Third Time's a Charm to open in Red Hook

Bad Cholesterol Pizza gets a brick and mortar bar and restaurant (and you can invest!)

Friends,

A couple of years ago, I discovered a new pizza maestro slinging pies outside of Talea in Cobble Hill. It was a warm night in November 2021, and he had two little pizza ovens set up behind him and a menu with two pies: one plain and one spicy. Naturally I tried one. It was about 10 inches, cut into four nice triangles, all hot and bubbly, the charred crust beautifully puffed up around the edges like it had just seen a fancy dermatologist on the Upper East Side for a series of injectables.

The pizza was delicious. The sauce was a showstopper, pulpy rich dark tomato sauce spiced up with Calabrian chilis from the inside out, so there’s lip licking heat in every bite; puddles of creamy melted mozzarella to tame the heat, a few slices of sopressata, and that crust! Light and airy, but also powerful and determined, like Barbie after visiting the real world. I loved it. I was not intending to eat the entire pie but let’s be honest. I did. I’d have eaten a second if it were in front of me. It was that good.

After my beer and pie, I had a chance to chat with the baker and pizza maker. His name was (still is) Chris Milazzo and, like me, I learned he was (still is) a recovering lawyer. He had jumped ship at his fancy law firm job and got into baking pastry, and like many others, started his own mother for bread. Instead of loaves though, he turned to sourdough pizza, self taught, just with the aid of YouTube. “I did a lot of screwing up,” he told me as we chatted.

Chris began his culinary career by selling croissants in local parks and at unsanctioned farmer’s markets. He soon started popping up at New York’s best breweries, serving serious sourdough pizzas.

With a history of bad cholesterol, and all the croissants and pastry he was baking, he named his shop Bad Cholesterol Bakery, and come September, I’m excited to share, he’s set to open his first full-service car and restaurant called Third Time’s a Charm in Red Hook with partners Sean Klim and Chef Sam Savage (Bad Cholesterol, Locanda Verde, Culinary Institute of America - Hyde Park).

Sean, Chris and Sam will open Third Time's a Charm in Red Hook in September

Third Time’s a Charm, located at 275 Van Brunt (home to OurHaus, formerly Grindhaus, run by local legend Erin Norris), is a nod to Chris’ career changes and Bad Cholesterol’s cheeky sense of hospitality. At Charm Chris will serve sourdough pizzas and riffs on the let’s-go-out-to-dinner menus of his childhood (think: fried onions a la Bloomin’ Onion). The bar will feature accessible beers and wines – pitchers and carafes available! – and classic cocktails.

The cool thing is, if this concept sounds good to you, you can invest! Bad Cholesterol has launched a campaign with Numarket to help fund the opening. Contributors receive 120% in credits to use at Charm – and might even get an invitation to Charm’s friends and family night and their name etched on the bar.

To celebrate the campaign, Bad Cholesterol will pop-up at Korean rice wine brewery Hana Makgeolli in Greenpoint on July 19 and 20. They’ll be serving one-off pies and cocktail pairings. Reservations are available on Resy. Hope to see you there!