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 

Pat's Twice Baked

During my sabbatical from this blog, I tried to keep up on local pizza places that were opening and closing, for future reference.

A place that popped up on my radar recently is Pat's Twice Baked, which opened last year on Mount Hope Avenue. It's in the former location of OTR Woodfire Tavern, which sadly I never tried before its demise.

But I did get to Pat's recently for lunch with a friend. We agreed to share one pizza.

The brisket pizza (BBQ sauce, smoked brisket, onions & jalapenos) sounded interesting, as did the pickle pie (white sauce, dill pickles, chipotle ranch drizzle), but on a first visit I like to keep it simple, so we went with the pepperoni pizza.

The crust was quite thin, chewy but just firm enough to allow it to be picked up, folded and eaten out of hand. The cornicione was considerably thicker, with a bit of crunch and a chewy texture. 

If I'm nitpicking, the outer rim was noticeably more blackened on one side than the other. The underside was pretty uniform, so presumably one side of the pizza was nearer the flame for a little longer than the other. With a wood-fired oven, getting even charring along the edge requires turning and comes down to a matter of seconds. From what I say the pizzaiolo was attentive to his pies, and it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the pizza. At the least, it provided an interesting comparison.

 And yes, there was a wood fire in there. The pizzaiolo occasionally put a cover over the opening (as you can see in the photo), to keep the heat from escaping. But I did see a wood fire in the back, and an ample supply of fuel underneath.

All the toppings were very good, with stretchy, nicely melted, stretchy mozzarella atop a layer of red sauce. The sauce was applied a bit on the light side, but that was appropriate given the thinness of the crust. The cup and char pepperoni was crisp along the edges but not overdone, and quite tasty. Between the cheese and the pepperoni, there was a bit of oil as well, but not so much as to require sopping up. All in all, a very enjoyable pie.

Pat's offers a number of other items, as you can see from the menu, but pizza is the star of the show. On my next visit, though, I may just have to try their Twice Baked potato chips. 

And I expect there to be a next time. As I mentioned, several of the pizzas sounded good, and now that I've gotten a basic pepperoni pie literally under my belt, I'd like to explore some of the other choices.

Pat's Twice Baked Bar & Grill

1551 Mt Hope Ave 
Rochester, NY 14620

(585)-340-6419 

patstwicebaked@gmail.com 

Mon 3:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Wed 3:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Thur, Fri, Sat 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM
Sun 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM 

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Pizza NOTA

Pizzerias open and pizzerias close, but I was more than a little intrigued when I saw recently that Pizza NOTA had opened in the Neighborhood of the Arts in Rochester. They bill themselves as offering something along the lines of New Haven (Ct.) style pizza, which as far as I know is a first for this area.

So why is that a big deal? In a nutshell, New Haven style pizza is sort of like New York style pizza, but not exactly. And devotees of each will tell you why one is better than the other. There's an abundance of stuff about it online, but for a primer, go here or here. I've been to New Haven and tried a few of places, and I've read quite a bit about it, so I had an idea of the style going in. 

NOTA seems a bit unsure of where they stand; their website describes their pies as "Inspired by New Haven’s iconic char," but "finished with a touch of New York influence." Not quite sure what that means, but my interest was piqued by seeing that NOTA has a coal-fired oven. I don't want to get into a long digression here, but coal-fired ovens are typical of New Haven's long-established pizzerias, and some of NYC's older pizzerias as well.  Coal was the fuel of choice way back when primarily because it was more readily available, and there are some differences between coal- and wood-fired ovens in terms of temperature, maintaining the fire, oven humidity, and so on. Read more here. 

My wife and I shared one pizza, along with a salad.  So the question was, which pizza to order? Several sounded interesting, but since this was our first time here, I figured we'd go with a classic New Haven pizza, the tomato pie. NOTA's version is described as topped with Bianco DiNapoli tomato, garlic, pecorino, Parmesan, Sicilian oregano, and EVOO (no mozzarella). 

Upon its arrival at our table, our pie was blackened along the edge and blistered underneath. There was almost no cornicione to speak of; the edge was just barely thicker than the rest of the crust, and the sauce was also applied nearly all the way to the rim.

One of the most striking aspects of the pizza was how thin the crust was. It was literally translucent. 

So there wasn't much interior. It was a nicely charred bottom and the toppings, but with almost nothing in between.

At this point I will pause to address "authenticity" and style points, as in, is this how New Haven style pizza is "supposed" to be?

I'll digress long enough to say that (1) I've had New Haven pizza, but I'm no expert; (2) there are differences among New Haven pizzerias, so there are no hard and fast rules, just general characteristics; and (3) I don't put too much emphasis on that sort of stuff anyway. If I were judging this in a competition in the category of New Haven style pizza, sure. 

But as much as I enjoy trying different pizza styles, as a blog writer I try to focus more on simply describing the pizza, allowing for some subjective impressions, with less emphasis on measuring it against some Platonic ideal. Perhaps I hold a more Aristotelian view of pizza. It's hard to say because neither Plato nor Aristotle were familiar with pizza, although they probably did enjoy the occasional flatbread.

Wait, where was I? 

Oh yes. In my estimation this fell within the parameters of the New Haven style, based on my own experience and what I've read and seen about New Haven pizza: thin, charred, and chewy.

But to re-digress for a moment to the subject of style, if I were a stickler for that sort of thing I could ding NOTA in a few nitpicky respects.

For starters, I was a bit surprised to see that they offer no clam pizza, which is perhaps the most iconic New Haven variety. I'm not even saying I like clam pizza, just that I was surprised.

Second:  too round. Yes, too round. For reasons that have never been explained to my satisfaction, purported authorities on the subject have asserted that New Haven pizza is not supposed to be circular, but sort of oblong or "roundish." If you don't believe me, ask AI, which is never wrong about these sorts of things.

That was actually a valuable piece of information, though, as I've discovered that shapewise at least, I've been making New Haven style pizza all these years; despite my best efforts I have yet to get a pie to come out perfectly round. I'll have to remember that next time I serve homemade pizza to guests. ("Uh, yeaah?!  It's New Haven style! It's supposed to look that way!")

Third: it's all described as "pizza." As the pizza intelligentsia (fancy word for snobs) know, in New Haven, it's not "pizza," it's "apizza," which for still more inexplicable reasons is pronounced "ah-beetz." Maybe that's where the New York attitude comes in? ("Ah-beetz? What da **** is ah-beetz? Whaddaya, from Noo Haven or sumpin?")

Next digression. When I went to New Haven a few years ago I had a serious dilemma about how to pronounce the word when I got there. Say "pizza" and you sound like a tourist (which I was, but that doesn't mean I want to sound like one). Say "ah-beetz" and you seem like you're trying too hard to sound like a local. My solution was to avoid saying the word at all ("I'd like a clam pie"). Not once did "pizza" or anything close to it come out of my mouth. 

I also got a look at Pizza NOTA's oven. I saw flames, but I couldn't directly see the source of them. It didn't directly resemble a coal-fired oven like those I'd seen at some of New Haven's oldest pizzerias, where there's a pile of burning coal in the back of the oven chamber. The flames were coming up from some hidden source at the back of but beneath the oven deck.

I wanted to ask questions, but they were getting busy, so I didn't, but I was left with some questions. Like, is the oven "gas-assisted"? How is the coal used? Coal or charcoal? If coal, what kind? And not least, what kind of legal and regulatory hoops do you have to jump through to use coal as a heat source these days? I'm guessing one cannot have an old-style coal oven anymore, and that you're looking at quite an expense to meet current standards.

Questions for another day. Which there will be. This was very good pizza, and I can't say I've had another in our area that quite compares to it. One of the most heartening things over the years since I started this blog is how the range of choices in our area has expanded. Pizza NOTA offers something genuinely different, and it was no one-and-done kind of place for me. I plan to go back to try some other varieties, and to learn more about their pizza.

Pizza NOTA

192 Anderson Ave.

Rochester, NY 14607

Thu. 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Fri.   12:00 pm – 08:00 pm

Sat.   12:00 pm – 08:00 pm
    
Sun.   3:00 pm – 08:00 pm

Closed Mon. - Wed.