Straddling the Wacky and Refined: An Alta Via Pizzeria Review
Let's talk about the newest restaurant from Pittsburgh restaurant royalty, Big Burrito.
Alta Via Pizzeria is the newest restaurant in the long lineage of Big Burrito restaurants. What started as a small, cramped, Mad Mex location in Oakland has grown into a cacophony of restaurants aimed at providing you comfort food with a twist. For me, Mad Mex has filled that hole where I want Mexican food, but also not exactly Mexican food. Heck, Big Burrito catered our wedding because we wanted to have a wedding with actual good food. Food people would compliment us about, not complain about behind our backs. And let’s be honest, when you go to a wedding you’re really grading it on the food and open bar options.
Big Burrito has perfected the art of comfort and style.
So what is Big Burrito doing dabbling in pizza? It’s almost insulting that they waited so long to command the most simple, and flexible, of foods. A ball of dough is the ideal canvas for what they can offer. Between Mad Mex and Alta Via Pizzeria they’ve opened Umi, Soba, Casbah, Eleven, Kaya and Alta Via, plus about a dozen Mad Mex locations.
They opened Alta Via in Fox Chapel in a building that housed Donato’s, a classically old Italian place that so wanted to be the place they filmed Good Fellas 2. This was their foray into Italian and oddly enough, it’s pretty by the book. Handmade pasta, branzino, a big ol’ steak covered in cheese. Just like my people ate in the old country five generations ago.
But of course pizza is missing from that menu. And is it really an Italian place if there’s no pizza? Can you be a DOC certified restaurant without pizza? I have no idea. I’m sure there’s a path forward, but the lack of pizza left a big gap in the cuisine.
Which brings us to Alta Via Pizzeria. Their spin off restaurant that focused on the pizza side of Italian fair that recently opened in Bakery Square.
The Tale of Two Pizzas
I guess this is a thing pizza restaurants do now. You have to ask yourself if you’re a square person or a circle person. All the cool kids are doing it. Driftwood Oven started to offer both when they opened their shop up on Butler St and offered square pies in addition to their circle pies. Then, Spirit started offering round pies to compliment their square pies. Even my pizza pen pals, and Pittsburgh pizza alumni, Michigan & Trumbull offer both Detroit style square pies and NY Style round pies in their shop.
As someone with severe analysis paralysis this is nothing but bad news for me. I am afraid to admit that Alta Via Pizzeria has round pies and also square pies in their inventory. And they are radically different experiences.
It’s Hip to Be Square
If you know one thing about me it’s that I love square pizza. And I love square pizza because it is much easier to do a square pie than a round pie. The dough is more forgiving, you put it in a tray, spread it out, and you’re in business. Not to mention the absurd amount of oil that that the dough sucks up over the process. It’s foolproof and consistently amazing.
Not to play down square pizza. It takes more foresight to get the dough ready. But it requires less manhandling. It takes care of itself, its very self-sufficient. So of course the Fundamental we ordered from Alta Via Pizzeria was stunning. It was the pinnacle of square pizza. The sauce was tangy and refreshing. The cheese was salty enough and the dough was both soft and crunchy. I do think it could’ve been crunchier on the outside, but maybe that’s a takeaway issue.
The square pizza has Detroit Style attributes. There’s cheese coating the perimeter of the pizza. I removed it upon reheat, but fresh it’s pretty good. I think the cheese on the side of a Sicilian is a crutch. I love the crust flavor and wish they didn’t try to hide it with some cheese. Still, it’s fine as presented. I hope in the future they are more confident in their dough that they don’t have to equip it with a cheese shield.
Round and Round
Hi I’m Dan Tallarico and I’m reluctantly addicted to Mad Mex. Growing up in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh Mad Mex on McKnight Road is a diamond in the rough. The one non-chain restaurant in five miles of a six lane highway. I spent years there as a youth, especially a college-age youth, leaching off their superb happy hour. It felt illegal to get great food at a great price. And even now, whenever one of my siblings comes back to town all they want to do is go to Mad Mex despite an incredible orchard of restaurants blossoming in the city since they’ve been gone.
So for their round pizza I couldn’t help but get their Mad Mex San Fran Wild. I thought this would be their take on the Buffalo Chicken, but it was slightly off. If anyone could pull off a fusion of pizza and something else it would be Big Burrito. But this pizza just tasted like mild hot sauce. The cheese was drowned out by the San Francisco sauce, the crust was a bit too crunchy and flavorless.
I’d be interested to sample a less crazy round pie, but this isn’t where I wanted it to be for a spot that tries to elevate the food it carries. Definitely some work to be done there.
Overall, Alta Via Pizzeria is an intriguing spot. It’s both refined and casual. The classic Big Burrito balancing act. Initially, their square offering is superior to their round pies, but there’s such a learning curve with the circle pie. I’m sure they’ll figure it out. Still, it’s worth visiting for their wild mashup of Mad Mex classic and I suppose we’ll be seeing a bizarre Thanksgiving pizza in November. Something to look forward to!
Pizza ya later,
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist
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