Editorial review•Jan 13, 2026
Pizza Studio Tamaki on St. Marks Place is one of those arrivals that shifts the conversation rather than simply joining it. Chef Tsubasa Tamaki's Tokyo original has been a fixture on international pizza lists for years, and this East Village outpost — the first permanent U.S. location, opened May 5 in the former Moody Tongue Pizza space — brings with it a genuinely singular concept: a Neapolitan framework built around a proprietary flour blend of American, Canadian, and Japanese wheat, milled in Japan, that Tamaki spent eighteen years developing. The dough ferments for thirty hours before the pies are finished in an oven coated in Okinawan salt and fired with Japanese cedar shavings. A No. 10 ranking in the pizza category at the 2025 Best Chef Awards is the credential, but the technique is the argument. This is a place for people who think about pizza seriously — and for East Village regulars who want something with genuine intellectual stakes a few steps off the avenue.
The menu centers on a focused selection of named pies that each have a distinct logic. The Tamaki, the namesake, pairs cherry tomatoes with fresh smoked mozzarella and Pecorino Romano — the doubled-down smoke and char are the defining character of this pie, and it's where the kitchen's signature technique is most directly expressed. The Bismarck, built around fresh mozzarella, homemade pork sausage, mushrooms, a farm egg, and a heavy hand with black pepper, is the kind of pizza that earns loyalty from regulars who find the combination of richness and heat precisely calibrated. The 5 Formaggi — smoked mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Taleggio, Grana Padano, mascarpone — is the cheese-forward option for those who want the crust as a vehicle for layered dairy complexity rather than brightness.
The 65-seat room was designed with the pizza-making process at its center, which means the bar is not an afterthought — it's reportedly a genuinely social spot where the counter view of the kitchen gives solo diners something to engage with. For a date, the room skews energetic rather than hushed, which suits St. Marks but means you should calibrate expectations accordingly: this is a place that hums, not one that creates a private pocket. The practical move is to book ahead and name your preference for bar seating if you're coming solo or as a pair — the counter reportedly makes the experience. Order the Tamaki and the Bismarck; the namesake pie is where the chef's eighteen-year flour project announces itself most clearly.
Sophie Laurent, Food Editor