There have been some beautiful things written about Lee’s Tavern, which is impressive considering how seldom clams and garlic have been called “beautiful.”
But they are beautiful and the words are true nonetheless. Consider Connor Kilpatrick’s New York Magazine description: “Host to hundreds of firemen/police retirement parties, softball-team postgame blowouts, and local civic groups, Lee’s Tavern is something of a community hub with the Palemine family acting as live-in landlords (they reside upstairs) since 1969,” and also Brooks of Sheffield’s track suit riff that ends with him declaring, “If I could call Lee's my local pizzeria, I'd be kinda proud too.”
Need further elaboration? Try this pizza haiku: Staten Island ‘za, Flat and unsauced at its edge. Crunch, beer, laughs, one more. Obviously, you're having a clam pie. But remember that these are super-thin pies. You're going to want more than one. Your second course? The pepperoni (pictured), which surfaces thinly-sliced, crisp, pepperoni craters cradling shallow and delicious pools of salty oil, the kind you'd never pat with a napkin.
— Arthur Bovino, 101 Best Pizzas in America 2015, 8/6/2015