Woodbelly Pizza, Vermont

OK, this will be my last pizza review from my June vacation in Vermont. But I couldn't not report on Woodbelly Pizza.
Woodbelly is a mobile operation, and does a lot of catering. But they have a regular gig at the Stowe Farmer's Market on Sundays, which is where I ran across them the day after we arrived.
Fresh pies were coming out of the oven every few minutes, and I got a cheese slice.
The crust was thin, but not paper thin, and crisp, but not brittle. Underneath, it was dotted with charred spots, and it had a pleasantly toasty flavor and aroma. As you can see in the photo, the slice also passed the "fold test," meaning that I was able to fold it, and hold it by the edge, without the tip flopping down.
On top, the tomato sauce had a natural sweetness; not sugary sweet, but sweet from the tomatoes themselves. I would've preferred a little more cheese, but the crust was so good that it was no big deal. In any event, I preferred this to a slice laden with a thick blanket of melted cheese.
The slice was lightly sprinkled with shreds of basil, which added some subtle aroma and flavor.
As you might expect from a wood-fired pizza operation at a farmers market in Vermont, Woodbelly uses a lot of organic and local ingredients. Their dough is made from freshly milled organic wheat, which they get from Elmore Mountain Bread in Elmore, Vermont. The sauce is made from organic Muir Glen tomatoes.
Surprisingly, and I think partly due to supply issues, the cheeses on my slice included Sorrento shredded mozzarella and Parmesan from Buffalo(!) and Cabot cheddar. But they also make use of local goat cheese, cheddar curd, imported Italian Parmesan, as well as organic veggies and organic beef sausage.
Woodbelly's oven typically runs at about 900 degrees. Pizzas generally start on a metal screen before they are transferred to the hearth. Dave, the pizzaiolo, tells me that he would prefer to "cruise at 775-850 and go straight onto the hearth," but that's simply not practicable with the volume of pizza that he's usually cooking.
Well, if Woodbelly's pizza can get better, I'd love to try it. Because my slice was pretty damn good. I've said before that a wood-fired oven is no guarantee of good pizza. It's a tool, and like any tool, the user has to know how to use it, to achieve optimum results. Woodbelly is there.

Woodbelly Pizza

Capitol City Farmer's Market
Saturdays in Montpelier
9 AM til 1 PM May - October

Stowe Artisan Market
Sundays on the Mountain Rd
10 AM til 3 PM mid-May - October

phone: (802) 552 3476
snail mail: 34 Langone Rd, Cabot, VT 05647

Vermont Vacation, Part II: Piecasso, Stowe, VT

When I ran across this article in the August 2014 edition of PMQ Pizza Magazine, it gave me the impetus to finish this post on Piecasso, where I had dinner with my family on our June vacation to Stowe, Vermont.
Granted, this is going pretty far afield for a Rochester-based pizza blog, but this is also a blog about my pizza experiences, and this was a good one.
Stowe is a ski town, but it's also a year-round tourist town. So there weren't many, if any, inexpensive places to eat nearby. We stayed at a condo with a kitchen, and some nights we cooked our own dinner. Plus we had an abundance of fresh bread thanks to my baking class at King Arthur.
But our first night in town, we had dinner at Piecasso. I had been interested in going to a wood-fired pizzeria, Pie in the Sky, but I discovered that it has gone out of business, and the storefront was vacant. So that left Piecasso as the only game in town, pizzawise.
During my weeklong stay in Vermont, I saw a lot of ads for wood-fired pizzerias. Piecasso is not one of them, but it does bill itself as offering traditional, hand-tossed, New York style pizza, as well as the fact that Travel & Leisure magazine named it one of the top pizzerias in the country.
Piecasso is a full-service restaurant serving sandwiches and pasta, but pizza is its mainstay, and it offers a broad array of pizza choices.
Patrons can get pizza by the slice, or custom design a full pie, choosing from among three crusts (white, wheat and gluten-free), four sauces, and more toppings than I care to count. And unsurprisingly, if you've spent much time in Vermont, they trumpet their use of local ingredients. 
We shared a "Tree Hugger," which seems to be something of Piecasso's signature pie, topped with fresh spinach and basil, tomatoes, fresh garlic, red onions, and mozzarella.
Piecasso has the look and feel of a chain casual restaurant, which raised my suspicions about its pizza, but those suspicions were soon dispelled. This was very good pizza.
The crust was thin, not papery thin, but thick enough to have some interior chewiness. The underside was nicely browned, if not quite charred, but it was crisp and not oily.
While I love a good cheese pie, and the occasional meat lovers' pizza, sometimes a well-made veggie pie is exactly what I want.
And this was a well-made veggie pie. The spinach and basil were wilted enough to mellow them out and yield maximum flavor, and you'll never get a complaint from me about fresh garlic. A very tasty combination, and well done.
Piecasso offers quite a few other specialty pies, including eight meat-based pies. I wouldn't mind working my way through the list.
But alas, I didn't have the time. If my travels take me back that way, I'll more than likely stop again, and I recommend you do the same if you're ever in the area.

Piecasso Pizzeria & Lounge, 1899 Mountain Rd., Stowe, VT
802-253-4411

Sun. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Bar hours: 11 a.m. - 2 a.m.

Gigi's Italian Kitchen

I think it's safe to say at this point that wood-fired pizza is no longer a novelty. We haven't quite reached the point of a wood-fired place in every neighborhood, but we're not far off.
One of the latest is Gigi's Italian Kitchen in Irondequoit. This joins an already-busy scene near Hudson and Titus, which includes 2 Ton Tony's, Mark's, Bay Goodman, Cam's, and Little Caesar's, all within a few blocks of each other.
Gigi's is not perhaps a direct competitor of those, since it's a bar and restaurant rather than a straight pizzeria, but it still adds to a crowded pizza field in that neck of the woods.
Gigi's menu offers six specialty pizzas, and a substantial list of make-your-own options, with five sauces, fourteen veggies, and seven meat toppings, plus a fresh-mozzarella option.
As usual, I went with the Margherita (Gigi's gets a point for spelling it correctly). It's described as topped with "simple" red tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil, with is pretty much the description of a classic Margherita.
First impression? Nice-looking pizza, not too blackened along the edge (I've seen too many wood-fired places that think that blackening the edge is what it's all about), melted but not browned fresh mozzarella, and wilted leaves of basil. And the sauce wasn't totally evaporated, which was another plus.
Next, I checked the underside. It was well blackened, and firm but not quite crackly. I picked up a pleasant aroma of toasted bread.
Tbe toppings were very good. I intend to follow this up with a talk with Gigi's pizzaiolo, but as I write this, it's Friday at lunchtime, so it's probably not the best time to try that. But I'd like to know what the difference is between Gigi's "NY Style Red Sauce" and their "simple" red sauce. I'm guessing the former has some spices added, but it's not obvious from the menu. I'll try to speak to him or her later, but I want to get this post up today.
I liked the basil. I love basil, and to me, the best way to add it to a pizza, aside from including it in a sauce, is to add leaves just before or after the pizza comes out of the oven. These were perfectly done, wilted enough to adhere to the pie but not dried out.
The cheese was good as well, even if it didn't quite knock my socks off. It was nicely baked, softened but not browned, but not quite as semi-liquid and creamy as the best that I've had. But it was good.
When wood-fired pizza became the Next Big Thing, a lot of places seemed to think that wood-fired pizza guaranteed success. But I have to think that the market is getting close to the saturation point, and I'm sure that the initial and ongoing investments are pretty steep. So you'd better know what you're doing if you're doing wood-fired pizza.
And based on this one-time visit, I'd say that Gigi's knows what they're doing. This was well-made pizza. It was somewhat unusual, in that many wood-fired pizzas I've had are blackened around the edge and pale underneath. This was nicely browned along the edge, and very dark underneath.
Ideally, I'd like it a little more balanced than that, but this clearly came from a good, hot oven, and the blackening wasn't severe enough to amount to a burnt crust. I certainly preferred this to a pale crust that's been given the quick, last-minute blackening treatment.
You can see more of Gigi's menu on their Facebook page, but on a revisit, I think I would try the pizza again. I can't say it was perfect. It was almost too blackened underneath, and the crust wasn't quite crisp and it wasn't quite supple. But overall I liked it. I'll give this pizza a B, and I'll make a mental note to go back before too long. Definitely worth checking out.

Gigi's Italian Kitchen & Catering
2256 Hudson Ave (near Titus Ave)
Rochester, NY 14617

Hours:
Tues thru Sat: 11AM - 2AM
Sun:11AM - 10PM
Mon: Closed except for private parties