Turn me on

Turn Restaurant in Los Altos looks nice, but why are there no prices listed on the menu ? Isn't that more of a NY thing ? I want to know how much something costs before I consider what to order.

It sounds appetizing. But with, sadly, an undercurrent of bitterness to all the locals aware that A. G. Ferrari (a valuable local delicatessen) lost its lease -- effectively, was kicked out -- to free up the space now occupied by this business. (Still a topic of conversation in downtown Los Altos, I heard it this week.)

A restaurant can become a community institution -- but it is never quite the same if built at the cost of destroying another, long-established one.

A food question from the review. Other than labeling, what makes Turn's pizzas "New York" style?

To review a little pizza history (per the Italian-American food historian J. F. Mariani), the US classic pizza style (originally popularized in New York) is a modified descendent of the original Italian pizza, which was from Naples. The NY style differs basically by being much larger (Naples pizzas are always individual-portion sized), and having a more prescribed topping format that often includes layers of both tomato sauce and cheese.

The plated pizza in this article's photo set might be individual-sized (hard to tell), but it has free-format toppings in the Italian style (without the usual tomato-sauce and cheese layers of US pizzas). Seeing just the picture, I'd take it to be an Italian rather than a US pizza style (but served in the US -- you can tell, because it's already sliced into wedges). In fact, all (six) pizza versions listed on Turn's (PDF) menu read more like examples in my Italian, rather than my US, pizza cookbooks. Leading Turn's list is the signature pizza of Naples, which tradition says was named for the visiting queen, Margherita.

Trevor Felch, could you please clarify why you described these pizzas "New York-style, not Naples" ?

AG Ferrari seems to have failed in a lot of locations. I don't think think there was anything unusual or nefarious about its failure in Los Altos.

chris, I gather you weren't following these events at the time (one of several changes that got a lot of attention in the neighborhood when they happened), but AG Ferrari in Los Altos didn't "fail," rather it lost its lease, as I mentioned already.

Hi folks! Yes, the owners and/or chef wrote on the restaurant's website in the "about" section that the pizza is "New York- style." On the menu it is simply "stone oven pizza." I would not consider the pizza to be any particular style, perhaps closest to a flatbread/California Pizza Kitchen crust. It is definitely not traditional New York- style, however.

I thought the food was blah and inauthentic in the sense of comfort food. American comfort food is best made and eaten, at home.

This is also true of German, Vietnamese, and Italian comfort foods. They just don't rate going out for, and spending righteous money on.