Wylie Dufresne and Gadi Peleg's Stretch Pizza Opens in Flatiron

Photos: Cititour.com                                                                                               

Stretch, a pizza parlor slash bar, is the new hotspot in Flatiron (331 Park Avenue South) as crowds pile in.  Up until now, Chef Wylie Dufresne, who could be seen greeting guests at the bar, was hawking his pizzas out of Breads Bakery near Union Square. We tried ordering there once and there was a huge waitlist. The owner of Bready Bakery, Gadi Peleg, would go on to become his partner in the venture.

Now, you can walk into the pair's sleek new pie shop (although it’s best to have a reservation) with a stainless steel bar, red bar stools and booth seating, white wainscoting and rustic marble tile floors that lead to an open kitchen.

Eight different pies are offered on a bubbly, chewy crust that holds up well to the toppings. The Stranger is one of them, a delicious pie loaded up with sweet fennel sausage and tomatoes. Then there's the Couch Potato with fingerlings, sour cream, bacon and scallion; and Yolks On You topped with asparagus, shallot, egg yolk and chive.

Other offerings include Pizza Points with three sauces - tomato, white and green goddess; pickled beets with ricotta, Caesar salad, pull-apart meatball sliders, and roasted carrots with lime and cilantro.  Whatever you do, don’t pass up on the Basil Chickpea Fries that are light as a feather, served with Stretch Sauce. For dessert, there's banana soft-serve with a babka crumble or chocolate chip cookies.

Fruity cocktails can also be found like Hotel New Yorker (white rum, Dimmi, apricot, pineapple and cardamom), Clay Pigeon (tequila, Lexical, grapefruit and agave), and Baked in Alaska (gin, genepy, vermouth, kaffir lime and fennel). All in all, Stretch is the upper crust of pizza!

- Thomas Rafael