NEW YORK MAGAZINE. December 2007

New Yorkers intent on keeping the local dining scene real can count on our town’s proudly proletarian brick-oven pizzerias. Dee’s, on Forest Hills’ southern Main St., draws pie partisans—couples, families, students, daters—from central Queens and beyond. The focal point of this handsome, high-ceilinged restaurant, both in menu and design, is the brick pizza oven, set near the entrance. Diners can watch chefs pound out salt-dusted semolina dough that gains extra flavor from the pine-burning oven’s smoke. This exemplary pizza crust is set off by plum tomato sauce (from Italy) and dewy mozzarella (from Brooklyn) Additional toppings are both suggested (the vegetarian Four Seasons, the seafood-dotted New England, the olive-and-feta Aphrodite) and customizable: A poetic “chiffonade of sweet basil,” a thick blanket of thin-shredded fresh leaves, is one of dozens of add-ons. Dee’s trattoria options extend to starters, salads, pastas, and entrées; these plates are distinct supporting players, best suited to the ravenous, who favor the shrimp appetizers, and to whiners at the table who just don’t feeeeeel like pizza. — Karen Tina Harrison

Dee’s owner is a New York fella by the name of Deeran Arabian. He grew up in an Armenian-American restaurant-owning family, and his roots are discernible here and there on Dee’s menu since build-your-own-pizza ingredients include Armenian sujuk, a spicy sausage, and basterma cured beef.

Sauteed shrimp, $9.50; pizza, prices vary by toppings; tiramisu, $6.25