For a professional pizza maker, the Margherita is like an a cappella singing performance. There’s nowhere to hide, no backup or camouflage — the pizza maker lives or dies on the quality of their technique and ingredients: dough, a smear of tomato sauce, a sprinkling of cheese and a scattering of basil. For many, this is the very definition of pizza.
At Lola in Kingston, the Margherita is a wood-fired, six-spoked wheel, its rim raised, puffy and pleasingly speckled with sooty spots of char. When you lift one of its slices to eye level, it barely acknowledges gravity, offering no more than a demure droop. This is not a New York City street slice that requires folding lest its toppings end up all over your shoes. But then comes the true test: You take a bite.
Address: 243 Fair St., Kingston
Hours: Lunch, 12.30-3 p.m., Wednesday to Sunday; dinner, 5-9 p.m., Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Prices: Starters, $8-$19; pizza $20-$27; pasta and entrees $22-$27; desserts $9-$13; cocktails $16; wines by the glass $13-$16; bottles $52-$96.
Info: lola.pizza; reservations via Resy; 845-768-3624
Etc.: Covered outdoor terrace seating; metered street parking; ADA-accessible.
The strong feelings and opinions evoked by pizza slices too often resemble a dark slice of life — wild-eyed cultists and maniacs at each other’s throats, bickering over their beliefs, preferences and lifestyle choices. You’ve got your deep-dish diehards, grandma groupies, New York-style nutjobs and Detroit devotees. There even exist people in the world who consider Hawaiian pizza good eating. (Heathens.)
But why shouldn’t pizza be like music? You don’t have to like the Beatles or the Stones. It’s perfectly permissible to enjoy Taylor Swift, Jay-Z and Metallica. The Margherita at Lola is a bit more Dean Martin, however. Its heart is in Naples, but its ultimate makeup is American. It reminded me of the style of pizza I ate at Pizzeria Posto in Rhinebeck, one of the three best pizzerias east of the Hudson River. “Modified Neapolitan” is how Posto’s owner, Patrick Amadeo, described his pizza — crisper and less soupy than a true Neapolitan pie. The style was pioneered by famed pizzaiolo Chris Bianco, who grew up in Ossining but found pizza fame in Phoenix. (His story is told in episode one of the Netflix documentary “Chef’s Table: Pizza,” highly recommended viewing.)
My first bite of Lola’s Margherita yields a beguiling mix of dough, puff, crunch and char. And that’s just the crust, which almost sticks to your teeth, like good and tangy sourdough bread. The tomato sauce is thin in body but not thin in flavor, which is pleasantly acidic and assertive. And the mozzarella is milky, a soothing counterpoint to all those bold wood-fired flavors.
When you lift one of the slices of Lola’s Margherita pizza to eye level, it barely acknowledges gravity, offering no more than a demure droop.
Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union
When Lola opened on the first day of 2020, some people were shocked that a modest 10-inch Margherita could cost $15. Today that same pizza costs $20. But we have all been through a lot over the last four years, the restaurant industry included. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Know this, however — Lola’s Margherita is great pizza.
Also consider the fact that, at Lola, you’re not perched at a counter or sitting at a plastic-covered table. Neither of these are bad options, just cheaper. Lola is little sister to Restaurant Kinsley, the upscale joint on the ground floor of Hotel Kinsley, and was developed by the same team, including famous chef Zak Pelaccio (who doesn’t cook at Lola but helped with the menu) and designer Taavo Somer (also behind the Inness resort, whose restaurant we previously reviewed).
Furthermore, Lola is more than just a great pizzeria. Though there are a dozen pies available, it also offers a great range of appetizers, pasta, wines and cocktails. Before the food arrives, I try the Night Animal cocktail, a sharp-fanged concoction like a turbocharged margarita made from mezcal and jalapeno, with delicious background vegetal notes courtesy of cucumber and Cynar, an artichoke-based Italian amaro.
Quickly, two appetizers hit the table, calamari and broccoli rabe, both dishes from the school of “beguilingly simple.” But simple-done-well can be a knockout. The broccoli is dressed with chile and slices of roasted garlic, thick as guitar picks. The stalks of rabe are also heavily seasoned — ideally so, because salt tames bitterness (cook’s tip).
The calamari, if you’ll excuse the plain expression, is simply damn good! It is perfectly crisp, with not even a pinprick glint of grease, a joyful jumble of starfish-shaped tentacles and doughnut-ring squid body.
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Buttery and rich bolognese served with mafaldine, an extraordinary house-made pasta shape.
Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union
Lola is a sprawling enterprise. You enter through the covered outdoor terrace, where yard upon yard of wood for the pizza oven is stacked. From here you pass into a casual dining space with a pine ceiling and tables, dominated by a huge, half-onion-shaped pizza oven, which came from Naples. There’s also an attractive, purple-neon-lit bar and a second dining room, more suited to larger groups.
I ate in the casual indoor space. And now a minor complaint: From the ceiling hangs a huge, square fluorescent light fixture. Is it cool? Sure! Does it look like something you’d see displayed at a jaunty angle in a white-walled gallery, likely titled “The Dismal Illusion of Choice #9”? Kinda. Do I want its overwhelming fluorescence pummeling my eyeballs after the sun goes down? Absolutely not!
The outdoor seating at Lola Pizza.
Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union
The bar at Lola Pizza.
Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union
Lola’s wood-fired pizza oven is from Naples.
Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union
Lola Pizza’s larger dining room.
Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union
Lola is a sprawling enterprise, with a covered outdoor terrace, a purple-neon-lit bar, and two interior dining spaces. (Christopher J. Yates / Special to the Times Union)
But never mind middle-aged ocular discomfort. That Margherita pie lands on our table alongside a bowl of pasta bolognese with a sauce tasting unsuspiciously like Marcella Hazan’s — because who could top that? — but made by a high-level professional. It is buttery and rich with velvety nubs of meat and served with an extraordinary house-made pasta shape, mafaldine. If you are of a certain age, you might remember being a teenager and pulling your landline phone receiver as far as you could, trying to escape your parents’ prying ears, the phone’s spiral cord being stretched into a long sine wave. This is how the mafaldine reacts when it dangles from the end of your fork, its ringlets cupping morsels of rich sauce, the dish a double delight, playful and appetizing all at once.
The meal ends with tiramisu, a square of dessert topped with so much cocoa it looks like burnt Basque cheesecake. Lola’s version tastes boozy and creamy with the ideal coffee kick, and its proportions are perfect. It’s the kind of tiramisu you always hope will show up but so rarely does. You might even say its arrival is a sight for sore eyes. Because the eyes are indeed sore. But the belly is on cloud nine — somewhere way up above the infuriating fluorescence.