Totonno's • 1924

Before Anthony "Totonno" Pero opened his own coal-fired pizzeria in Coney Island in 1924, he made pies for Lombardi's on Spring Street, becoming America's first pizzaiolo. Four generations later, his descendants still work the same brick oven at Neptune Avenue, turning out blistered, charred Neapolitan pizzas with the kind of leopard-spotted crust that inspired a century of imitators. The coal fire burns just as hot, and the pizza tastes like it did when Coney Island was the center of the universe.