Roberta’s has opened its first-ever slice shop

By Scott Lynch

From its scrappy beginnings some 16 years ago, when it first opened in what was then a grim industrial patch of Bushwick near the Morgan L train stop, Roberta’s has grown into an empire. There are outposts in Williamsburg now, and Nashville, and Singapore, and, soon, near Penn Station.

I’ve eaten their signature bee sting pie (cheese, funky meat, hot honey — pretty much every pizza place in town offers a version of this now) out at Rockaway on the Beach 67 boardwalk and among the art swells at Frieze on Randalls Island. They’ve launched fancy offshoots like Blanca and Foul Witch. You can get frozen Roberta’s pies in supermarkets. Alums can be found running kitchens all over town. And remember those crazy Roberta’s block parties in the early twenty-teens? Legendary stuff.

But in all these years of opening restaurants and making pizza, Roberta’s has never sold proper New York City slices.

Until now. Just last Sunday, within the Roberta’s Bakery next to the main compound on Moore Street, R. Slice was born.

“The amount of times we’ve heard people ask over the years ‘do you have slices here’…” Roberta’s co-founder Brandon Hoy says, trailing off. “But it was kind of just in one ear and out the other. It took us a really long time to be like, ‘Wait, yeah, why don’t we sell slices?’ So I don’t know how smart we are, we probably should have done this a long time ago.”

The slice shop is located inside Roberta’s Bakery (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Well, they do it now. And the slices are incredible. There are three options to start: regular cheese, pepperoni, and fire and ice, which is basically the pizza version of the famous stracciatella and ‘nduja dish at Foul Witch. The mozzarella is all made in-house, and is distributed with a generous hand across the surface. These are all super cheesy slices. The sauce is from fresh tomatoes, not canned, and makes for a wonderfully bright and lively counterpoint.

Pepperoni slice, $5 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

And then there’s the R. Slice dough, which instantly elevates this place into the top tier of slice shops in the city.

“We really wanted it to be dough-driven,” says Hoy, who can talk about pizza like a sommelier discussing wine. “We wanted to have some bite of the sourdough, we wanted to have a little bit of that kick, and have that nice tooth, and a nice airy crust. Kind of thin, a little crisp on the bottom, totally foldable. We started with a real clear vision of what we wanted this pizza to be, and we’re really excited with the result.”

You can also get whole, eight-slice, 20-inch pies, including a luxurious clam pie that nails the balance among bivalves, garlic and cheese, and finished with enough red chilis to get your attention. You can customize whole pies with all manner of toppings as well, from mushrooms and onions to anchovies, pork sausage and soppressata. Get a side or two of ranch for dipping if you want to piss off any purists in your group.

The clam pie, $40 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

On opening day R. Slice was also slinging some extraordinary not-pizza things, including a fried chicken biscuit sandwich with pickled celery and a juicy porchetta-focaccia number with salsa verde that truly buckled my knees with each bite. This part of the menu will likely change frequently, so just check the board near your friendly order-taker and don’t hesitate to grab whatever sounds good.

Porchetta focaccia with salsa verde, $10 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

The stalwarts will be available as well: those soft, chewy, 12-inch Neopoltan pies that made Roberta’s famous in the first place. Yes, the bee sting is among the options in this category, as is the Cheesus Christ and the excellent Speckenwolf. But really, as good as these old-timers are, you’re here for the new slices.

There’s no seating inside R. Slice — it’s just a big room filled with ovens and loud music and t-shirts for sale and people waiting for their food — but the Roberta’s compound has tons of picnic tables all along Moore Street and inside the yard at the Tiki Bar. Beer and wine is readily available. It’s all very pleasant and, even after all these years, it still feels pretty cool.

Photo by Scott Lynch

R. Slice is located within the Roberta’s Bakery at 257 Moore Street, between Bogart and White Streets, and this week will be open on Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with extended hours to follow.