Grappa

 In late April, I had lunch with a friend at Grappa, which opened in 2015 at the Hilton Garden Inn in College Town. Although I have previously reviewed Grappa, that was in 2015, so a revisit was long overdue. 

In my 2015 post, I wrote that Grappa offered six pizzas on the menu; this time there were five. Alas, I did not list all six varieties, so I'm not sure to what extent the menu has changed since then. One change I am sure of is that pepperoni pizza is no longer on the menu. That's too bad, as I rather liked the one I tried back then.

But they do still have Margherita pizza, and as I did in 2015, I ordered one this time around as well. There were some similarities to the 2015 version, but also some significant differences. 

Then as now, the crust was quite thin. Both were browned underneath. The 2026 pie had pronounced screen marks underneath, however, which were absent in 2015. I'm a little leery of screen marks, because I generally prefer the entire underside of the crust to come into direct contact with the hot oven deck, but itself I don't consider that a sine qua non of good pizza.

 Interestingly enough, the crust on this pizza was noticeably crisper than on the 2015 pie. I described that crust as "straddl[ing] the line between crisp and pliable," whereas this crust was crisp to the point of brittleness. Make of that what you will.

Moving on to the toppings, just as in 2015, this Margherita was somewhat unusual in employing both tomato sauce and fresh sliced tomatoes.  And based on what I wrote back then, I'd say the tomatoes were more prominent on this pizza. The sauce was more heavily applied, and judging from the 2015 photo, the tomato slices were thicker, as well as more visually appealing, with a vibrant red hue; the 2015 tomatoes were paler and yellow-white in the center.

The sauce on both pies was smooth, and I honestly couldn't say if or to what extent they tasted the same. In 2015, I wrote that the sauce was "not heavily seasoned," and had a slightly sweet flavor.  That roughly describes the 2025 version, but my friend and I agreed that it tasted like canned sauce. I don't mean that it tasted metallic, and I certainly don't have an issue with using canned sauce. Plenty--I daresay most--pizzerias use canned sauce; I use it myself. But there was a certain flatness to this sauce that I tend to associate with canned sauce. It was OK; it just didn't wow me.

That brings us to the cheese. I was pleased to see the pie dotted with slices of fresh mozzarella, rather than the blanket of processed mozzarella that Grappa used in 2015.

Again, nothing wrong with processed mozzarella, or with a uniform layer of cheese. But if you're calling it a Margherita, I think you should try to stick to the stylistic parameters, and one of those, to my mind, is the use of fresh mozzarella. A Margherita pizza is not simply a sauce and cheese pizza with basil added. So kudos on that score. The cheese was also nicely done, with just a touch of browning, and a smooth, not rubbery texture.

Before I wrap this up, I'll mention that we also shared a plate of garlic Parmesan fries, which were very good. On my list of foods I love, french fries are not far below pizza, and these were crisp, potatoey, and hard to resist.

So as with myself, there have been some changes over the years at Grappa, some for the better. I've stopped handing out grades, for a combination of reasons, but I will say that I would take this pizza over the one I got in 2015 (which I gave a B). The crust was crisper and I liked the use of fresh mozzarella. So while I might prefer the 2015 version of myself, I'll take the 2026 version of Grappa's Margherita pizza.

Grappa 

30 Celebration Drive
Rochester, NY 14620

585.445.5770

Lunch
Monday - Friday 
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM 

Happy Hour
Monday - Saturday 
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Dinner
Monday - Sunday: 
5:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Sagra Italia

My wife and I recently had dinner at Sagra Italia on St. Paul St., which opened in late 2025 in the former site of Fifth Frame Brewing in downtown Rochester. Sagra had been on my radar screen for a while, after I learned that they offer pizza made with house-made focaccia. 

 Sagra Italia doesn't accept reservations, but although it was Saturday, I hoped that if we got there relatively early we wouldn't have much trouble getting a table. Fortunately, I was correct. They were moderately busy at around 5:30, but we were seated within a few minutes after our arrival. 

 Sagra is a fast-casual operation, with the food counter and kitchen on the right, and bar at the left. After making our choices, my wife put in our food order while I fetched us a couple drinks at the bar.

Any time there's Margherita pizza on the menu, I'm probably going with that, and so I did here. Rather than order an entire pizza, we got a single square-cut slice, which allowed us to try a second variety, the La Bianca (white pizza). We also shared a bowl of Shellfish Scoglio, which the menu describes as comprising Italian bronze-cut spaghetti, mussels, shrimp, grape tomatoes, marinara, white wine, garlic, chili flakes, fresh parsley, and Parmigiano/Romano (both? either? don't know).

Not long after putting in our order, our food was delivered to the table. The Margherita was topped with marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil pesto. The crust was an inch or so thick (it's focaccia, remember), and though my predilections run toward thin crust, I very much liked it. It was airy and crunchy, which indicated good gluten development. The flavor was quite good as well, and I was happily surprised by the use of basil pesto rather than fresh basil. I don't think that would've worked quite as well on a thin crust, but on a focaccia pizza, the pesto added basil flavor plus a bit of olive oil that helped balance the thick crust, in a way that fresh basil alone wouldn't have done.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like the La Bianca, but I was again pleasantly surprised, particularly by the lemon ricotta. Frankly, I've never been a huge fan of ricotta on pizza. Maybe it's just me, but it's always seemed like a substitute for fresh mozzarella. And lemon on pizza? Giddouttaheah!

But this was good. It would be easy to overdo lemon, but this was subtle enough that with the other toppings, it worked very well. Whoever is coming up with these ideas clearly knows what they're doing.

Oh yeah -- our shellfish was good too, as were the wine, beer, and service. I was also happy to see them busy, and I encourage you to check them out.

Sagra Italia

155 St. Paul Street

Wed. - Sun. 11 am - 10 pm, closed Mon. and Tue. 

Wildflour

 

After resuming this blog, I realized that there were places that I'd been to during my extended hiatus that I had been to in the interim, but needed to get back to, to do a blog post. One such is Wildflour, which opened in 2023. 

As a sourdough bread baker, I was intrigued by Wildflour's use of naturally leavened dough. That's not necessarily the exact same thing as sourdough (it might be, but let's not get into that here), but it's definitely not the same as dough made with added yeast, which is what you will get at most pizzerias. Nor is one necessarily better than the other. But they are different. How? Let's see.

From among the six varieties of pizza on offer that day, my wife and I shared a seasonal Sicilian slice, topped with roasted garlic sauce, Calabrian chilies, mustard greens and mozzarella, and a thin slice with amatriciana sauce (think red sauce with a little heat; go here for more info), guanciale (cured pork jowl, which I believe was an ingredient in the sauce rather than a separate topping -- I did not attempt to dissect the slice), shallots, and fresh mozzarella.

Let me start with the thin-crust slice. I don't agree with the menu's description of it as on a "NY style crust." It was thin, sure, but this wasn't what you would expect to get at a typical NYC slice joint.

I'm not saying it wasn't good; far from it. But Wildflour's dough is different from classic NY style pizza dough, primarily because of the flour. Wildflour uses whole grains in its dough, whereas classic New York style pizza is typically made with high-gluten white flour. Again, that in itself doesn't make one better than the other, but there are noticeable differences in terms of texture and flavor.

OK, so aside from style points and nomenclature, how was it?

It was very flavorful, and not surprisingly a lot of that flavor came from the crust. Think of a freshly-baked, warm, crusty loaf of whole-grain sourdough and you'll get the idea. The underside was charred in spots, but unlike  a typical NY-style slice, it was more firm than crackly crisp. The interior was chewy, but the crust was so thin that there wasn't a lot of interior to speak of. It did pass the "fold test," though, meaning that I could pick it up and fold it in one hand without the slice flopping down.

The toppings were also tasty, if not assertively so. The cheese blend had a nice edge, thanks to some shaved hard cheese (Parmesan?) on top, with a few dollops of fresh mozzarella here and there. The sauce, which was applied with an appropriately light touch, was well cooked and provided a tomatoey-sweet accent with just a bit of spicy heat in the background.

Now on to the Sicilian slice. It was maybe an inch thick, with a crisp, well-browned underside. That relative thickness allowed for a more interesting interior, with air hole pockets that showed good gluten development.

I didn't pick up much heat from the Calabrian chilies, but I've developed a high tolerance for peppery heat. My wife is a lightweight, pepper-wise, and she was fine with it, so I feel confident in saying it wasn't spicy.

The greens, on the other hand, were quite tasty. They were well cooked, a little browned, but not overdone, and added a subtle touch of bitterness. "Bitter" doesn't often strike people as a desirable adjective for food, but these worked well with the melted mozzarella and breadlike crust. 

Final thoughts:

The dough/crust takes center stage at Wildflour. That's not a knock on the toppings so much as a nod to the crust.

As much as I like thin-crust pizza, at Wildflour I preferred the Sicilian slice. Its thicker crust allowed me to more fully appreciate the flavor and texture of the dough.

One of the things I love about pizza is that it's subject to so many variations. As a home bread baker, my go-to is a baguette or boule (round loaf) using bread flour. But now and then I do a loaf with whole grains, for a change of pace. That's how I look at Wildflour. It's very well made, and I would encourage you to check it out.

Wildflour Pizza 

620 Winton Rd N, Rochester, NY 14609

Phone: (585) 340-6034

Menu: https://wildflourrochester.com/lunch-3

 Wed. - Sun. 11:30 - 8:00