The pizza and pasta shop, located in the Market Street Center at Eldorado Parkway and Ridge Road, is decorated with nostalgic pictures from Vranici’s father’s original pizzerias in New York and New Jersey.
“The recipes at Brother’s come from doing this since I was 8 and from my experience helping my dad,” Vranici said. “Everything was passed down from my parents to myself and my brother.”
Brother’s opened in McKinney in 2004.
“New York-style [pizza] is mostly about the quality,” Vranici said. “I guess that’s the No. 1 thing. If the corporate chains don’t have the quality flour, pizza sauce and mozzarella, the experience is a huge difference. It becomes MSG-filled, unhealthy pizza.”
Another key to New York-style pizza is the type of oven, Vranici said.
“You see a lot of the corporate chains with a conveyer-style oven in the back,” he said. “We use a stone oven. It gives [the pizza] the New York taste. We make our dough fresh daily, and it’s great because it comes from unbleached flour. It’s a simple recipe with no preservatives or MSG.”
Vranici said he and his pizza chef are always trying to come up with new ways to give his customers a taste of NYC. The pizza at Brother’s is different than other restaurants’ because it is square instead of round, the sauce is on top of the cheese and it uses marinara instead of pizza sauce, he said. New choices are added regularly.
“The new menus are being printed and will have a lot of new dishes featured,” Vranici said. “For pasta, our staple dishes are lasagna and chicken parmesan and they are fantastic, but our specialty is a spicy chicken dish.”
In addition to the food, Vranici said he wants his customers to enjoy eating at Brother’s.
“The atmosphere here is great,” Vranici said. “It’s an open kitchen so you can talk to the pizza man, and the owner might actually sit with you and drink some of your wine.”
6150 Eldorado Parkway, Ste. 180, McKinney
972-548-4900
www.brotherspizzapasta.com
Hours: Tue.-Sun. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. (dine-in), 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. (delivery), closed Mon.
