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 

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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