Sesame Seeds, Pizza by the River, and Strip's Newest Pizza Place
An eclectic round up of pizza news and highlights for this week.
Hi Pizza Fans!
Spring has sprung which means the horrid winters are behind us and those dark days don’t seem so dark. Well, there’s still a handful of horrifying things happening in the world, but like the mighty ostrich who isn’t too proud to hide their head in the sand, let us quell our worries by eating slices of pizza. Like I tell my daughter, it’s okay to be scared, but you have to be brave too.
Let us bravely march into a progressive pizza future where no one argues about whether or not pineapple is an adequate pizza topping or quibbles about the best pizza in the city.
Delightful Slice of the Week - Rockaway’s Grandma Pie
Rockaway is the future of Pittsburgh pizza and to me nothing is more indicative of that than their Grandma Pie. The pizza is a pan pizza, not quite as thick as a Sicilian. It’s squat, chewy, crispy and, here’s the secret, the bottom is lined with sesame seeds. How odd! But it works. It works wonderfully. The sesames seeds add an exotic flavor that blends happily with the tomato sauce and and mozzarella. The three of them are long lost friends, reunited jubilantly with every bite.
These pieces of the Grandma Pie are dangerously crushable. They feel hefty, but the more you eat the lighter you feel. Their denseness is a mere optical illusion as they are airier than they appear. Nebulous clouds trapped inside a shell of perfectly prepared pizza dough. A masterful pizza creation I’ll be craving for the rest of my days.
The base of the pizza is mozzarella cheese with stripes of sauce cutting across the pie. You don’t always get sauce in a bite, but when you do it ignites the flavor in your mouth. You’ll be strategizing how to get equal proportion of cheese, sauce and sesame seeds in each bite.
You actually don’t have to worry about the sesame seeds because the bottom is coated in them like scales on a lizard. This mighty sesame seed armor explodes with every bite, and the tangy flavor is something you’ll be craving after the last slice is gone. Josh says he was inspired to coat the bottom of the pizza with sesame seeds after seeing Best Pizza add sesame seeds to the crust.
As I write this I am reheating some slices in my oven. The smell of sesame seeds burning are triggering memories of making batches of bagels in my tiny kitchen for the Lawrenceville Farmer’s Market at 5am.
Driftwood Oven Floats Over to Roundabout Beer Garden
One of our favorite adventures is to pack up and take the trip to the Roundabout Beer Garden along the Ohio River. It feels remote, you can barely see the city, and you get to watch the occasional boat float by. More importantly, Driftwood Oven has been hauling their mobile pizza oven there.
It’s a haven for families, kids running amok and playing with the gravel. But as the night goes on it gets super chill. An outstanding place to grab a rare Driftwood Oven pie and some great beer. Keep an eye on their social media for upcoming schedules.
The PA Market Has a Wood Fired Oven
I’ll be honest, I lost all interest in the PA Market after Kevin Konn’s pizza place, Romulus Pizza al Taglio, closed up shop and East End Brewing left the building. It seemed any inertia the building possessed to build a cool community driven venue / market came to a halt.
But they’re adding new spots. White Oak Pizza anchors the second floor where they serve NY Style Pizza. And the newest entry into the Pizza Market is a generically named Wood Fired Oven which serves naan based pizza. Photo of their pizza below. I’ll withhold judgment until I have a slice, but nice to see that wood fired oven going to use.
From what I remember it was supposed to be used by Kevin Konn and his partner as “Dante’s Pizzeria.” A complement to their Romulus endeavor. Square pizzas on the second floor, Neapolitan pizza on the ground floor. We almost had it all didn’t we?
Well what a week for pizza! I hope you’re safely venturing out and eating pizza to your hearts content. If you liked this newsletter please consider sharing it, it would mean the world to me.
Thanks and pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist
"Like I tell my daughter, it’s okay to be scared, but you have to be brave too." Great dad alert and great newsletter!