Koko Lists
Start a new list
Log in
Sign up
← New random battle
Koko Battle
Tap your pick.
La Margherita
La Margherita opened in Medford in 1991, and the family that runs it has built its entire identity around a specific technical claim: it was Long Island's first wood-burning brick oven pizzeria, introducing a cooking method to the region that's since become far more common but that had no established local template when La Margherita first fired up its oven more than three decades ago. That original wood-burning oven has stayed in continuous use since 1991 rather than being replaced by a more convenient modern alternative. Being first with a technique this labor-intensive carries real operational weight — a wood-burning brick oven requires constant attention to fuel, temperature, and airflow in a way gas and electric ovens simply don't, and running one as a restaurant's primary cooking method for over three decades without switching to something easier is itself a sustained commitment few competitors have matched. The 12-inch pizzas that come out of it are built simply and traditionally: fresh, house-made mozzarella, fresh tomato sauce, basil, and olive oil, letting the oven's high, wood-fed heat do most of the actual work rather than relying on elaborate toppings to carry the dish. La Margherita has stayed a family-owned restaurant across what the family itself describes as three generations, a span that covers the entire history of the wood-burning oven's operation — the same oven that opened the restaurant in 1991 has effectively been passed down and maintained across that multi-generational ownership, rather than being installed once and left to a rotating cast of hired kitchen staff. That consistency has been recognized outside the family, too — Newsday has ranked La Margherita among its Top 10 Brick Oven Pizza spots on Long Island, a distinction earned in a category the restaurant itself effectively helped establish locally more than three decades earlier. Being both the historical first mover in wood-fired pizza on the Island and a restaurant still competitive enough to make current best-of rankings is a harder combination to sustain than either distinction alone. Keeping the pizzas to a straightforward, four-ingredient build — fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, basil, and olive oil, at a modest 12-inch size — is itself a technical choice that puts the burden squarely on the oven and the dough rather than on elaborate toppings, which is exactly the kind of unforgiving format that would expose any inconsistency in a wood-burning setup run for over three decades without a break. For a Long Island pizza list, La Margherita is the essential "the original wood-fired oven" entry — a three-generation, family-run Medford pizzeria that introduced wood-burning brick-oven pizza to Long Island in 1991 and has kept that same original oven running ever since.
VS
Blue Moon
Blue Moon traces its family recipe back more than 50 years in its current Rockville Centre storefront, and the family itself further back still — to a first pizzeria Cosimo Montemurro opened generations earlier, a lineage the family now describes as reaching back roughly 80 years in total. Today the restaurant is run by Cosimo's grandson, Raymond Montemurro, who opened the current Blue Moon location specifically to continue his grandfather's tradition in a stylish, comfortable neighborhood setting rather than simply inheriting an existing building unchanged. The pizza itself comes out of a genuine coal-burning oven, sending out well-blistered pies loaded with classic toppings — sausage, meatballs, and the rest of a traditional Italian-American pizzeria's repertoire — cooked at the high, intense heat coal ovens are specifically valued for. That coal-fired method places Blue Moon among a small group of Long Island pizzerias still committed to the more labor-intensive, higher-maintenance coal-burning approach rather than the gas or electric ovens most competitors have long since switched to for convenience. Raymond Montemurro has described the restaurant's food as steeped in tradition "with a slight modern twist" — a framing that acknowledges Blue Moon isn't simply freezing his grandfather's original recipes in place, but updating them carefully enough to stay relevant to contemporary diners without abandoning the coal-oven technique and family recipes that define the restaurant's identity. That balance between inherited technique and gradual modernization is part of what's let Blue Moon stay a genuine multi-generational business rather than either stagnating or losing its identity to a full modern rebrand. Rockville Centre's Park Avenue corridor has real pizza competition of its own — several other well-regarded pizzerias operate within walking distance — which has kept Blue Moon's standards under constant local pressure to perform, even with five decades of history behind it. That the Montemurro family has held its position in that competitive stretch across three generations, through a coal-oven method that takes real skill and maintenance to run well, speaks to a level of consistency that newer entrants into the neighborhood have had to measure themselves against. The roughly 80-year total family lineage, running from Cosimo Montemurro's original pizzeria down through his grandson Raymond, means Blue Moon's current owner grew up around the coal-oven technique rather than learning it as an adopted trade — a meaningfully different foundation than a chef-owner who trained elsewhere and later decided to open a pizzeria of his own. For a Long Island pizza list, Blue Moon is the essential "three generations, one coal oven" entry — a Rockville Centre pizzeria tracing back roughly 80 years through the Montemurro family, still baking classic, well-blistered pies in a genuine coal-burning oven under the grandson of the family's founding pizzaiolo.
Next battle
Full comparison
About La Margherita
About Blue Moon
Popular Battles
1984 vs. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 votes
Friends vs. Curb Your Enthusiasm
1 votes
Ideogram vs. Sora
1 votes
Navy Pier vs. Bishop Museum
1 votes
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree vs. Skittles
1 votes
George Carlin vs. Oprah Winfrey
1 votes
