Businessman, social media personality and founder and owner of sports and pop culture company Barstool Sports, David Portnoy, has been chronicling his recent tour of Long Island pizzerias by posting reviews of the pies he has sampled on his YouTube channel, which currently has 1.27 million subscribers.
Along the way Portnoy, 47, has come off as somewhat unimpressed by the pizza offered on our fair isle, but the latest parlor that he put to the test on his “One Bite Pizza Review” series - Gino’s Pizza of Williston Park - may have softened his stance a bit.
Portnoy, who owns a part-time home in Montauk, can be seen in the video emerging from Gino's holding a fresh pie; he mentions that he owns a home that he resides in part-time in Montauk, and maintains that he loves Long Island, but hates the pizza.
"I like Long Island. I have a house in Long Island. Montauk IS Long Island. I've trashed Long Island Pizza," he said. I say Long Island always overrates their pizza on the pizza app. They don't have great pizza on Long Island. For whatever reason, the memo to make pizza crispy has never translated to Long Island. We'll see what we got. This is an eight on the app, so maybe this one will live up to it."
His first impression upon looking at the pizza wasn't positive, unfortunately.
"Cheesy, little greasy, and it's they just haven't got the memo," he observed. “To be honest, it’s exactly what I expect a Long Island pizza to look like. Thick, heavy, cheesy...they just haven’t got the memo.”
But upon lifting the slice and examining the bottom, he noted that the crust seemed like a possible improvement over what he has come to expect.
"Good undercarriage," he said. "It is heavy...it’s good, it’s just heavy. This is a wintry football pizza. It's actually pretty good, the crust is light."
He went on to rate Gino's a 7.4 out of 10 on his rating scale.
Click to watch the video and if you come away impressed, perhaps you should go down and try Gino's out for yourself.