The Pint-Sized Palate — A Kid’s Take on New York Food

No Kidding!

By Churchill Stone

Kid Pizza • 157 W. 18th Street

One Friday evening my parents told me we were going to a restaurant with our friends. I was super excited because we were going to a place called Kid Pizza which opened a year ago.

When we arrived, they were playing Michael Jackson, and it looked like a very big super fun place. They have Do It Yourself (DIY) Shirley Temples which is basically a glass of 7Up, ice, a cherry, a lemon wedge, and a tiny pitcher of grenadine on the side — so you can have as much (or as little) as you want. That was good.

So, we ordered lots of different pizzas (but they have fried chicken too). Then I made the mistake of ordering the “Kid Caesar” salad, thinking it would be something more kid-friendly. But it’s just a normal grownup Caesar salad. Which brings me to something else: Kid Pizza is not like the Chuck E. Cheese in Chelsea. Not at all. It’s a normal restaurant that happens to be called Kid Pizza. But the confusing thing is that there were about 10 kids in the restaurant, apart from our table. But that’s probably only because it was 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night and the place serves pizza! Also, for a place called Kid Pizza, they sure took a long time to serve impatient HANGRY kids (which are all kids) pizza.

Finally, the cheese pizza came super-hot, melty, soft and stretchy. The pepperoni pizza was also good. My sister, Charlemagne, got the “Tomato Pie” (marinara pizza) since she does not like cheese on pizza at all (super strange). And she does not like any toppings on her marinara pizza either. So, Charlemagne hoped this would be perfect for her and it really was — in fact, everyone liked it. When the Tomato Pie arrived and she took a bite, Charlemagne said, “This is the pizza of my dreams!” I also tried the potato nduja (spicy sausage) pizza and it was MEH, too adult for me, but my parents liked it. They also have a pizza with lemons and cheese, but we didn’t get that one.

Kid Pizza says they serve “New York Pizza,” but I thought it was more a cross between New York and Napoletana pizza, which is a good thing.

Even though Kid Pizza is not a place specifically for kids, they try to be nice to kids. We sat in a big booth which I always like. Charlemagne and her friend played under the table. Then we walked over to the kitchen where you could see the chefs working hard. They kneaded the dough, pulled it in every direction, spun it around, and threw it in the air. Then they spread it out in a perfect circle before putting on toppings and throwing it in the oven. They were all nice guys and seemed like they were having fun. My baby brother was running around the whole time and no one got mad at us. And in the back corner of the restaurant there was a large Game Boy for playing old video games. And next to it on the wall was a very large photograph . . . of kids.

Last but not least, I have to tell you about dessert. We ordered almost everything on the dessert menu, which was four things for seven people. The dessert at the top of the menu was by far the best, it’s called a “Malt Frosty” — it’s vanilla soft serve on top of caramel, but at the top are these crunchy potato sticks (like tiny skinny French fries). I know that sounds kind of gross, but we all loved it and it was a good sharing size; in fact, everything was. My sister loved her tiramisu, but she could barely eat half. Then we finished with a chocolate ice cream sundae with lots of whipped cream.

So, Kid Pizza may end up as a kid pizza place after all.