Fancy-Pants Pizza

YOU'D THINK IF a pizza joint got the crust right, the rest would fall into place. That's not the case-at least not so far-with Franny's, a new brick-oven restaurant on Flatbush Ave. Near the 7th Ave. stop, technically in Prospect Heights, the place tilts, culturally, too far in the direction of the hippie-snooty capital of White Brooklyn: the Park Slope Food Co-Op. This is someone's flighty Upper East Side aunt's idea of what Brooklyn pizza should be.

Yet there's absolutely no arguing with this crust. At Franny's, you start from the pillowy thick edge because the pies are not sliced (more on that later). It's bubbled up just a tad higher than an electric-oven pizza crust would be. The irregular domes flake and steam when torn. The first taste sensation is a floury crispiness, then comes chewy-and the planet of pedestrian pizza recedes to a tiny point in the galactic distance. Fresh-bread flavor ripples satisfaction down to the DNA.

Now let me jump to the nadir of my Franny's experience: the homemade vanilla so-called gelato they saw fit to serve for dessert. It had a glassy ice-milk consistency, barely creamier than a shake from Wendy's-and gelato should be beyond creamy and into gooey. Vanilla taste manifested as a muffled whimper, like a mob victim in the trunk of the getaway car. When it comes to dessert, crime does not pay. This one cost me $5. Franny's needs some pints of Ciao Bella on hand for the next time the gelato-maker fails.

New-restaurant jitters, sure, but even a quick gander at the pizza menu reveals something amiss. Olive oil, rosemary and garlic-great. Tomato and mozzarella-wonderful. Meatballs and/or pepperoni-we're almost golden. Just need sausage. But there is no sausage, just house-smoked pancetta with ramps and fontina. Read that again, and note (as per the back of the menu) that the pancetta is made from Niman Ranch pork, and the ramps "?come from the meadows and woodlands of the Finger Lakes Organics Farm Cooperative."

Let's allow that Franny's pancetta is "better" than the sweet Italian sausage served in disgusting quantities at the San Gennaro festival on Mulberry St. every September. Though I'd be remiss in failing to report that it's fattier. The animals at Iowa's famous Niman Ranch are raised in accordance with the rules of sustainable pig farming, which adds a measure of satisfaction for those who don't want to wallow in the stinky sty of bad politics.

The issue, though, is pizza satisfaction, not self-satisfaction. Ramps don't get me there. Fontina on pizza I can take or leave. And the pancetta foreshadowed my gelato experience. It's not "better" at all if it doesn't feel better going down.

Franny's needs to acknowledge that New Yorkers' special love for pizza manifests at the intersection of simple and familiar. Major concessions to convention are necessary. Especially in Brooklyn.

When neither the pork pie nor the mushroom pie has tomato sauce (the latter has triple-cream mascarpone, though), the crust that arguably surpasses that of mighty Grimaldi's is cooling its heels in the minors. The crusts can't even go head-to-head, really, because one competitor stubbornly refuses to take the shape of Pizza When It Is Eaten. Unsliced Franny's can only be consumed in reverse-it's as awkward as eating an ice cream cone from the bottom. For Christ's sake, Franny's, your pies are four slices big. Slice the goddamn pizzas.

The restaurant needs a modest infusion of Bensonhurst, not a massive one. In fact, our favorite Franny's pizza was a fancy-pants one. Spicy artichokes, tomato (hello?!) and pecorino, folded into that heavenly crust (of course you can only fold when you're almost done with your unwieldy, unsliced pie), struck a powerful chord. The 'chokes had gone crispy in the big oven, their flavor notched up toward explosive by some chili oil. The pecorino was smoothly tart. Franny's cheeses are where the owners' reliance on small, organic producers makes the biggest difference.

There are also pastas. Ricotta gnocchi with stinging nettles was preternaturally rich. Its sauce could be noted in the annals of American creaminess. The taste of nettles, not to mention that of potato, was somewhat lost, but one could just as well say they were perfectly subtle. The gnocchi is one of two pastas currently offered on Franny's season-sensitive menu; the other is bucatini with butter and more house-smoked Niman Ranch pork.

Franny's current menu has some interesting appetizers, such as shaved sunchokes. These are chips of sunflower root, the size of half-dollars only half as thick, drizzled in lemon and olive oil and served with almonds and excellent parmesan. The sunchokes, starchy and mild, have a pleasant crunch. Anything with that cheese would have been at least okay.

The same parmesan is sprinkled on asparagus with anchovy and egg. This dish was a little less interesting. Now that there are inexpensive New York restaurants doing with vegetable plates what's done in Italy, I've come to expect it: elemental flavor, amplified until it leaps off the plate. For example, at Supper, the asparagus makes everybody who tries it wonder aloud where it was acquired and what exactly was done to it. Franny's asparagus I could've made myself.

There's no Neapolitan grace in Franny's crostini, either. Agricultural buffs should excel at putting something super-fresh on toast. Fava and pecorino, blended into a green paste, came off like a lot of trouble for nothing. Baccala was lighter than your average cod mush, for what that's worth. The crostini with chunks of artichokes and bitteto olives was best. It must be artichoke season.

Pizzas and pastas at Franny's range from $9 to $14, appetizers $5 to $10. The restaurant has a liquor license and makes cocktails with fresh local herbs. The wine list is short and in very good taste. I was happy to see one of my favorite Italian whites, Falaghina San Gregorio ($31), and my at-the-moment absolute favorite red, Querciabella Palafreno ($64).

There are zero-zero-bottles under $25. If I can channel Bensonhurst again for a moment: This, to me, is how a pizza place says "Fuck You."