The reputation that New York City pizza has developed over the decades is cherished and one-of-a-kind. Pizza joints dot the five boroughs, and I visit at least one new one each time I’m in the city, gladly taking a seat on a vinyl-padded stool and pondering the memorabilia or movie-star candids on the walls.
Keith Naegel, the 37-year-old owner of High Society Pizza, says New York pizza is all about the water. He’s not alone. Culturally, many locals attribute the crisp-yet-chewy consistency of their pizza dough to the city’s water supply stemming upstate from the Catskills.
Having baked pizza throughout his life, including the six years that High Society Pizza was rolling as a food truck, Naegel says he’s stumbled upon the solution: a water-treatment system that re-creates the soft tap water of New York City. He recently installed the New York WaterMaker — an industrial box of tubes and tanks the size of a swamp cooler — above the kitchen of his brick-and-mortar location in Highlands Ranch.
He’s putting the system to the test Wednesday, offering free slices from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the pizzeria, 2229 Wildcat Reserve Parkway in Highlands Ranch, in a retail plaza east of Chatfield State Park.
High Society Pizza took over the space formerly used by Abo’s Pizza in March. The restaurant has a vibe Naegel described best as “modern rustic”: “rustic” in its light-wood paneling, “modern” in its blackest-ever-black walls and its name, stenciled in a bold, Grand Theft Auto stylized font.
Ten original pizzas are listed on the menu — including the popular “Stinger” with pepperoni, ricotta and hot honey and a “Hot Hawaiian” with thick slices of ham and jalapeño — between $11.95 and $15.95 for a 10-inch pan and $21.95 and $29.95 for a 16-inch pan. Naegel likes a simple cheese pizza. (You can also build your own.)
The tomato sauce, cheese and dough are all prepared in-house without prepackaged ingredients, he said. After about 8 minutes inside one of his Baker’s Pride pizza ovens, the pizza emerges as a thin bottom crust that rises slightly around the edges, a golden layer of gooey cheese spread over the surface. Naegel holds a slice up at eye level and curves it with his fingers, saying he wants a crust that can bend without a lot of cracking.
A Deadhead (the band played over the kitchen speakers) who’s worked on his craft at five different pizza shops, Naegel has always been confident in his pies. “The only missing element was the water,” he said.
Compared to New York’s, Denver-area water is comparatively hard, according to the Centennial Water and Sanitation District, which specified that most of the water in Highlands Ranch comes from the South Platte River. Minerals like calcium and magnesium can make for thicker dough, but it’s soft water that gives New York pizza dough its beloved breadstick crumble. (Josh Pollack, who runs Rosenberg’s Bagels in Denver, would agree when it comes to what makes his bagels special; he spent two years creating a water filtration system that could mimic New York water.)
Naegel looked into shipping New York tap water by the barrel to High Society Pizza, but it was too expensive and space-consuming. Committed to standing out from the pack, he scoured the internet for water filtration systems.
By chance, he stumbled upon a video by Dave Portnoy, the founder of the Barstools Sports media company and a self-obsessed pizza lover, who spotlights pizzerias across the country in his “One Bite Pizza Reviews” series. The owner of Portnoy’s favorite college pizzeria, The Stubborn Brother in Toledo, Ohio, claimed it was the New York WaterMaker that made all the difference.
A New Jersey-based company launched around the same time as Naegel’s food truck, New York WaterMaker has a patented design for a water-treatment utility box that adjusts tap water conditions to specified taste.
To Naegel, the product “takes all the guesswork” out of his dough recipe. He says the dough now feels different in his hands when he kneads. “When it rises, it’s a no-brainer,” he said.
He started leasing the system for $400 a month and hooked it up to the building’s main water lines. The “soft” water runs through the soda machine. It took me more than one cup of it to notice any difference, though at the end of the third cup I did get an essence of sweetness missing in Denver’s tap water.
Whether it’s the water that makes the slice is up to the beholder. (Another highly plausible theory is that New Yorkers just make better pizza since they’ve been at it for longer.)
After years of driving his food truck around Colorado, Naegel said he is happy to be in Highlands Ranch, a short commute from his home. “It’s just a much better life,” he says.
His food truck is still around, only now just for catering events and weddings.
