Of the dozen wood-fired pies on offer at Chef Whitney Aycock’s Rockaway Beach pizza parlor, the one that best reflects the terroir is the Salciccia e Vongole (sausage and clams). “These are sand to sand, not sand to mud,” Aycock shouts over the pulsing world music and barroom bravado as he waxes rhapsodic about the Littleneck clams, which are seeded in Rockaway and finished out East. “There’s a big difference genetically. These clams are amazing, dude,” he says before whipping around to split wood in front of the pizza oven that is the heart and soul of his raucous restaurant. Joining the clams are house-made sausage seasoned with spezzaforte, pepperoncini and shaved garlic. Aycock refers to spezzaforte, the aromatic blend of clove, star, anise, juniper, and allspice, as “Tuscan grandmother spices.” The combination of fiordilatte mozzarella and Parmigiano Reggiano with the other toppings makes for the best clam pie outside of Zuppardi’s.

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