14 CEDAR STREET
DOBBS FERRY, NY 10522
(914) 478-8200
CHEF/OWNER: DAVID DIBARI
One way to consider Chef David DiBari’s second bricks-and-mortar venture, The Parlor, is to think of this pizzeria as David DiBari unchained. While The Cookery, also in Dobbs Ferry, was merely mischievous when it deemphasized the accepted standards in Italian restaurants—say, thick tablecloths and pricey Barolo—The Parlor steps almost joyfully into the role of provocateur. On The Parlor’s corrugated, graffiti-tagged walls, you won’t find one inch of Carrera marble, and, just look around, here are no subway tiles. Instead, The Parlor’s decor is just what you bring to it. Literally. But for an underlayment of graffiti (itself crowd sourced in a contest), The Parlor’s decor invites you to scrawl YOUR NAME HERE.
Adhering to a strict DIY ethos, the design—and much of its execution—comes from the minds of The Cookery team. DiBari himself hunted for the worn cafeteria tables and Catholic girls’ school chairs that populate The Parlor’s dining room in the trenchlike antiques fields of Brimfield, Massachusetts. Aside from some installed corrugated metal, the space’s walls and ceiling have simply been stripped to whatever lay beneath. In some cases, that’s surreally juvenile wallpaper; in others, it’s bare brick and floor joists. An homage to DiBari’s girlfriend, Cathy Cercena—an image of her smiling lips—graces The Parlor’s wood-fueled oven. This is a restaurant created by and for its cooks.
Says DiBari, “The Parlor is the first time that I could fully represent a piece of me in a restaurant. I feel like, finally, I’ve been able to do everything and express everything in a really limited space.” On the walls you’ll find everything from the logos of local punk bands to publicity shots of the 1980s hair bands that informed DiBari’s Hudson-side youth in Verplanck, New York. “The Parlor was basically a canvas for me to show who I am and where I’m from.”
At The Parlor the decor’s pared-down, three-chord aesthetic backs a menu of exemplary craftsmanship that includes locally sourced produce, house-smoked meats, and hand-stretched mozzarella. If you can imagine it, The Parlor is as close to an artisanal pizza dive as the Hudson Valley comes. “It’s about cutting out all the pretense. I always say it’s okay to eat serious and have fun. To have fun is all we want to do in life and, for me, cooking is having fun. I feel like, if I’m not having fun, then I shouldn’t be doing it.”
(MAKES SIX 10-INCH PIES)
For the pizza dough:
2 cups warm water
1 ounce active dry yeast
20 ounces King Arthur flour
½ ounce kosher salt
For the pizza:
36 paper-thin slices fresh lemon
30 thin slices garlic
18 fresh basil leaves
1½ pounds smoked scamorza cheese, cut into 36 slices
⅓ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
⅓ cup olive oil
Fleur de sel to taste
To make the pizza dough: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, place the warm water. Add the yeast and about half of the flour. Add the salt. With the mixer set to low, stir the mixture until it forms a smooth, liquid batter with the consistency of heavy cream. When the batter is smooth, allow it to rise in the mixing bowl for 15 minutes, or until it is foamy, bubbly, and about double in size.
When doubled, switch the mixer to medium speed and carefully add the remaining flour. If it is very humid in your kitchen, you may need to add more flour. Knead the dough in the machine on medium speed for about 5 minutes. When you’re done, the dough will be wet and should fall off the hook easily. Place the dough in a floured pan or bowl and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.
After it has rested, portion the dough into six 7-ounce balls. Place the balls in lightly greased quart containers with lids. Allow the dough to rest, sealed in lidded containers, in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Alternatively, you can leave the dough in the refrigerator overnight.
To make the pizza: Heat a wood-fueled pizza oven to about 800°F. About 15 minutes before you plan to make the pizzas, remove the containers of dough from the refrigerator to allow the dough to rise in temperature. This relaxes the dough and makes it easier to work. After 15 minutes gently press the dough with your hands, pushing the air to the outer edges of the ball. Keep pressing until you have a round, flat disc. Begin to stretch and pull the dough disc into a thin, 10-inch round. Cover the pie with six slices of lemon, five slices of garlic, three basil leaves, four slices of scamorza, 1 tablespoon grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and a drizzling of olive oil. Slide the pizza onto a paddle and bake, spinning the pie twice, in your wood-burning oven. Each pie will take 60–90 seconds to cook.
HUDSON VALLEY BEER GOD
Scott Vaccaro of Captain Lawrence Brewing Company
444 SAW MILL RIVER ROAD
ELMSFORD, NY 10523
914-741-BEER (2337)
Unlike other young entrepreneurs armed with a business plan and a wad of investment capital, Captain Lawrence’s Scott Vaccaro was not concerned with looking “money.” In 2006, when Vaccaro was twenty-seven years old and launching his original brewery in Pleasantville, New York, he was living in his parent’s house and sleeping in the twin bed of his boyhood. In fact, when a pint of Captain Lawrence beer could be bought in Manhattan’s Gramercy Tavern, Vaccaro still lived at his parent’s house and sometimes delivered his beer in person via his Volkswagen Jetta.
“My salesman at the time was my cousin Joe. And while I was building the whole place out, he was knocking on doors and trying to figure out, alright, who is even interested in talking about a local beer? Which restaurants wanted to support the idea before even tasting it? We got some good feedback, and, basically, we went from town to town. How many bars sold draught beer (because we were only going to do draught beer when we opened up)? How many were just saying ‘No. We only sell Bud, Miller, and Coors’?
“The day my beer was ready, we knew exactly where to go with it. In May of the first year—we opened in January 2006, so five months into it—Joe Marino of American Beer in Brooklyn called up saying that he wanted to distribute our beer in Brooklyn, New York City, and Manhattan. So I thought, ‘I’ll give this a shot and give Marino a call.’ It was probably the smartest thing I ever did.”
Signing Danny Meyer’s restaurants—Union Square Cafe, Tabla, Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern—was another huge breakthrough for Vaccaro. “When we presented in front of their manager’s meeting, it was basically all or nothing. You’re either approved in all of his restaurants or none. So Blue Smoke has been a big one, Shake Shack another.”
In 2012, Vaccaro moved his Captain Lawrence Brewing Company from its original Pleasantville digs to a new space at 444 Saw Mill River Road in Elmsford. The move nearly doubled CLBC’s size, plus Vaccaro gained the ability to produce twelve-ounce bottles. Nowadays, you can find classic CLBC brews—Freshchester Pale Ale, Liquid Gold, and Smoked Porter—on supermarket shelves next to Sierra Nevada and Guinness. Rumor has it that those bottles are delivered by actual truck (and not via Volkswagen Jetta).