold Cheese Slice, drunk or sober, you may want to reconsider. The Cold Cheese Slice works best when the slice being used for the base is already excellent. For your first time, go to your favorite pizza place and ask for extra cold cheese. And don’t be shy—make sure they don’t skimp.