Ya burnt!

An incendiary new post on Eater pleading with pizzaiolos to “stop burning” pricey pies has char-loving New York pizza geeks wondering what the website is smoking.

“There’s a big difference between char and burnt,” said Jason Kaplan, CEO of New York-based hospitality consulting firm JK Consulting. “For pizza cooked in a live fire, you expect to have more blistering, because of those higher cooking temperatures. The bits of blistering are the flavor.” 

In the poorly-received post, veteran restaurant critic Robert Sietsema pondered how upscale pizza joints justify sending out pies cooked to oblivion, suggesting that the more you pay nowadays, the more likely you are to be served something with “charred spots the size of a quarter along the circumference of the crust and, quite often, big, ugly, burned bubbles like unsightly blisters.”

These so-called flaws, a result of the sky-high cooking temperatures in the neighborhood of 900 degrees required to cook the Neapolitan-style pies currently fashionable at high-end New York pizza spots, are exactly what makes them so delicious, experts insist.

“Everyone’s definition of burnt is a little different,” said Gregorio Fierro, a pizza industry consultant and master instructor for the Italy-based pizza school, Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli. “Nobody wants to taste something that’s completely burnt, but done the correct way it shouldn’t be like that.”

Anyone, Fierro says, can learn how to tell the difference between a perfectly-cooked pie and a burnt mess — the key is to spot what’s known as leoparding, or spots of char on the crust; that’s not a flaw, it means that the pie has been been baked in a wood fired oven that’s at perfect hydration and temperature.

“What I try to look for is 30% char. More than 30% black, it’s a burnt pizza,” he told The Post. 

Sietsema may not have named names, but one of New York’s most critically-acclaimed Neapolitan-style pizzerias, Una Pizza Napoletana on the Lower East Side, is famous for a high-quality crust dappled in char. Owner Anthony Mangieri, a Jersey native, appears to have serious fans in the old country, too — the restaurant tied for No. 1 with Italian pizzeria Masanielli, in Caserta, on a new worldwide 50 Top Pizza list, curated by journalist Luciano Pignataro and culinary experts Barbara Guerra and Albert Saper.

Meanwhile, citizen food journalists are having their say on Eater’s Facebook page.

“The bottom crust should be charred and crispy. Too many pizzerias undercook the dough,” Tan Le commented.

Ryan Spoth said a “moderate char” brings out and accentuates other flavors on pies, while Michele Doyle noted: “If you want an undercooked crust just buy a frozen pizza and let the rest of us have the properly charred crust. The rest of us don’t want raw dough.”

Another reader simply questioned: “Who don’t like char?”