On New York’s Upper West Side, pizza goes way beyond dinner. One slice and the world lifts a little. Therapy by the slice. Thin crusts, jazz drifting onto Amsterdam Avenue, and conversations juggling book deals, childcare and debates about whether gluten-free is character-building or criminal.
Casual but cultured. Everyday life with a hint of theatre. Cafés doubling as living rooms for professors, actors and pram-pushing parents gathered over blistered dough and olive oil.
My NY husband swears you can spot a real New Yorker by how they fold a slice. It’s all in the wrist, apparently.
He grew up with places like these. Movie nights ending at café counters. Birthdays beginning by accident. Neighbours treating pepperoni choices like policy decisions.
For me, they’re a tour of his city with someone who knows every shortcut from Central Park to the best seat by the brick oven.
Parla is an all-day café and pizzeria on the Upper West Side, built for chatter, not another “best slice” contest. And in a city with about 9,000 pizzerias, almost 17 percent of all restaurants, it takes more than good dough to stand out.
Pentagram looked to 1960s and 70s Italy for the identity. It was an era when Olivetti could make a typewriter look like sculpture and graphic design was getting bolder and brighter. Parla picks up that influence through strong typography and geometric forms that run across the menus and packaging.
Decades later, it still looks fresh. Bold enough to be memorable without making a neighbourhood pizzeria feel too designed.
Sometimes design does half the cooking.
Decades later, it still looks fresh. Bold enough to be memorable without making a neighbourhood pizzeria feel too designed.
Sometimes design does half the cooking.
