East Village pizzeria Martina expands the Danny Meyer empire

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• Don’t scurry to your seat with your buzzer after you pay.

  “All of the appetizers come up really quickly, so we’re trying to encourage people to stay up here, watch the action,” Anderer said. “We’re going to hand your drinks right to you, and then the pizza is going to be coming up shortly behind it.” ” data-id=”114068685″ data-link=”https://amnewyork.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/8372_image.jpg” class=”wp-image-1.14068685″/>

• “There’s a story behind every single piece,” he said.

  His favorite is a sepia-toned 1974 photograph snapped on the movie set of “Godfather II.” At the end of the Sixth Street block pictured stands the building where Anderer lived just after graduating from Columbia University in 1999. He’s stayed in the East Village pretty much ever since.

  Other items on the walls: a photo of men playing on the long-gone bocce courts at Second Street and Second Avenue, original postcards from the release of Fellini’s film “Amarcord,” the record sleeve of an Iggy Pop live album, and the jersey of legendary Roman soccer player Francesco Totti.

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• Literally, the motto “Nun strozza ‘ngrassa” is an expression in Roman dialect that means, “What doesn’t choke you fattens you.”

  Contextually, it’s a reaction to the Italian stereotype that classifies Rome’s regional food as “uglier, more peasant-y,” Anderer said; Roman cuisine makes notorious use of organ meats and other cast-off ingredients, such as zucchini flowers.

  “Rome’s response to that was, ‘Shut the eff up … if you can get it down, it’s all good,'” the chef explained.

  Nowadays, Italians take “Nun strozza ‘ngrassa” to mean “whatever doesn’t kills you makes you stronger,” he continued. “So we’ve adopted it to mean that eating Roman pizza makes you stronger.”

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• It’s no secret that Anderer aims to bake 90 pies an hour, a “lofty goal,” he admitted.

  “Everyone’s coming to me talking about how are you doing with those 90 pies? I’m like I don’t f—ing know. I’m making pizza.”

  But he isn’t ashamed of striving for volume and efficiency.

  “I want to sell a lot of pizza,” Anderer said.

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• Yes, Anderer would prefer you take a bite of his pizza before you cover it in dried oregano, but “pizza is pizza,” he said.

  Plus, Martina’s condiment counter offers some unusual seasonings: chili oil, which is so popular at Marta that the restaurant now stores it in capless Tabasco bottles to prevent customers from stealing their supply; garlic-Parmigiano salt, a combo of dehydrated parmesan powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and chili flakes; and finocchio, a dried blend of several types of fennel, garlic, mushroom and chili.

  Anderer describes the condiment he invented with his friend Lior Lev Sercarz, of La Boîte, as an “umami bomb.”

  “We were doing this sausage pizza and I wanted to amp up the fragrance of the fennel in that pizza,” the chef said of finnochio’s origins. “So when it comes out of the oven, we worked on this spice blend with him to sprinkle onto the pizza.”

  I thought, if I like it so much, why wouldn’t I put it out here for other people to try?” ” data-id=”114068680″ data-link=”https://amnewyork.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/8376_image.jpg” class=”wp-image-1.14068680″/>

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• You can stop by from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday.

  If you’re wondering whether Martinas will soon pop up around the city like Meyer’s popular burger chain, Shake Shack, Anderer said he has no immediate plans to replicate the eatery that “takes [him] right back to Rome.”

  “This is a stand-alone restaurant so far as I’m concerned right now,” he said.

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There are two ways to eat pizza in New York.

Either you order from the cheap neighborhood pizzeria, eating your slice on-the-go or your pie at home. Or you sit down for a meal at a restaurant like Marta, where the booze and the ambience outweighs the double-digit prices of appetizers and individual pizzas.

Enter Martina, a new Roman-style East Village pizzeria from Marta chef Nick Anderer and an addition to Danny Meyer’s dining empire that aims to blend fast and fine dining.

Martina — Anderer’s tribute to the small side-street Roman shops serving up affordable thin-crust pizzas, fried bites and seasonal antipasti into the wee hours when he studied and cooked abroad — is “not a typical fast-casual or quick-serve kind of joint,” he said.

Customers essentially get a two-course meal after placing an order at the counter: “One of them comes with starters and drinks, and your second course is pizza, and it arrives hot and fresh and it’s being made for you,” the East Village resident, 39, said.

We’ll guide you through the experience below: