Dave Portnoy just handed out one of his highest pizza ratings ever to a newly opened pizzeria in Little Italy – which is now causing impatient lines and sold-out pies.
The Barstool Sports founder is known for his viral — not to mention controversial — one-bite pizza reviews. And he recently gave Ceres — a three-month-old-or-so pizzeria at 164 Mott St. run by two former Eleven Madison Park chefs, Jake Serebnick and Julian Geldmacher — a whopping 9.2 out of 10 score.
Portnoy showered it with praise, calling it “spectacular” and “must-have, top-of-the-list Manhattan pizza … as good as it gets.”
Does he have a new NYC favorite? That glory at least puts it thin-crust close to a trio of his fight-inducing, top-tier Gotham greats Portnoy revealed to The Post last fall: “John’s of Bleecker, Lucali and Luigi’s. Those would be three that are all up there.”
Now, only a few days after Portnoy’s review dropped, lines at Ceres are out the door, $6 slices are selling out, and whole $40 pies are being sold on a time-slot basis only.
As The Post’s food columnist Steve Cuozzo previously noted in his review of Ceres, the duo’s “kitchen skills show in their painstaking pizza preparation,” which includes a crust made with wild yeast and toppings applied with what Cuozzo called “a scientist’s precision.”
To keep up with the demand, Serebnick and Geldmacher — the pizzeria’s only two workers — are enforcing a system where hungry pizza fans can start lining up at noon sharp when the shop opens to snag a time slot, then return later to claim their piping-hot pie.
The young owners might be basking in their shop’s rising popularity, but those who have been fans of Ceres since they opened are grumpy about Portnoy drawing massive crowds.
One X (formerly Twitter) user wrote, “Dude. Wtf @barstoolsports @stoolpresidente – you ruined my favorite pizza spot. The line is fully down the block now,” along with a picture of a massive line wrapping around Mott St.
The Post has reached out to Portnoy for further comment.
Pizza pandemonium
On Thursday, locals like Jacob Shemia, Stanley Chera and Ness Ades waited hours to get a taste of what’s quickly becoming Manhattan’s most talked-about slice.
“I saw Dave’s video and how he gave it a 9.2. I live down here and thought, ‘Wow, I have to come,’” Ades told The Post.
“I came for the first time yesterday, it sold out at 4 p.m., and they told me to come back today. I did at 11 a.m., they put my name down, and I was just able to get it at 5:30 p.m.”
Shemia, who arrived at noon and was fortunate enough to get a 5 p.m. slot, called Portnoy the ultimate “guy of pizza” and said, “When you hear Dave saying something’s good, you have to go try it.”
Chera, a self-proclaimed pizza aficionado from Brooklyn, wasn’t going to let the chance slip by either. “I thought, ‘You know what? I need this slice of pizza.”
Eager pizza fans who didn’t know of the time-slot rule were turned away by 5 p.m. as a pizza box scrawled with the words “Sold Out” in black ink was taped to the storefront by the owners.
The Ceres Instagram account (@ceres.nyc) recently noted that the pizzeria can only cook six pies at a time and maxes out at 140 per day.
“We don’t do online ordering,” the post added, urging fans to get there early or risk going home empty-handed — which is what happened to many saddened customers, like Alexa Albert.
“I thought I was going to get here before the evening rush, and I was so disappointed,” Albert from Seattle told The Post.
Is the $40 pizza worth it?
But is standing in line for an expensive cheese pie – or tomato slice – really worth it? Since NYC is home to some of the best pizza in the country, some might be skeptical of a rookie pizza shop, whose original concept came about during the pandemic.
After spending four years trying to secure a lease and refusing to take on investors, Geldmacher and Serebnick racked up credit card debt to get the place up and running.
And now? The gamble seems to be paying off. Fast.
And while some doubters exist — like Cuozzo, who declared some slices “too dry for my taste” — others who managed to snag a desired slice agreed with Portnoy’s extremely high rating.
“It lived up to the hype. The regular slice is amazing, the sauce is great, the cheese is great and fresh. … it’s definitely within the top three pizzas I’ve ever tried for sure,” Chera told The Post.
“I had six slices – it is probably the best pizza in Manhattan, maybe the best pizza in the five boroughs,” Ades added. Those sound like fighting words.
The droolworthy pizza at Ceres not only delighted customers’ taste buds — it brought them together.
Standing on the busy Mott Street sidewalk outside the pizzeria, kind customers like Shemia and Justin Chapman offered a slice of their $40 pie to those who got turned away.
“Enjoy,” Chapman said, as a beaming Albert held up a slice she never thought she would get a chance to try before heading back home to Seattle. After taking a bite, she told The Post, “I love thin crust pizza … it’s actually pretty perfect.”
“I wasn’t going to let a $40 pie go to waste,” Chapman said about sharing his pizza with a stranger. “That’s what we do in New York.”
Ceres will be closed from May 16 to May 20, so anyone who wants to try the highly rated pizza can come on May 21.
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