Label 7, Pittsford

Grilled pizza seems to be popping up on restaurant menus everywhere these days, and it's easy to see why. People like pizza, and grilled pizza gives a restaurant a relatively simple, easy to prepare way of offering pizza. It's also got the added cachet of being trendy, at the moment.
To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the style. I find that grilled pizza - which is generally made by putting the dough, or maybe premade crust, on a grill, flipping it and adding toppings - lacks what I would call the integration of a traditionally baked pizza. When you stretch raw dough, add toppings, and put them in the oven together, they tend to meld together as they bake. With grilled pizza, the crust and toppings tend to be more separate and distinct - it's a grilled piece of flatbread, with stuff on top.
Which is not to say that it can't be good. But I generally just don't like it as much as a good regular pizza. So I try to approach a grilled pizza with an awareness of that, and not to judge it unfairly. I mean if I liked apples better than oranges, I wouldn't rate an orange by saying, "Well, it's OK, but it's not as good as an apple." I'd ask myself whether it was good, as an orange. And I try to do the same with grilled pizza.
So with all that prologue out of the way, I'll tell you about a dinner I had last month at Label 7, a self-described "Napa style eatery and bar" in Pittsford. Label 7 has an eclectic menu offering everything from fried chicken and waffles to the unusually spelled ssäm, which features cured pork belly as the main ingredient.
And, at the time of my visit, the menu also included "Napa Crispy Pizza," a grilled pizza topped with salametti (which, as the name implies, is very similar to salami), mozzarella, basil, San Marzano tomatoes, and red onion. The current online menu lists a "Pizza Margherita" topped with fresh mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, sweet onion, and basil, with the option of adding "one of our various Daily-Cured Meats for $5."
The underside of this oblong pizza, which was sliced into thin triangles, crossways, bore some deeply indented grill marks, and it was initially crisp underneath, though over time the moisture that had exuded from the toppings led the long, narrow slices to get a little soggy underneath, and to sag under the weight of the toppings.
And the toppings were on the heavy side, but tasty. The mozzarella was thick, smooth and well melted, and lay atop a thin layer of well cooked, deep-red tomato sauce flecked with dried herbs.
The tomatoes were a highlight - juicy and sweet. They fully lived up to the reputation of San Marzano tomatoes, which are the gold standard for pizza.
Protein was supplied by the salametti, which was meaty, not too fatty, and finely ground, with a smooth texture. I like pepperoni (which is largely an American invention), but there are so many other options when it comes to sausage, and it's always good to try something a little different.
Shredded basil rounded out the toppings on this pizza. It was wilted but still had enough freshness to add an extra dimension to the overall flavor profile.
There was a lot to like about this pizza, the toppings particularly. They worked together well, were flavorful, and of high quality.
The crust? Well, that takes us back to some of my issues with grilled pizza. It was OK, but even making allowances for this having been grilled rather than baked, it wasn't great. Naturally the texture was very different from a traditional oven-baked pizza, particularly on the inside, where I missed the chewiness of a fresh-baked crust. And as has happened before, in my experience with grilled pizza, the crust was a little too wet, bordering on sogginess. In short, it was an acceptable base for the toppings, but not so great in its own right.
I did like the restaurant itself. The menu was an intriguing mix of the creative and the familiar, and I'd like to try several of their other dishes. Our server was friendly and attentive, and the surroundings were pleasant, with the bar - which was busy - well enough separated from the dining room to allow my wife and me to carry on a conversation without shouting.
In keeping with my past practice, I won't assign a letter grade to this pizza. Again, it gets back to the apples-and-oranges thing. My grades are geared toward more traditional pizza, and it's simply too difficult to match this against that style. I'll just say that I did enjoy this pizza, even if it didn't exactly make me a grilled-pizza convert.
Label Seven, 50 State Street, Pittsford, NY 14534
(585)-267-7500
labelseven@gmail.com
Tue. - Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m., 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Fri. & Sat. 11:30 - 2. 5 - 10 p.m.
Closed Sun. & Mon.

Links, Perinton

This establishment is now closed.
Thanks to a reader's very thorough listing of places that I hadn't covered, I resolved to work my way through some local bars and restaurants that offer pizza. In general, these aren't places that you would go to just for the pizza, but if you do go, you may wonder whether you should order the pizza (is it going to be on an oily, brittle or spongy premade shell, or might it actually be good?), so I think it's worth it to check these places out and let readers know a little about the pizza.
And so, not long ago, I stopped at Links, a self-described "upscale" sports bar in the Perinton Square Mall at the corner of Pittsford-Palmyra Road (31F) and Moseley Road (250). Links is unique, I believe, among local establishments for offering virtual golf, with individual stations where you can play golf - virtually - in front of a video screen.
You're more apt to find me at a mini-golf park with my daughter than on anything resembling a real golf course, so the virtual golf didn't especially interest me. But I did want to try Link's grilled pizza.
Is it just me, or is grilled pizza popping up more on menus these days? I suspect that for a lot of restaurants and bars it has the appeal of being relatively easy to prepare - throw a crust on the grill, flip it and add toppings.
The problem is that, from the standpoint of ease of preparation, those benefits are best realized with a premade crust, i.e., a "shell" or parbaked crust that the restaurant buys from a wholesaler. Sure, you can make your own fresh dough, stretch it, and grill it, but if part of your motivation in adding grilled pizza to your menu is that it's easy to make, that would largely defeat the purpose.
I'm not going to say that premade crusts are necessarily bad, but I don't think they're ever exceptionally good. You're essentially talking about taking a piece of flatbread out of a package and heating both sides on a grill. Good enough? Maybe. But great?
Not in this case, at least. The crust on my pizza had grill marks on both sides, as expected, and was rather wet on the surface, I imagine from the toppings. It wasn't soaked through - the wetness was on the outside - but it was not crisp or even al dente firm.
This was a very cheesy pizza, with a heavy layer of melted mozzarella that was almost liquid. It didn't adhere too well to the crust, but that's typical of grilled pizza, since the cheese is not applied until after the top side has already been cooked on the grill.
Beneath the cheese was a thin layer of slightly chunky tomato sauce, which was dotted with some herbs, particularly, from what my palate could tell, oregano.
I was in a vegetarian mood that day, so I ordered sweet peppers and onions (which are generally an excellent, and underrated combination), and I got one more topping, so I went with black olives. The toppings I got were, well, OK. The olives were canned, which I guess is what I should've expected - not too many places slice their own "fresh" olives ("fresh" is kind of a misnomer, since all edible olives are cured) - and the diced red onions and green peppers were fresh. Not to be picky, but I prefer sauteed peppers and onions on my pizza - it seems to give them a fuller, yet mellower flavor. But these crunchy bits of onion and pepper were fine for what they were.
Links' menu has several pizza options, including a "build your own" (which is what I got) with tomato sauce, mozzarella and up to three toppings included in the basic price, a Buffalo chicken pie, Hawaiian pizza, BBQ chicken, chicken bruschetta pizza, and a white Tuscan pizza with olive oil, roasted garlic, mozzarella, tomato and kalamata olives. Actually, that last one sounds so good I'm wondering why I didn't order it. Oh well.
The rest of the menu is pretty extensive, and includes bar staples like burgers and wings, as well as steaks, seafood and pasta. The atmosphere is casual, as you would expect of a place where guys are playing virtual golf a few feet away.
To be honest, I've never been a huge fan of grilled pizza, but some are better than others. This was, well, not bad, but not especially great either. Part of it, I suppose, has to do with one's expectations - if you simply described this as a grilled flatbread, I may have taken to it better. But as a pizza, it was no better than OK. I'll give it a C.
Links Bar & Grill, 6720 Pittsford-Palmyra Road, Fairport
585-598-2663
Mon. - Thu. 11:30 am - midnight, Fri. 11:30 — 1 am, Sat. 8 am - 1 am, Sun. 8 am - 10 pm

Otto Tomotto's, Victor

There are a number of restaurants around town that offer pizza, but that aren't the kind of places you go to to get a pizza to go. Those tend to take me longer to get to, since I can't just get one at lunchtime or on the way home. But I do try to get to them when I can.
One such place is Otto Tommoto's in Victor. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was a chain restaurant. Something about the cutesy name, I guess. But it's not. It's an independent Italian restaurant, in a strip plaza on Rt. 96, a little east of Victor.
I had dinner there recently with my wife. Pizzas were listed as an appetizer, so I got one as such, although I could've easily made it my entree. With a pasta entree, another shared appetizer that my wife ordered, and a salad (which also proved to be superfluous, given the greens on my pizza), I had way too much food, and ended up taking some of the pizza home.
Otto's has five grilled pizzas on the menu - the original (basically a red-sauce pizza with four cheeses), a mushroom pizza, a "Tuscan Grill" pizza with olives, veggies, herbs and truffle oil, a clam pie, and a zucchini-crusted pie with veggie toppings.
Ordinarily I'd go for the most basic option, but the zucchini-crusted pie was the winner of Otto's 2011 Wooden Spoon Scholarship competition, submitted by Michael Piccone of the Finger Lakes Technical Career Center. Every purchase of this pizza adds another dollar to next year's scholarship fund. And it sounded pretty good, with a grilled pizza crust infused with shredded zucchini, and topped with sun-dried tomato pesto, Kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes (which are somewhat annoyingly, to me, spelled "tomottos" throughout the menu), Feta cheese and roasted peppers. So that's what I got.
The crust was soft, and reminiscent of pita bread. But it was enjoyable - I have nothing against pita bread - and had some added flavor imparted by the grilling, which was evident from the marks underneath. I didn't particularly notice any presence of the zucchini "infused" into the crust, but that's kind of how it is with zuccini. I mean, zucchini bread doesn't sound that great to me, but it's OK because it doesn't really taste like zucchini. Zucchini just seems to blend into dough without adding a lot of flavor or texture. It did leave me wondering, though, what Otto's regular, non-zucchini-infused crust is like.
With all the toppings on this pizza, it was a pretty "busy" pie, but the toppings worked well together, even if the total effect wasn't quite as flavorful as I'd expected. It was almost like a salad atop a grilled flatbread, but I enjoyed it well enough.
And I did like the restaurant in general. I should mention that our other appetizer, "Otto chips" (bottom photo) were downright addictive. These were homemade potato chips topped with roasted red peppers, scallions, Alfredo sauce, bacon, olives and Asiago cheese. As the menu says, they're essentially "Italian nachos." Not exactly diet food, but delicious.
And I must also mention that the service was good. It was good throughout our meal, but what stood out was that at the end of our meal, our server asked if my wife's entree was all right, since she left a lot of it on the plate. When my wife said that she wasn't thrilled with it, our server took it back to the kitchen, and emerged to say that it had been taken off our bill. That's good service, and I appreciated that.
This is one of those places I'd go back to, but probably not for the pizza. I am kind of curious about their regular pizza crust, but there are other things on the menu I'd like to try, and overall I was well pleased with the restaurant. This pizza was so different from conventional pizza - and it was pretty accurately described on the menu - that I don't think it would be fair to rate it. I will say that it's not a bad option, but there are other items on the menu that I'd probably opt for next time.
Otto Tomotto's, 300 Phoenix Mills Plaza, Route 96, Victor, NY
Tel.: 585-742-2070Hours:  Tue. - Thu. 11:30 - 9 p.m., Fri. 11:30 - 10 p.m., Sat. 4 - 10 p.m., Sun. noon - 8 p.m.

Towpath Cafe, Fairport

While pizzerias are easy enough to find, there's plenty of pizza out there at local restaurants, where you wouldn't necessarily expect to find it. One such place is Towpath Cafe in Fairport.
This location was formerly Fairport Village Coffee, and like that establishment, Towpath Cafe features coffee, wine, and live music. But it's added pizza to its menu, which I don't think was offered in its previous incarnation.
The pizza, which is described as "fire grilled," comes in five varieties, which I'll let you read on the Cafe's menu. As I often do, I went with the "Margarita," which is topped with "garlic & oil, tomatoes bruschetta, mozzarella and fresh basil."'
My pizza had a very crisp crust that was on the thin side of medium. The outer edge was crunchy and a bit oily on the surface, with some interior chewiness. The underside bore prominent grill marks.
The menu's use of the term "tomatoes bruschetta" is a fairly apt description. This reminded me of bruschetta, the name of which comes from the Italian "bruscare," which means "to roast over coals," a reference to the bread, which is typically drizzled with olive oil and grilled, and topped with tomatoes, garlic, basil or other toppings. This was topped with finely diced tomato, bits of chopped garlic, and flakes of basil, on a bed of stringy, chewy cheese. I found the overall flavor quite good, with some herbs in the background. The tomatoes weren't fantastic, but they did have some tomatoey sweetness, which puts them ahead of a lot of fresh tomatoes around here at this time of year.
Besides pizza, Towpath Cafe offers burgers, paninis, wraps, and salads. The atmosphere is laid back and casual, kind of a cross between a coffee house and a restaurant, with outdoor seating overlooking the canal in the warm months.
This was decent pizza. It had a pretty good overall flavor, and the crust wasn't bad, with a bit of external crunch and some grilled toastiness. And importantly, it was distinctive. I'll give it a B-minus.
Towpath Cafe, 6 N. Main St., Fairport, 14580
Tel. 377-0410

Mon. - Thu. 8 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 8 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.