Peels on Wheels Pizza Garage

During my lengthy hiatus in writing this blog, there are places I visited but didn't review, on the blog at least (I occasionally posted reviews elsewhere). One such is Peels on Wheels Pizza Garage on Culver Road. Peels on Wheels started as a food truck in 2019, and opened a brick-and-mortar location in 2021. 

In 2025, the owners of Peels on Wheels put it up for sale. That never resulted in a deal, and they have decided to remain open. 

When Peels on Wheels started, they were shooting for a cross between traditional Neapolitan and New York style pizza. They have now modified and expanded their offerings, as I discovered on my recent visit. Pizza options currently comprise NY style, Sicilian, Grandma, and Detroit. All are baked using flours and oven temperatures appropriate to the particular style. (Read more about that here.)

On my visit, all of those were available by the slice, as seen in the photo, but I had previously ordered a large NY style pepperoni pie, which was plenty enough for me.

While waiting for my pizza, I looked around a bit, and was impressed that the slice stack had a list for each pie stating what time it came out the oven and what time it should be discarded. I also could see that the five employees were all hard at work, at various stages of preparing various pizzas.

I got my pizza to go, and it took me about 30 minutes to get it home.

Overall impressions:  very thin overall, especially in the center, with a rather thick cornicione. I would've liked a little thicker interior throughout. To me, a classic NY pizza is not super-thin, but should have enough thickness to give it some chewiness and visible air holes, and the cornicione should be just thick enough to hold in the toppings and make for a nice finishing touch. But stylistic concerns aside, the crust was good, with some crackling and charring underneath. The cornicione, thick as it was, was crisp but chewy, and I could appreciate the results of their use of naturally leavened dough, with its more complex flavors and good gluten development.

So much for the crust. Let's move on to the toppings.

The individual toppings were good, although for my taste the pie could've used a little more sauce. I don't want my pizza slathered with a heavy layer of sauce, but this pie struck me as a bit dry, with just a few dollops on top of the cheese. And when the sauce is on top, it's going to evaporate more in the oven. Great pizza, of whatever style, is about balance, and this seemed a little out of balance in that regard.

Having said that, the cheese was very good, with a combination of processed and fresh mozzarella, and a little Parmesan. The trio made for a nice blend of flavors and textures.

I wouldn't say the cup 'n' char pepperoni was sparsely applied, but this pizza was certainly not blanketed by pepperoni. That was fine by me, as I like the occasional bite of pepperoni rather than pepperoni in every bite. If you're a pepperoni lover, I would ask for extra when ordering.

Lastly, the few shreds of fresh basil were a nice touch, and added some visual appeal and subtle addition to the overall flavor. 

I enjoyed this pizza, even if it had some minor shortcomings in my opinion. The pluses certainly outweighed the minuses. And I would like to try their other styles, for sure. They are clearly dedicated to their craft, and Peels on Wheels will remain on my to-do list for a future visit.

Peels on Wheels Pizza Garage

1157 Culver Rd., Rochester NY 14609

 https://peelsonwheelspizza.com/

 Wed.-Sat. 11am - 8 pm

 

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 

Fiorella

Just over ten years ago, I posted a review of Fiorella, an Italian restaurant and pizzeria in Rochester's Public Market. I had some issues with the crust, which was unevenly baked underneath, but I otherwise enjoyed it. Since Fiorella had only recently opened I considered it "a work in progress," and worth checking out.

I guess ten years is enough time to allow for a revisit. So my wife and I recently went there for dinner.

We ordered a Margherita (plum tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil) and one of that night's specials, a white pizza with mortadella, basil, oregano, roasted onion, fresh and smoked mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil, hot chili flakes, finished with grated Parmigiano cheese *whew* - there would've been still more had we not asked them to leave out the honey drizzle -- not a fan of honey on pizza.

Alas, while the flavor was good, the crust again disappointed. The problem this time wasn't so much an unevenly baked crust, but too ... what?

I want to say too soft, but that doesn't quite capture it. I've used "flabby" before, and that comes closer. But ultimately it just wasn't interesting. 

 As I've said before, I do not think that pizza necessarily needs an exceptionally crisp, crackly crust to be good. I've had terrific pizza that needed to be eaten with a knife and fork. But even a soft underside benefits from a contrast with a crusty cornicione. To me, it's that mix of flavors and textures that elevates pizza to greatness. This was just soft and chewy all the way around.

 Having said all that, I should add that I still enjoyed the pizza. The white pizza was flavorful, although I didn't detect the chili flakes.

The Margherita was pretty good, a bit heavy on the sauce perhaps, but the fresh mozzarella was softened just right. The fresh basil made a cameo appearance but I would've liked it to be a little more prominent. 

Fiorella's menu states that they make wood-fired pizza, with dough "made with 100% organic NY stone-ground wheat, water and sea salt only and naturally leavened for better health." All of which is great, but I was frankly hoping for more from this pizza. 

There were plenty of patrons at Fiorella eating pizza, seemingly happily, so maybe it's just me, but I was disappointed with our pies. That of course is a subjective judgment but my wife serves as a check on my idiosyncrasies and she pretty much agreed with me, so I don't think I'm too far off base. 

Baking pizza, like baking bread, involves a complex mixture of ingredients, time, handling and temperature. I've tried to describe objectively where this pizza fell short for me subjectively. To summarize, it was good. But I was hoping for better.

Fiorella

5 Public Market

Wed. - Sat. 11:30 AM – 2:00 PM 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM

 Sun. - Tue. Closed

Back to Nino's

Lately I've been mostly focusing on going to places I haven't previously posted about. Mostly new places, and places some distance from Rochester.
But now and then you need to get back to basics, to the tried and true. So it was a few nights ago, when I went to Nino's on Culver Road. I've written about Nino's before, several times, but it had been years, which is far too long.
You can find some background information about Nino's in this post, so I won't go over that ground again. But owner Giacomo has been making his trademark focaccia and pizza in Rochester for close to four decades.
Nino's does not deliver, but that's a good thing, to me, because I enjoy going there. 
Why? Well, there's the place itself. If anybody ever wants to shoot a movie involving a scene in a pizzeria set in the 1970s or '80s, this would be a good choice. Not much has changed here since 1977, including the pizza.
That's not to say that Nino's hasn't kept up with the times. Giacomo showed me something on his smart phone, which was a generation or two ahead of mine. And I liked seeing an old model of one of Christopher Columbus's ships, of a style I remember from my teenage years (I'm referring to the model, not the ship) right next to the computer.
But I particularly love going into a place where the cooler still bears the logo of Like Cola. Obviously Nino's abides by the principle, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And Nino's pizza doesn't need any fixing, any more than the cooler.
I got a medium pie, which was plenty for my daughter and me (my wife was not partaking on this occasion). Nino's standard pizza is thick, and that's what I went with, the standard. I've gotten thin-crust pizza from Nino's before, and liked it just fine, but a thicker, focaccia-style crust is what they know and do best, so I went with that.
I did not phone in my order, but instead ordered upon my arrival. I did that in part to give myself some time to chat with Giacomo, who remains as affable as ever. Having spoken to him at length before, we briefly touched on pizza-related matters, but soon moved on to current affairs and American history. I realized that Giacomo's knowledge extends well beyond pizza, and that he probably knows considerably more about our country than most native-born Americans, but after about 15 minutes I had to cut our conversation short, as the pizza was ready to go. I stuck it in my insulated pizza bag and rushed it home.
The crust was about an inch thick along the edge, a half to three quarters toward the center. It was well risen and breadlike.
The underside was browned, with some bubble spots. It was firm on the surface, and though not crisp, it had some surface bite, and was not oily. The interior was chewy and bready, and as befitting Nino's self-description as a "focacceria," it would've been well worth eating, unadorned. All pizza is, at some level, bread with toppings (leaving aside such deliberate oddities as cauliflower-crust pizza, ramen-crust pizza, etc.), and Nino's pizza exemplifies that.
Not that I mean to sell the toppings short. This pie was coated with a light layer of red sauce, which had slightly soaked into the crust, and smoothly melted mozzarella cheese. I'm more of a crust guy than a cheese guy, but the cheese is a real standout here. I'm never quite sure what's meant by that vague advertising term, "quality cheese," but if it means anything, this is quality cheese.
I don't usually go for meat-heavy pizza, but my daughter does, so I deferred to her preferences, and got sausage and meatballs. They were crisp on the outside, meaty on the inside, with a mild flavor, and despite my generally non-carnivorous leanings, a good complement to the other components.
As always, a very good pizza from Nino's. Having said that, I will add, in all candor, that this style may not be to everyone's liking. If your ideal pizza is thin and cracker-crisp, well, this isn't that. But I can only describe what I had, and give you my opinion.
And in my opinion, Nino's remains a local treasure. Nino's was making artisanal pizza before anybody around here had ever heard of the term. It deserves a spot on any local pizza lover's must-do list.

Nino's Pizzeria, 1330 Culver Rd., Rochester 14609
(585) 482-2264

Sun. - Thu. 4 p.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 4 p.m. - midnight

Rohrbach, Railroad Street

Rohrbach Brewing Company is best known as the granddaddy of Rochester's craft brewers, dating back to its original location in the German House, but their food is not to be overlooked. Their brewpub on Buffalo Road offers a full menu highlighted by beer-friendly German specialties, and it's also one of the few places in the Rochester area where you can get a decent beef on weck.
This past spring, Rohrbach opened its new Railroad Street Beer Hall at its primary production facility near the Rochester Public Market. The food menu at the Beer Hall is different from (and for now, at least, considerably shorter than) the brewpub's menu, but it does offer one thing you won't find at the brewpub:  wood-fired pizza.
I recently joined a friend there for dinner, and we each got a pizza. Our choices were:  the Rohrbach Classic, with red sauce, a three-cheese blend, and pepperoni; Sausage & Pepper (red sauce, sausage, pepper, red onion, and shredded mozzarella); Caprese (basil pesto sauce, fresh mozzarella, and sliced tomato); Jalapeno Bacon (garlic-Parmesan sauce, sliced jalapeno, bacon, and shredded mozzarella); and that evening's special, which had an Asian-sounding theme involving Sriracha and oranges. It sounded like it might be good, but I was looking for something a little more traditional, so I ordered the Sausage & Pepper, while my companion got the Classic.
Our dinner-plate-size pizzas had a very thin crust.  Mine was a little puffier around the edge. The undersides were browned in spots, but not charred, and the surface was uniformly smooth, with little sign of any bubbling in the dough.
The dough didn't seem to have risen much, and the crust, while not bad, was not terribly interesting either. It was on the chewy side, not particularly crisp, nor breadlike. It also lacked the toasty, smoky notes that I look for in a wood-fired crust. Just a guess, but I suspect that the oven wasn't quite as hot as it could've been. The pies were considerably browner along the edge than underneath, which further suggests that the oven deck wasn't terribly hot.
On the plus side, my Sausage and Pepper pie had good flavor overall, with a slightly sweet red sauce accented by small chunks of mild Italian sausage and peperoncini slices. The mozzarella cheese was browned but still appropriately gooey.
I tried a slice of my companion's pie, and it was indeed a classic pepperoni pizza, with a uniform blanket of cheese and crisp, spicy cup & char pepperoni slices. I liked my pizza well enough, but I actually preferred the Classic, which was a basic but tasty "bar" pie.
The food menu at the Beer Hall comprises four pizzas, three salads, warm pretzels, and wood-fired cookies (which sounds intriguing), as well as nightly specials. Aside from their extensive lineup of craft beer, Rohrbach also offers house-brewed root beer and orange cream soda, and Pepsi products. The space is attractive, with high ceilings, brick walls, and long communal tables; think German bierstube, but with an industrial-chic look.
Getting back to the pizza, I found a lot to like about these, but I wasn't crazy about the crust. It served well enough as a base for the toppings, which were quite good, and in general I enjoyed the pizza. With a little work on that crust, these could be truly outstanding pizzas. These, I'll give a B, on the strength of their overall flavor.

Rohrbach Railroad Street Beer Hall

97 Railroad St, Rochester

(585) 546-8020

Wed. & Thu. 4 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Fri. 2 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Sat. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Closed Sun. - Tue.

Brewery tours on Saturdays hourly from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Goodman Hots & Pizzeria

Way back when, there was a place called Al's Green Pizzeria, on North Goodman Street in Rochester. It was connected, literally, physically, to Al's Green Tavern next door.
I used to think it was Al Green's Tavern, but no, it was Al's Green Tavern. I'd love to uncover the history behind it, but as far as I know, it was so called because the building was painted green. And apparently it went back a long way, as evidenced by some photos I've found.
I stopped into Al's Green Tavern many years ago, maybe around 2000, give or take a few. I remember it being about as divey as a dive bar can get. Not a modern, pretend dive, with hipsters drinking cheap cans of PBR. I mean a true dive, the kind of place where old drunks go to drink themselves into oblivion and to rot out what remains of their livers, and where it looks like midnight even at noon.
At the time, which must have been long after the bar's heyday, there was also a vague sense of menace. It felt like one of those saloons you see in Western movies, the kind of place where John Wayne or Clint Eastwood couldn't finish one drink before trouble erupted, which usually ended up with somebody lying on the floor with a bullet in him.
Now maybe some of my memory of that visit has become a bit colored over time. But apparently I wasn't totally off base in feeling that way. Let me explain.
Eventually, one of the owners of Al's was charged with crimes, and ended up pleading guilty. According to this story, the bar itself was the site of some related illegal activity. In short, it wasn't a place you wanted to be.
And it wasn't a place I wanted to go back to. That said, it was sad to imagine the bar's descent from what I imagine it used to be, in the days when one of its biggest attractions was "Those Original Baked Virginia Ham Sandwiches."
At any rate, this all occurred well before I started this blog. I don't recall if I got any pizza -- I may have -- but if I did, I didn't keep a record of it. My general impression, as I recall it, was of an old-time, once-thriving neighborhood Italian restaurant, pizzeria and bar, that was dying a slow death amid a changing neighborhood, like an island submerging under a rising sea.
Probably due to those criminal charges, the bar closed. I believe that Al's Green Pizzeria hung on for a while. I think it may have moved or morphed once or twice, but now it's gone, for good.
But every now and then, I've checked on the former site of Al's, because I know that where there once was a pizzeria, a new one will often open up. Some places just seem meant to house a pizzeria.
A few months ago, I discovered that the former site of Al's Green Pizzeria is now home to Goodman Hots & Pizzeria.
I stopped in for a slice a few weeks ago, but none were available. On a more recent visit, they had cheese and pepperoni slices available. I got a pepperoni slice. It was, well, about what I expected, which was not much. It was like basic convenience store pizza, the kind of pizza you see in those warmers on the counter.
Thin crust, a little browned underneath, slightly oily to the touch. The cornicione was well formed but dry. Nothing particularly wrong with the crust, but nothing very good about it either.
The cheese was not skimpy, but it was well browned, and consequently a little dried out. The pepperoni was OK, but unremarkable, and a little skimpy.
The sauce was evenly applied, and again, OK but ordinary. It was a slightly sweet tomato sauce, and did balance out the other components.
And that's about it. Not the worst pizza I've had, by any means, but nothing special. And a far cry, I imagine, from what one might've gotten at Al's Green Pizzeria back in the day.
Or maybe that's just misplaced nostalgia. Who knows? Maybe Al's pizza never was that good to begin with. Inflation aside, if it was worth keeping a five-cent token for a drink, maybe the pizza was little more than a cheap stomach filler. And maybe, in that sense, Goodman Hots has reached full circle.
I debated whether to give this pizza a grade. I know this is a depressed neighborhood, where few people are going to spend much on food, so I wasn't expecting world-class pizza. And the pizza was no worse than a lot of what you'll find nearby, or in similar neighborhoods. And I don't want to hurt the guy's business.
But I also doubt that a lot of potential patrons of Goodman Hots are reading, or care about this blog, so I don't think a bad grade is going to hurt this business one bit. My honest evaluation is that this pizza, considered against Rochester-area pizza in general, rates a D.

Goodman Hots & Pizzeria, 1160 N. Goodman St., Rochester

Merchants Wood Fired Pizza & Bistro - Report and Giveaway

My daughter and I had a very enjoyable dinner a few nights ago at Merchants Wood Fired Pizza & Bistro, which opened this past November on Merchants Road in Rochester. I first spotted it last fall, before it opened, and I held off going until they'd been open for a little while, to allow them to get on their feet. Based on my visit, co-owners Stephen Costanza and Donna DiMarzo have achieved that, and then some.
First impressions. There's a comfortable-looking bar to one side, where a few patrons were gathered. The rest of the space is taken up by the dining area, which has a relaxed, casual feel. It was busy but not packed when we stopped in, with a mix of families and couples.
We soon got our menus, which included some interesting items, but I was there for the pizza. And while ordinarily, on a first visit, I would order a pizza off the regular menu, the daily special pizza sounded too good to pass up. It was a white pizza topped with arugula, red onion, fresh tomatoes, prosciutto, mozzarella and sharp Provolone.
The crust was charred - a little unevenly - along the perimeter, and spottily charred underneath. It was thin and crisp, but not brittle; despite its thinness, the pizza retained some interior chewiness. The charring of the underside also showed a good use of the wood-fired oven. What I mean is, the pizza had clearly been baked on a very hot oven deck, unlike some pizzas I've had that were pale underneath and just given a quick, direct exposure to the flames of the oven to blacken the edge.
So a good crust, to start. But it was elevated by the toppings.
This was a very tasty pizza. With a thin, fast-cooking pizza, you have to take care not to pile on too may toppings, but this pie hit the mark. The melted mozzarella and sharp Provolone played off each other quite well, and the salty prosciuto, sweet tomatoes, savory onion and slightly bitter arugula added further complexity, yet they complemented rather than competed with each other. It took a degree of self-control on my part to save two slices to take home, but they didn't survive the next 24 hours.
My daughter had pan-seared salmon with shiitake and king oyster mushrooms, which she loved. As a dedicated sushi lover, she was amazed, to paraphrase her words, that "cooked salmon could taste as good as raw." And we shared a plate of mussels in a tomato-based pan sauce, which we both enjoyed. She ate most of the mussels, while I sopped up the sauce with the complimentary bread.
You can take a look at Merchants' menu here, but it includes five pizzas and a modest but well-balanced variety of other dishes. Now that I've had a pizza, I look forward to going back to try something else (I do eat stuff other than pizza), like the Bucatini with shrimp, artichokes, and capers in a lemon-wine sauce.
The best way for you to discover what Merchants Wood Fired Pizza & Bistro has to offer is to go there yourself. And to help you do that, I've got a $10 gift card to give away to one reader. To enter, just email me your name and mailing address at ROCPizzaGuy@gmail.com by noon on Friday, January 22, and I'll pick a winner at random. Just make sure to include "Merchants giveaway" in the subject line. As always, rest assured that I will not use your personal information for any other purposes, or give it to anyone else. 

Merchants Wood Fired Pizza & Bistro, 564 Merchants Rd., Rochester, NY 14609

Tue. - Sat. 4 p.m. - 10 p.m., bar service 3 p.m. - close

Fiorella, Rochester Public Market

On a recent Wednesday evening, I met my friend John Vito for dinner at Fiorella, which opened this past August at the Public Market.
John, as many local foodies will already know, is the author of Food and Stories, which partly documents his history as proprietor of O'Bagelo's and Baked and Carved, two fondly, and deservedly missed downtown restaurants. His site also provides recipes for some of his most-missed offerings, like his legendary chocolate chip cookies.
Suburbanite that I am, I found it most convenient to go right after work, so we got there around 5:30, and had the joint to ourselves. By the time I left an hour and a half later, most of the tables were full. So word has obviously gotten around about Fiorella.
I was there to try Fiorella's pizza. Fiorella's is the newest (I think - it's getting hard to keep up) pizzeria in our area using a wood-fired oven. I would've wanted to try it eventually in any event, but what especially intrigued me was Fiorella's statement that it uses "naturally leavened" dough. I quote from their website:  "our dough is made with organic flour, water and sea salt only and naturally leavened for better health."
I'm not convinced that those ingredients lead to better health, but as a home baker of sourdough bread, I was intrigued by the "naturally leavened" aspect. From what our server told me, I gathered that Fiorella uses something along the lines of pâte fermentée, which basically involves saving a bit of dough from each batch, every time you bake, to get the next batch started. That's a little different from a traditional sourdough, where you keep a starter on hand, "feed" it on a regular basis, and take some as needed. At some point, I'd like to talk to the baker to clarify how they make their dough.
I ordered a "Rosso" pizza, topped with San Marzano tomatoes, oregano, basil, extra-virgin olive oil, and fresh mozzarella. Aside from the oregano, that's a Margherita to me.
It was good, but flawed. The crust was very thin, with a puffy cornicione. The crust was pliable.
One of the first things I noticed was how blackened the underside of the crust was, in some areas. I know that some people who aren't used to wood-fired pizza may complain that the crust is "burnt," but sometimes that adjective does apply.
Along the edge, there was some "leopard spotting" on one half, and some black stretches in others. Underneath, there were areas that were quite blackened, to the point where the surface had  carbonized and was completely blackened, resulting in a tar-like surface.
That didn't ruin the pizza. Other areas of the bottom were browned or pale, due partly to the bubbly underside, where the crust was not in direct contact with the oven deck. This was good, well-made dough, but it seemed to have been left a little too long in one spot on a very hot oven deck.
The dough was thin but had risen somewhat, and had a pleasant chewiness. Again, my biggest problem with it was that it was either blackened, or pale, or browned. I would've liked a more uniformly-baked bottom.
In spite of that, the pie was enjoyable. It was coated with a uniform layer of tomato sauce, which had a "medium" texture and flavor. Pretty basic, but where pizza's concerned, nothing wrong with basic. The rounds of fresh mozzarella, which covered most of the surface, were melted just to the edge of browning. They weren't creamy-smooth, but they weren't over-baked or rubbery.
The pie was topped with a few shreds of fresh basil. They were good, but I would've liked a few more, to round out the flavor of the pie.
Fiorella's other pizzas include a bianca (white) pizza with: fresh garlic, smoked mozzarella, pecorino, and market greens, and a daily "market" pizza with a selection of seasonal toppings (I regret that I didn't take note of that day's market pizza). Organic salame or mushrooms may be added to any pizza as well.
The menu extends beyond pizza, to pasta (John got the tagliatelle, which despite my antipathy for mushrooms looked good), and daily specials. On this Wednesday night, Fiorella offered a "brick steak," meaning cooked under a brick. Sounded good, but I was there for pizza.
Despite its shortcomings, I liked my pizza. There were no leftovers. I could only speculate if the blackening of the crust was related to this being the first pizza of the night, so I won't speculate about that. If the execution improves and can stay consistent, this could be some top-notch pizza.
For now, I'll consider the pizza here a work in progress. But I also consider Fiorella well worth checking out.


Restaurant Fiorella, 5 Rochester Public Market
Rochester, NY 14609

Wed. 11 am - 2 pm, 5 pm - 10 pm
Thu. 10 - 2, 5 - 10
Fri. 11 - 2, 5 - 10
Sat. 8 - 2, 5 - 10
Sun. - Tue. closed

Bazil's

If you've ever seen ads on TV for Mario's, you may have noticed that they tend to run with ads for another Italian restaurant, Bazil. That's because they're both part of the same local restaurant group owned by the Daniele family. My impression has always been that Mario's is the more "formal" of the two, while Bazil is more casual.
In late 2011, I did a post about Mario's, and while I liked the restaurant and the food generally, I gave the pizza a C-minus, primarily because the crust was not so good; in fact, I wondered if it was a frozen crust.
So I must admit that I didn't walk into Bazil's with terribly high hopes. And - I'm talking about the pizza here, not the restaurant or the other food - even so, I was disappointed.
Before I get to the pizza, let me mention this. My wife and I were both struck by how similar it was to Olive Garden. Similar decor, same endless salad bowl -- if you'd taken me there blindfolded, then taken off the blindfold and told me I was in an Olive Garden restaurant, I'd have believed it, easily.
My wife wondered why they wouldn't try to distinguish themselves more from a competitor. I figured that Bazil is just following the basic formula for a casual Italian restaurant, and it seems to be working for them, since the place was packed.
OK, on to the pizza. I ordered a "traditional Margherita" with the addition of artichokes. Not everybody likes artichokes, but I've grown to enjoy their salty tanginess on a pizza.
Again, the crust was reminiscent of - and maybe was - a frozen crust. In fact, the whole pizza seemed like a store-bought frozen pizza The crust was thin and dry, with a too-perfectly formed, dry lip around the perimeter. The underside was generally pale but marked here and there by darker spots.
Appearances aside, the proof is in the eating, and this was not good. Dry and flavorless, the crust was like a frozen pizza that's sat in your freezer for too long. If this wasn't frozen, then they must be doing something very wrong in the kitchen, to get it to come out this way.
The toppings didn't help much. The cheese was not so much burnt as dried out, like cheese that's been sitting for so long that much of the liquid has evaporated. Even many of the artichoke bits seemed dry. Sometimes places put on the tough outer layers of the artichokes, but that wasn't the issue here. These were just dried out. A sprinkling of chopped tomatoes and dried basil didn't help much either. Though this isn't that important, the toppings were also unevenly distributed, more toward one side of the pizza than the other.
The sad thing was that the other food we ordered was good. This was another example of a place that makes generally good food, but then adds pizza to the menu, thinking, I guess, that's it easy to make pizza.
Well, it is easy to make pizza. It's just not that easy to make good pizza. It's not the most difficult thing you'd ever do in a kitchen, either, but it takes more than just adding a few toppings to a frozen crust and popping it in the oven.
Is it possible to expect to be disappointed? That might make a good Buddhist Kōan. But I did, and I was.
I liked Bazil, in general. Our other food was good, and the service was very good. We had a good time.
And truth be told, if I hadn't been there specifically for blog purposes, I never would've ordered pizza. Unless a place specializes in pizza or has a reputation for great pizza, when I go to an Italian restaurant I'm generally going with pasta. That's one of the drawbacks of writing this blog - I often feel stuck with ordering pizza, even though my natural inclination might be to get something else.
So I will re-emphasize that my letter grade is not a judgment on the restaurant, but only on this pizza. And this pizza was not too good. It wasn't even average, and I have to give it a D.

Bazil Restaurant, 1384 Empire Blvd, Rochester, NY 14609
(585) 697-2006
Mon. - Thu.4:30 - 9:30, Fri. 4:30 - 10:00, Sat. noon -10:00, Sun. noon - 9:00

Nino's Focaccia

My wife and I have found out that our daughter has a problem with dairy products. We're not sure if it's lactose intolerance or something else, but dairy products seem to give her problems.
Not the greatest thing for a pizza blogger who has been bringing home pies to his family on a regular basis. But that's a minor issue, in the scheme of things.
Fortunately, more pizzerias are offering dairy-free options, and why not? It's no big deal to leave cheese off a pizza. The way the price of cheese has been going, they probably make more money that way anyway.
Furthermore, the whole idea of a cheese-heavy pie is a relatively recent, American thing; in much of Italy, you're as apt to find a pie with just a sprinkling of grated cheese, or even no cheese at all.
So recently, when I wanted a good, dairy-free pizza to bring home for dinner, I knew that Nino's would likely be a good place to go. Nino's, which I've written about before, specializes in focaccia, using recipes straight from owner Giacomo's native Sicily.
Focaccia, like pizza itself, has gotten Americanized and, arguably, dumbed down. Or changed, at least.
Most people today associate focaccia with a thick pan-baked bread that's been brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with grated cheese and herbs, typically rosemary. That's fine as far as it goes, but at Nino's, focaccia is a versatile platform, that can accommodate a variety of toppings. (And at Nino's, unless you order a thin-crust pizza, the pizza is made using a focaccia crust.) Focaccia or pizza, it's all about the crust, and the crust at Nino's is good. Very good.
So I asked Giacomo to create for me a focaccia with no cheese, which he was happy to do. After a brief discussion in which I sought his advice, I settled on a half-and-half vegetarian focaccia, with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and onions on the whole thing, and the addition of roasted green peppers on the other half. A thick focaccia crust can handle a fair amount of toppings, but that's about as much as I'd want, so as not to overwhelm it.
I stopped by to pick up my order, before my roughly 25-minute drive home, and it was difficult not to start in on it right away. But it kept pretty well in the car, and was still warm when I got it home.
Happily, the drive home did not diminish the quality of the crust. The underside had that blistered, bubbly look that all too often is indicative of an overly oily crust, but this one was dry to the touch and crisp. The interior was nicely risen, chewy enough to reveal its breadlike qualities, but not overly dense, airy, gummy or greasy. It had all the qualities of great bread, only shaped into a disk to hold the toppings. And isn't that what pizza is, ultimately--disk-shaped bread with toppings?
The crust did make a fine base for the toppings. I'm an omnivore, to be sure, but I didn't miss the meat here. I also remain a red-sauce guy, and all in all I would probably ask for sauce next time, for an added dimension of flavor and a little more liquid. But the natural moisture of the vegetables and the olive oil on top were enough to give these some liquid balance for the bready crust. I particularly liked the thin-sliced garlic, which added flavor and aroma but was not harsh or overpowering.
I love a good thin crust, to be sure, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate or enjoy a thick crust from time to time. Whether we're talking thin or thick pizza, focaccia, or just plain bread, good is good. And Nino's is good. If you're a dedicated thin-crust lover like me, well, Nino's does that too, but give their focaccia a try first. I've never had a Rochester pizza quite like it, and it's because of the focaccia that Nino's remains among our local pizza institutions.
Nino's Pizzeria, 1330 Culver Rd., Rochester 14609
482-2264

Sun. - Thu. 4 p.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 4 p.m. - midnight

Good Fellow's, Culver Rd.

A helpful reader recently alerted me to new place, Good Fellow's on Culver Road, near Parsells. I stopped in for a couple of cheese slices last month.
They looked pretty good, with a thin crust, narrow lip and a thin but proportional layer of sauce and cheese.
From their outward appearance, I would've thought that these were New York style slices. A peek underneath, though, showed otherwise. The underside was docked, i.e., pockmarked with holes (not a problem in itself), and ranged from deep to very dark brown. It was soft, and smelled of cooking oil.
Nor did things get much better when I took a bite. The crust was lifeless, with little evidence of rising, and chewy but uninteresting. The sauce was OK but basic, like an average canned sauce. The cheese was likewise serviceable, but covered in spots with a thin layer of orange-colored oil that had exuded during the baking process. Like the sauce, it wasn't bad, but it didn't do anything to elevate this slice or compensate for the poor crust.
This is a short review, but that's about all there is to say about this pizza. It wasn't that good, and it wasn't as good as it looked. I had the feeling that there was a good pizza lurking in there somewhere, if it had been prepared a little differently, but as it was, this was just a thinner version of the pizza that you tend to find at a lot of quick, inexpensive places. The crust needs work.
I'll refrain from grading this one, since this is a pretty new place. Maybe things will get better. But this was a below-average slice of pizza.
Good Fellows Pizza & Deli, Culver Road, Rochester
1157 Culver Road
Rochester, New York 14609
(585) 482-1977
Hours unknown at this time

Merchants Grill

While my explorations have taken me to nearly all of Rochester's pizzerias, I've still got some work to do on investigating the area's bars and restaurants that serve pizza. And I've been trying to whittle away at that list.
So it was that I recently stopped by Merchants Grill, on its namesake road in northeast Rochester. It's a popular bar/restaurant serving food all day, till the wee hours.
And in addition to the usual bar fare of wings and burgers, they do pizza. So that's what I tried, sharing a pie and some wings with a friend.
My pepperoni pie had a medium-thick crust, which was very dark brown to nearly black underneath, and crisscrossed by screen marks. It wasn't particularly oily to the touch, but its color and exterior crunch suggested the presence of oil in the dough, on the pan or cooking surface, or both. The edge was lighter in color but also crunchy on the surface, though the interior did have some breadlike chew.
The pie was topped with a basic tomato sauce, with a straightforward tomatoey flavor, and an even layer of nicely melted mozzarella, as well as a judicious sprinkling of cup and char pepperoni slices. They made for a tasty, well balanced combination.
The pizza was OK, but, perhaps not surprisingly, I liked the wings better. They were meaty and well coated, but not drenched, in a medium-hot, classic Buffalo sauce. I also appreciated the inclusion of celery sticks, although I would've preferred them from the wider, root end than these skinny strips from the top of the stalk.
It's nice to see pizza as an option at local eateries that aren't full-fledged pizzerias, provided that the pizza is decent. And this was decent. I wouldn't say that Merchants Grill is a pizza destination, but if you go, consider gettting a pizza - it's not bad. The crust wasn't the greatest, but it was OK, and to the extent possible, it was compensated for by the toppings, which were flavorful and well balanced. If you were having this as an accompaniment to a pitcher of beer with some friends, I think this would be a perfectly acceptable bar pizza.  I wouldn't call this average Rochester pizza, but on balance, it falls somewhere in the middle, so I'll give it a C. 
Merchants Grill, 881 Merchants Road
482-2010
Open daily from 11:30 a.m. - 2:00 a.m. (food available until 1:00 a.m.)

Back to Nino's

I had guests over recently, and we wanted pizza and wings, so I took the opportunity to head back to Nino's on Culver Road, which I hadn't been to in several months.
I felt the need to apologize to Nino for ordering a simple cheese-and-pepperoni pizza. If this had been for me only, or if my dining companions and I all saw eye-to-eye where pizza's concerned, I probably would have asked for basil, garlic, maybe some tomatoes or artichokes, perhaps olives, and Locatelli Romano cheese. Or just tell him to use his own judgment, which I trust. But sometimes you gotta give the people what they want. And Americans want processed Mozzarella and pepperoni.
Well, that's OK. You could still do a lot worse than to get a pepperoni pizza from Nino's. 
Nino's does pizza with thin or thick crust, and I wouldn't steer anybody away from either one, but the thick crust is their signature, default style, so I didn't specify, just ordered a pizza.
One of the things I love about Nino's is that it is distinctive. Now there's good distinctive and bad distinctive. But this is good distinctive. It's not only good, it's not quite like any other pizza you'll find around Rochester. And that, to me, is how pizza ought to be. 
This pizza was on the thick side, then, although not extremely so. I didn't measure the thickness of the crust, but I'd call it medium to thick. The underside was browned, with occasional bubbled areas indicating a slow rise on a pan.
The pizza was well balanced, with enough sauce and cheese to stand up to the relatively thick crust. The sauce was Nino's distinctive - there's that word again - slightly sweet, herbal, well-cooked sauce, with the flavor of a sauce that's been bubbling away on your grandmother's stove all afternoon.  Is that the best way to make pizza sauce? No. There is no best way to make pizza sauce. Some people may prefer, and some pizzas may be better with, a quicker-cooking, minimally seasoned sauce, or even just crushed tomatoes. But Nino's sauce is right for Nino's pizza. This is not a flash-baked, cracker-thin, 2-minute pizza from a 900 degree oven, but a slower-cooking pizza, for which a slow-cooked sauce seems more appropriate.
The cheese was well-melted mozzarella, obviously good stuff, as it melted together well, pooling a bit around the bubbly mounds of the crust. Cheaper cheese tends to sit in place, with the individual shreds simply drying out and sticking to each other more than truly melting.
Nino puts his pepperoni on before spreading the cheese, which keeps it meatier and chewier. If you prefer your pepperoni bacon-crisp, better ask. For me, it's a tough call - there's something to be said for both.
Oh, and the wings were good, too. Meaty, with a homemade sauce that was a bit hotter than I expected from the mild sauce that I'd ordered (no complaints from me, but those with a low tolerance for heat might find them overly hot), and fairly crisp.
Nino's pizza menu is pretty extensive, and well worth exploring. But even something as simple as a pepperoni pizza is a thing of beauty here. It's an overworked term, but this is comfort-food pizza.
Nino's Pizzeria and Focacceria, 1330 Culver Rd. 14609
Phone:  482-2264
Hours: Sun. 4 - 10 p.m., Mon. - Sat. 4 p.m. - 11 p.m.

Nino's Focaccia Pizza

I've written a couple of posts about Nino's on Culver Road, with posts about its thick crust, Sicilian-style pizza and the thin crust "Napolitan" pie. But in my conversation with Nino's owner in February 2010, he told me that his personal favorite is the focaccia pizza.
Well, I really enjoyed the other pizzas from Nino's, but you mean to tell me that I hadn't even had the best one?
It took a while, but not long ago I did finally pick up a large focaccia pie. For this one, I decided to leave the toppings entirely to Giacomo - whatever he thought best.
As I was waiting for my pizza, Giacomo - who loves to talk about pizza as much as I love learning about it - explained to me to his focaccia pizza is closely related to another dish, sfingione (which I've also seen spelled "sfincione"). Like a lot of these things, it's hard to pin down a precise definition of sfingione, perhaps partly because the term might mean different things to different people and in different places, even within Sicily, though you can read a general description of this style of bread here and here. Probably because that name is so unfamiliar to most Americans, though, Nino's sticks with the more accessible "focaccia" and "pizza."
Now, when I think of focaccia, I generally picture a rectangular, dimpled bread, with very sparse toppings - maybe just olive oil and rosemary, possibly with a light sprinkling of sharp grated cheese. This wasn't that. My pie came topped with mozzarella and Locatelli cheeses, sausage, portabello mushrooms, roasted red peppers, garlic and onion.
The mushrooms scared me a little bit, as I'm not a big fan of 'shrooms, but one bite allayed my fears. There was a lot going on here, but somehow those toppings all blended together in a veritable symphony of flavor. Pardon my hyperbole, but it's an apt metaphor. My palate could distinguish the various flavors and textures of the individual components, yet they also formed a cohesive whole, the same way that your ears can pick up the sound of particular instruments in an orchestra, yet the overall effect is of hearing one seamless piece of music.
It's not often that I start describing a pizza by talking about the toppings, but that's more a reflection of how good this tasted than of any deficiency in the crust. It was rather thick, with a pan-baked bottom, firm and crisp along the edge, but bready and chewy inside.
One thing that confused me was how this differed from the Sicilian pizza. In fact, it seemed pretty similar. I figured I must be missing something.
So I spoke again to Giacomo and found out that Nino's focaccia and Sicilian pizzas are in fact one and the same thing. Same dough, same process.
But one of the things I love about talking to Giacomo is the way that his love for his craft comes through. Rather than just a simple answer to my question, I got a ten-minute discourse on the etymology of the word "focaccia," the subtleties of working with dough, and the importance of using fresh, local ingredients whenever possible.
As to the focaccia/Sicilian pizza thing, the gist of what I got was that the distinction is more cultural and colloquial than anything else. In Sicily, focaccia is a bread that's often baked at home - the word is derived from the Italian word for fire, "fuoco," since focaccia was traditionally baked in a fireplace or hearth. Pizza tends to be more of a commercial product and is typically more amply topped, with tomatoes, cheese, and more.
That distinction is explained somewhat on Nino's website, which describes focaccia as a thick-crusted, "flat hearth-stone-baked Italian bread [that] can be topped with herbs and other toppings" such as olive oil, rosemary, sage, and coarse salt. It may, though, be "topped with onion, cheese and meat, or flavored with a number of vegetables."
Regarding Sicilian pizza, Nino's has this to say:  "Thick and crispy crust on the outside, yet soft right under the sauce. Keeping with the tradition of Sicily, our sauce is sweeter than the usual variety. Made with a thick crust characterized by a rectangular shape and topped with tomato sauce, cheese and optional toppings. Thick crusted slices are cut square, with dough that is over an inch thick. Marinara sauce - Sicilian sauce is a bit sweeter than those found in other types. The body is pureed, which is typical for this style."
So going by those definitions, I guess what I got here would fall more into the focaccia category, given the absence of tomatoes, or who knows, maybe it was really sfingione, but in the end these distinctions are mostly semantic. And my taste buds aren't interested in semantics. Whatever you call it, this was very, very good stuff. (By the way - though Nino's menu lists both focaccia and Sicilian, the prices are the same for each, so no need to worry that you're going to pay more if you order one or the other.)
Nino's isn't the easiest place for me to get a pizza. It doesn't open till 4 p.m., and they don't sell slices, which pretty much limits me to bringing a pie home for dinner, but due to our respective locations it's a long drive for me and it's a challenge to get the pizza home before it cools, even with my pizza bag. But the pizza is good, it's distinctive, and I don't think I've met a pizzeria owner more dedicated to his art than Giacomo. So you can believe me when I say that I'll be back, and I already know what I want. For that, you'll have to wait and see. Until then, Nino's once again merits an A rating from me.
Nino's Pizzeria and Focacceria, 1330 Culver Rd. 14609
Phone:  482-2264
Hours: Sun. 4 - 10 p.m., Mon. - Sat. 4 p.m. - 11 p.m.