Ray's Pizza: Famous and Original

I have been known to remark that any random pizza place in New York is better than the best pizza in California.  (And don't get me started on bagels.).  And the best pizza in New York is something akin to a religious experience.

We had wonderful pizza in Great Neck, Long Island, where I grew up.  I preferred La Tosca, but you could also get a truly great slice at Scotto's.  It was hard to imagine pizza could taste any better.  But everything is better in the City, and the consensus was the best pizzeria in the City was Ray's.  Not Original Ray's, Famous Ray's, Original Famous Ray's or the countless other pseudo-Ray's.  But simply, Ray's, on Prince Street in Little Italy.  When I was finally old enough to venture into the City on my own and ordered a slice at Rays, it definitely lived up to the hype. 

Each summer my family goes back to New York for a visit, and for the last few years we've begun to make pilgrimages to the most renown pizzerias in New York.  We've been to John's and Lombardi's in Manhattan, and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to go to my personal favorite, Grimaldi's, in Brooklyn.  Each one was amazing in its own way, but I'm now kicking myself that we hadn't made it to Ray's because, sadly, it looks like we've lost our chance.

The Sunday Times reports that Ray's is likely to close at the end of the month due to a legal dispute among the heirs of Ralph Cuomo, who opened Ray's at 27 Prince Street in 1959.  So, unless there is a Neapolitan miracle  to keep Ray's open, next summer I'll be taking the kids to Totonnos at Coney Island or Di Fara's in Brooklyn or Patsy's in East Harlem.  Luckily, there are still plenty of legendary pizzerias in New York.

But, there is only one Ray's.