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

Amore

My wife recently had dinner at Amore, the Wegmans restaurant next to the East Avenue Wegmans. She brought me home two pizza slices, a Margherita and a seasonal with a butternut squash puree, zucchini and fresh mozzarella.

Okay, so I didn't eat these fresh out of the oven, which is the best way to judge a pizza, but I did keep them sealed and heated them the next day on a cast iron pan, which is the best way to reheat thin-crust pizza.

Both were extremely thin, to the point that there was virtually no interior in the crust, apart from the cornicione. That was unfortunate as otherwise they were pretty good. 

Despite the thinness, both were firm enough to be held in one hand (not that that's a prerequisite for good pizza - Neapolitan pizza often requires a knife and fork, and least in the middle) and they displayed some nice leopard spotting underneath. The cornicione was chewy and thick enough to allow the flavor of the crust to come through.

The flavors were good as well. The Margherita was topped with San Marzano tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, EVOO, and Parmigiano Reggiano. The flavors were mild but the components worked well together.

I'm not always a fan of "seasonal" pizzas with unusual toppings (so far I haven't run across a pumpkin spice pizza, thank God), but I try to keep an open mind. I quite liked the butternut squash pizza. It wasn't necessarily something I would choose often, as red-sauce pizza remains my default, but I liked the combination here. As with the Margherita the flavors were on the mild side but they were complementary and allowed the flavor of the crust to come through. And the cheese on both was very nicely melted, just enough to soften without browning or liquefying (again, I did reheat these, so I'm not sure how they were upon coming out of the oven, but they were good for me).

 Overall, then, I found this very enjoyable pizza. But I think it would've been better, for me at least, had the crust been just a wee bit thicker.

Having said all that, I recognize that according to Amore's website, the head chef was born and learned his trade in Italy. I'm sure he's forgotten more about making pizza than I will ever know. I'm just giving my subjective opinion, which you may give whatever weight you think it deserves, including none at all. As the saying goes, opinions are like ... I forget, but I know everybody's got one.

Amore Italian Restaurant & Lounge

 1750 East Ave.

Rochester, NY  14610
Phone: (585) 452-8780 

Hours

5 – 9pm, Monday – Saturday
Last Seating at 8:30pm

 

 

REDD

Even before I resumed writing blog posts, REDD had been on my to-do list.  I'd gotten more than one personal recommendation and it gets rave reviews online. After several attempts to book a table a few days out, I realized I was looking at at least a week, but I finally had the forethought to get a table for my wife and me on a Friday evening.

All that is by way of background. When I hear and read that much good about a place, part of me is thinking, "this is going to be great!," and part of me is thinking, "don't believe the hype." But I try to keep an open mind.

 We got seated and served promptly. I'd been here years ago when it was 2 Vine, and it seemed better laid out and less noisy, despite being busy. 

After sharing a beet salad, which was quite good, my wife and I shared two pizzas:  a mozzarella pizza, with tomato, basil and Parmesan, and a prosciutto pizza with fontina, arugula and Parmesan. So a red and a white pizza.

I knew that REDD uses a wood-fired oven for their pizza, and my immediate impression was that the cornicione (edge) didn't have the blackened blistering that I usually see with wood-fired pizza. A check of the underside showed it to be a little spotted but not much.

That in itself didn't raise alarm bells. I've had too many "wood-fired" pizzas where they just briefly expose the outer edge to a flame to get it blackened, but the crust still sucks. It's not all about blackening.

But wood-fired or otherwise, it starts with the crust. And this was, well ... hmm.

Quite thin, up until I reached the cornicione, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn't enough to sustain or balance the toppings. It was floppy and more significantly, it wasn't interesting.

What I mean is, with great pizza, the crust should be so good that I'd be happy to eat it with no toppings at all. This wasn't that.

Nor did it improve as I worked my way to the cornicione. Again, with top-notch pizza, that's almost the best part, as you get to enjoy the texture and flavor, unadorned. This was reminiscent of supermarket Italian bread. Not "bad," exactly, but bland and lifeless.

I don't claim to be an expert baker, but to quote one of my favorite bands, Lynyrd Skynyrd, "I know a little," and my first reaction was that it goes back to the intitial fermentation process, i.e. the rise. Use enough yeast, rise at warm temperatures, and you can have pizza or bread dough ready in no time. But it won't be particularly good. Low and slow and (somewhat) cold is the way to go, to develop more complex flavors and an interior structure in the crust, with more gluten development. But that takes time. I got the sense this was a crust made from a dough that wasn't given enough time.

I also know that the best wood-fired pizzerias I've been to get their ovens to a very high temperature, often 800 or above. A thin-crust pizza can bake in 90 seconds or so. REDD's was at 655 degrees, hotter than a typical home oven but not what you want for getting the most out of a wood-fired oven.

 I also noticed that the crust of the prosciutto pizza had separated between the top and the bottom. When properly done, that shouldn't happen. There are reasons why that might happen, but I'm not diagnosing the problem, just identifying it.

 OK. Enough about the crust. Let's move on to the toppings.

 They were good, although I must say not great.

The mozzarella pizza was well-laden with tomato sauce, but to me the sauce was over-applied. Pizza is also about balance and there was too much sauce, for my taste, on such a thin crust.

Nor was the sauce especially interesting. It tasted like sauce you'd get out of a jar. Not that you can't get good sauce from a jar, but this wasn't it. It tasted to me like generic spaghetti sauce. 

I was expecting a salty kick from the prosciutto on the prosciutto pizza, and I didn't get it. The pie was bland. I like a nice white pizza now and then, but without tomato sauce I'd like a bit of a flavor boost from the toppings, and this didn't deliver.

Not to drag my wife into this, but she agreed with me on all these points, and I can assure you she is unafraid to disagree with me, so I am pretty sure she was being honest. Toward the end of our dinner, I mentioned to her a thought that had just occurred to me:  as a bcnchmark, could I make a better pizza at home? I have had the good fortune to have pizza at various pizzerias that I couldn't possibly hope to match, due to the limitations of my home oven and my pizza-making skills. But we both agreed that I can make and have made better pizza at home, than what we had here.

Now all this sounds as if I've been trashing and bashing REDD. I suppose I have, but that was not my intent. Despite all I've said, I liked the pizza.

Not too many years ago I would've been amazed to get pizza this good anywhere around here, much less at a restaurant, where pizza is just an add-on to the menu. But the bar has been raised. That's a good thing, as the general level of quality and the range of options have both gone up. 

But if you're running a high-end restaurant, and you want to include pizza on the menu, I think it's incumbent on you to make sure it's damn good pizza. I can't honestly say that this was.

REDD Rochester

24 Winthrop St.

Rochester, NY 14607 

 https://reddrochester.com/

Mon. - Thu. 5 pm - 10 pm

Fri. 11:30 am - 2:30 pm, 5 pm - 10 pm

Sun. closed 

Gia's Pizza Kitchen, East Rochester

 After checking out one pizza place in East Rochester, which I liked very much, I decided to try another. And I liked this one too.

 I know East Rochester has historically been home to a large Italian-American population, and some very good Italian restaurants. But Gia's Pizza Kitchen, which opened last October, just came up on my radar screen recently.

I ordered a large pie to go, half cup and char pepperoni, half onions and sweet peppers.

I didn't realize until I got there to pick up the pizza that Gia's is a full-service restaurant. There is a small bar near the door and several tables to the right as you enter; the kitchen is in the back and is visible from the bar.

I got it home quickly and was quite pleased with the pizza. The underside, though a bit heavily dusted with cornmeal (or maybe it was rice flour; I should've paid closer attention, but hey, I'm out of practice), was slightly charred, and firm though not crackly crisp. The crust had a chewy texture, with a well-formed cornicione and bread-like flavor. It was on the thinner side. Quite nice overall.

It all starts with the crust, but that's not to discount the importance of the toppings. They need to be good, and applied in balance with each other. And these were good.

 The sauce was a tad sweet, but not in a sugary way, more tomatoey. The cheese was nicely melted. And both were applied in good proportion to the crust. I'm not a fan of heavily laden pizza, with a lot of sauce and cheese, especially with a thin crust, and this was just about right.

The pepperoni was done right: browned and crisp along the edges, chewy in the middle. On the other half, the use of yellow bell peppers was unusual but not unwelcome. They have a milder, slightly sweeter flavor that the usual green variety. Both the peppers and the onions were softened but not browned.

I came away rather happy with this pizza. I'm not sure how I would classify it, not that I need to, but it worked for me. Good job, in my opinion.Gia's Pizza Kitchen

211 Main St., East Rochester

Wed. - Fri. 11:30 am - 9 pm
Sat. 4 - 9 pm
Sun 12 - 7 pm

Closed Mon. & Tue. 

 

 

Pizza Stop Pub and Bistro, Pulteneyville

 On March 5, 2009, I posted a review of the Pizza Stop on State Street in Rochester.

A lot of water has passed over the bridge and under the dam since then. The Pizza Stop is still on State Street, despite suffering through a lengthy construction project, but it's also opened and closed some other locations.

One of which is in Pultneyville, a hamlet in the town of Williamson, on Lake Ontario about halfway between Webster and Sodus Point. I have an aversion to the term "underrated," but Pultneyville may be underrated. It's an off-the-beaten-path hamlet with a small inlet and a few historic buildings, and it was the site of a battle in the War of 1812, in 1814 (the result of which is disputed, but as far as I'm concerned, we won, dammit).

The Pizza Stop opened its first full-scale restaurant and bar in Pultneyville in 2020. You can read the story here. It also seems to go by the name of the Local on the Lake. I think they're trying to be known as more than just a pizza place. 

After many years of it being on my to-do list, I made it there recently,
with wife and 22-year-old in tow. 

It's in what I assume must be a very old building next to the inlet. There was a takeout counter on the first floor. We were dining in, so we made our way upstairs. We passed the small bar area, which was populated by what seemed like a few regulars, and got seated at a table near a window looking over the inlet and the lake in the distance.

We ordered three pizzas:  a small chicken/bacon/ranch, a medium Grandma's, and a medium NY style cheese pie. 

All were good; all tasty. But they were, I'm sorry to say, not as good as the original, i.e., the State Street location.

Why? The crust. To be fair, this pizza came to us straight out of the oven. When I've been to the Pizza Stop, it's often been for a slice, which gets a brief reheating, which crisps up the crust. New York "slice joints" do it that way on purpose--take the pie out a little short of doneness, so you can put slices back in for a quick heat-up.

But if you're serving a whole pie, maybe give it an extra minute or two. That would've helped here. With a thin crust, you're not going to get a lot of interior, so you really need that external crunch and char, and that was lacking here. Also, even a thin crust can have some complexity from a long, slow rise, and I didn't get that either. 

Now--we did take the leftovers home, and I reheated them in the oven, on a well-heated steel, and they were much better. So the potential was there. But that's the thing with pizza. Timing can be everything. 

It was an enjoyable experience and the pizza was good. I'd go back, but next time I might ask for the pizza "well done."

The Pizza Stop & The Local on the Lake

4135 Lake Rd., Williamson, NY  

 315-904-4407

Wednesday    4–10 PM
Thursday    4–10 PM
Friday    4 PM–midnight
Saturday    11 AM–midnight

 Read more about them here.  

Cristo's, Buffalo Road

Just twelve and a half short years ago, I published a post about a new wood-fired pizzeria on Buffalo Road, Fiamma. I l loved it, calling it "a great example of the pizzamaker's art."

In 2015, Fiamma opened a second location off University Avenue in Rochester (which I've been to, and it's every bit as good; I highly recommend it).

Eventually Fiamma closed the Buffalo Road location. For a while, the space housed a second location of Veneto, which is one of the first pizzerias I reviewed, in 2009.

In 2023, the Buffalo Road location re-opened as Cristo, under the ownership of a former Veneto chef. 

I added Cristo to my to-do list, but never got around to doing it until recently. I guess re-starting the blog finally gave me the impetus I needed.  I know that maintaining this blog is going to require some effort on my part, but if it got me to check out Cristo, then it's already been worth it.

Among the three of us, we ordered (the descriptions are from the menu) homemade fusilli pasta tossed in a vodka sauce with pancetta and red pepper flakes, and tagliatelle all'Amatriciana, described as homemade tagliatelle tossed in a red sauce with red onion, pancetta, and Calabrian peppers topped with Parmesan, Asiago and Romano cheeses.

And of course, the main reason for our trip:  pizza.

There are eight different pizzas on the menu, and though several of them sounded tempting, my default on a first visit to a place that does wood-fired or Neapolitan-style pizza is to go with a Margherita, as I did here.

When it arrived at our table, it looked good:  charred around the edge, topped with red sauce, fresh mozzarella and chopped basil.

When I took a bite, it got even better. Everything about it seemed right. So I took another bite, and another. I kept looking for something wrong with it, not because I wanted something to be wrong but because I thought, there has to be something wrong here; some flaw.

I didn't find one.

Let's start with the crust. Pliable, bready, chewy, charred. Not crackly like a NYC slice, but not soft or spongy, like, well, too many other places. And the charring was just right, for me. Not burnt, but not the kind of charring I've seen induced at some places for show, where they briefly expose the perimeter of the pizza to a gas flame to blacken it a bit. I confirmed with the pizzaiolo that their oven is 100% wood-fired, and this is how wood-fired pizza should be.

(By the way, I apologize for the relatively poor quality of the photos. The light in the restaurant was somewhat dim, and my attempts to improve the photos by editing them met with limited success. I need to work on that.)

The toppings shone both individually and in concert with each other. The sauce had a bright, fresh flavor, the cheese was melted juuust enough, and the basil, which had wilted a bit in the oven without browning, added the right herbal accent.

All three components worked beautifully together, and with the crust. I hate to overuse the phrase, but to me pizza is first and foremost about balance.  The crust, the sauce, the cheese, etc., everything has to work together in the right proportions and in harmony. And that was true of this pizza. 

Oh, and the pasta dishes? They were good too, or so I was told. I was too busy with the pizza.

As I said, some of the other pizzas on the menu sounded good, and I would like to go back to try them, although given my tastes it's hard to imagine I would like one of them better than this. For me, this was about as good as it gets.

Cristo's Wood Fired Pizza and Pasta

1308 Buffalo Road, Gates, New York 14624

585-622-9000

cristosrestaurant@gmail.com

Mon. - Wed. 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm
    
Thu., Fri. noon – 9:00 pm
    
Sat.  3:30 pm – 9:00 pm
    
Sun. Closed (available for private parties and catering)

 

The Alley, Rochester

While the number of local pizzerias seems to be holding fairly steady, pizza as a menu item is popping up all the time. One recent example is The Alley, a restaurant/bar/nightclub in Rochester's East End.
The Alley, which opened in December 2015, is . It's at 1 Ryan Alley, near the corner of East and Alexander. After I spotted an ad for The Alley trumpeting its pizza, I made a mental note to get there, which I did a few weeks ago with my daughter.
We went on a Wednesday, arriving around 6 p.m. That's kind of early in the week, and early in the evening, for the East End, so unsurprisingly, things were pretty quiet when we walked in. In fact, it was empty, save for one employee behind the bar. But he assured me that they were open, and yes, they were serving food, including pizza. So we got a table near the window.
After handing us our menus, he explained that they were unexpectedly shorthanded that night, so at the moment, he constituted the entire staff -- bartender, waiter, and chef. Since we were the only customers, I didn't mind; if nothing else, this would truly be personalized service.
Pizzas at The Alley come in three sizes:  personal, regular and large. I got a regular Margherita, and my daughter ordered a personal meat lovers.
While we waited for our pizzas to arrive, we shared an appetizer of arancini. At The Alley, these fried rice balls are filled with Italian sausage and mozzarella cheese, and served with a side of marinara sauce. They were crisp on the outside, moist inside, tasty and enjoyable. So far, so good.
Our pizzas arrived in due course, and as I usually do, I first checked the underside. It was quite pale. Not a good sign.
Further inspection confirmed that the crust was rather underdone. Not raw, but flabby and a little gummy. "Lifeless" might best describe it.
I could've sent it back to bake a while longer, but the cheese was already well browned, so that didn't seem like a viable option. And I could've just sent it back, period. But I didn't, partly because I was intending to review it, so I figured I'd stick with what I had, and partly because it passed my "good enough to eat" threshold.
The overall flavor wasn't bad. This was really more of a cheese pizza than a Margherita, but as such, it was decent. The sauce had a thin consistency, but the chunks of tomato provided some acidity, sweetness and moisture. The cheese was ample, albeit rather browned, as I mentioned. My pie had also been given a sprinkling of what I'm guessing was Parmesan (the powdery kind you get from a cheese shaker, not freshly grated). Alas, the basil was of the dry variety, and didn't add much flavor, which is why I say this was more of a simple cheese pizza than a true Margherita.
The crust on my daughter's meat lover's pie was relatively thick, which is one reason I generally don't order personal-size pizza. Because of its smaller diameter, the cornicione on a personal pizza takes up a greater proportion of the overall pie than it would on a larger pie. I enjoy a good cornicione, but I like the thinner crust in the center of the pie too, and you often don't get much of that with a small pizza. This isn't a universal rule, by any means, but I've often found it to be the case, and it was here.
The crust on my daughter's pie was also on the underdone side, but that seemed less noticeable with hers, perhaps because of its more abundant toppings, which were pretty good. The pepperoni was crisp along the edges, and the meatball and sausage bits were thick and chunky. In contrast to my pizza, the mozzarella on hers was not browned, but was well melted and stretchy.
A few minutes after bringing out our pizzas, the waiter came by to check on us. I am sometimes susceptible in that situation to the American practice of smiling, nodding, and saying that everything's fine, even when it isn't, and I might've fallen prey to that this time, except that he specifically asked about the crusts on our pizza. So we did let him know that they were underdone. He seemed to have suspected as much, and after apologizing, he told us that he was taking 15% off our bill.
We didn't finish either pizza at this sitting, but I did take the leftovers home. I was able to salvage them for lunch, reheating individual slices in a toaster oven, with a layer of foil on top to prevent the cheese from getting overdone. That at least crisped up the bottoms a bit.
Obviously, something went wrong here. I'm no expert, but it seems likely to me that these were baked in an oven that was too cool on the bottom, but hot up above. I'm guessing the oven hadn't been on for very long, and was not sufficiently preheated.
So no, this was not very good pizza. But having said that, I did appreciate our waiter's concern. In hindsight, it might have been better if he had told us at the start that they weren't quite prepared to do pizza, but maybe he honestly didn't realize. I think he tried to do the best he could, under the circumstances.
Frankly, I debated with myself and a couple of other people, whose opinions I value, about whether to post this review, or whether to go back a second time, or to contact the establishment. Ultimately, I decided just to post the review, as is. In the end, this blog remains a record of my pizza experiences. If I describe those experiences accurately and objectively--and I think I have--the reader can decide what to make of it.
So I end this post with that caveat. This is a review of two pizzas, and one visit. Maybe on a different occasion--a different day of the week, or a different time of day, or with more people on staff--the pizza would have proved much better. But this was not too good. I have no complaints about our service, but I think I need to give this pizza a D.

The Alley,1 Ryan Alley, Rochester
(585) 546-1010

Tue. - Sat. 4 p.m. til ?

Fiamma: Montanara Pizza

Even at pizzerias with long lists of specialty pies, you don't often see potato pizza among them. When you do, it's apt to be of the "stuffed potato" variety, loaded with cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream and whatnot. To me that's overkill, and I generally avoid that kind of pizza. I don't even like my potatoes that way.
But there is an Italian tradition of adding potatoes to pizza. And Fiamma, one of my favorite pizzerias, offers its version, which I tried recently.
During a recent lunch visit with two friends, I ordered Fiamma's Montanara pizza. I'd seen it on the menu and been wanting to try it for some time. The Montanara is topped with smoked mozzarella, sliced potato, crumbled sausage and porcini mushrooms. 
(As an aside, I should mention that I've seen the term "montanara" applied to pizza with a fried crust, typically topped with a tomato-based sauce. This was neither.)
Now I would not ordinarily order a pizza with mushrooms. There aren't many pizza toppings I shy away from, but mushrooms are one of them. I just don't like mushrooms, mostly because of their texture.
But another principle I tend to follow is that at certain restaurants, I trust the chef. I don't think chefs should refuse reasonable customer requests to alter a dish slightly, but after all the fine pizza I've had at Fiamma, I figure, either get it as described, or don't get it at all. That's particularly true if I'm going to review it on the blog. So I ordered the Montanara, mushrooms and all.
As usual, I'll start with the crust. There's not much I can say beyond what I've said before about Fiamma's consistently good crust. Puffy cornicione, black blisters along the edge and underneath, supple and flavorful. I think I'd be quite happy to make a meal of an unadorned Fiamma's crust. To me, it's what a wood-fired pizza crust should be.
Which makes for a convenient segue to the toppings. I know that some customers have complained from time to time that they find Fiamma's pizza soggy, or soupy, or words to that effect. I've written about that before, and I'm not going to get back into it here, except to say that Neapolitan-style pizza is simply different from basic American pizza. I mention it because the toppings on Fiamma's Montanara are not as wet as some of their other pizzas, so the crust is comparatively drier and firmer.
It's also a more subtly flavored pie than some of the others on the menu. No hot peppers, or sharp cheese, or salty anchovies. Instead, you get a harmonious blend of savory sausage and mushrooms and almost buttery-tasting, thinly sliced al dente potatoes. They're complemented by bits of rosemary and other herbs, and a touch of olive oil, against a backdrop of smoked mozzarella, which I like very much. All told, this pizza is far from bland or uninteresting, but it does use a relatively restrained combination of ingredients that invites slow eating (something I'm not always good at) and which rewards the diner's attention.
Oh, and the mushrooms? I have to admit, they worked well here. Not that I'm going to start ordering mushrooms on my pizza on a regular basis, but their flavor blended nicely with that of the other toppings, and these didn't have the rubbery texture that I find so objectionable.
As much as I remain a fan of Fiamma's red pizzas, one of the things I enjoy about going there is working my way through the pizza menu. Each variety has something different to offer, and this was another good example. Its very dissimilarity from the other pies on the menu is why the Montanara offers its own unique rewards, which are well worth seeking.

Fiamma, 1308 Buffalo Road

585-270-4683
info@fiammarochester.com

Lunch
Mon-Sat - 11:45am-2:00pm

Dinner
Mon - Thurs 4:30pm-9pm
Fri - Sat 4:30pm-10pm
Sun 4:00pm-8pm

Vive, East Avenue

I recently had the pleasure of enjoying dinner with Chris Lindstrom (whose name you might recognize from his Food About Town blog, from his restaurant reviews in City Newspaper, or if you're a curling participant or fan) and John Vito, former proprietor of the much-missed O'Bagelo's on State Street, as well as the author of the Food and Stories blog. (Every shmo with a computer has a blog these days, I guess. And I should know, having been at this for seven years and counting.)
We met at Vive Bistro and Bakery on East Avenue, which coincidentally is very near the former site of another of John's restaurant ventures, the shorter-lived but also memorable Baked and Carved.
Thanks to their awareness of my never-ending mission to seek out new pizzerias, and to boldly go where no pizza blogger has gone before, John and Chris correctly took it as a given that if we were going to meet up for dinner, it would almost certainly have to be at a place that serves pizza. So they let me suggest a place, and they agreed to meet at Vive, a vegan restaurant in the East End that bills itself as serving "artisanal French cuisine."
Now I'm not a vegan by any means, nor would I ordinarily be drawn to a vegan restaurant. But when I learned that Vive serves focaccia pizza, I added it to my to-do list, and I'd been meaning to check it out for some time. My wife and I had tried to stop for dinner a few weeks earlier, on a weekend night without a reservation, but the prospective 40-minute wait dissuaded us. On this early Thursday evening, my reservation proved unnecessary, and we got a table immediately.
I frankly didn't realize until after we got there that Vive is 100% vegan. When I had seen references on their online menu to Parmesan, ricotta, etc., I figured, OK, they don't do meat, but they still use animal products, including cheese. But I was incorrect in making that assumption. Vive's "cheeses" are all non-dairy; soy-based, I believe.
As I mentioned, what drew me to Vive was its pizza, specifically two focaccia pizzas, a Mediterranean and a tomato rabe pizza.  The former is topped with herb pesto, roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, and Vive's take on Boursin cheese. (Boursin is actually a trademarked brand of Gournay cheese, so maybe it would be more accurate - or safe, from a legal standpoint - to refer to it as Gournay.) The tomato rabe pizza includes broccoli rabe, roasted onion, house ragout, and shaved Parmesan.
Vive  also offers "Socca Pissa," which is not to be confused with the "wicked" variety. Socca Pissa is described as "a new twist to the traditional pissaladiere." Socca is a chickpea-based, gluten-free flatbread. Pissaladière, in turn, is a pizza-like dish that hails from Southern France. Traditionally, it's often topped with onions, olives and anchovies, on a medium-thick, tart-like crust.
At Vive, the Socca Pissa comes in three varieties: Pear and Fig (fig-and-black olive tapenade, arugula, pears, and blue cheese), Blanc (confit garlic, caramelized onions, artichokes, and ricotta), and Mushroom Florentine (roasted cremini, balsamic red onions, wilted spinach, and Parmesan spread).
With its wheat-based crust, the focaccia sounded closer to "regular" pizza than the Socca Pissa, so I opted for that. For no particular reason, I chose the Mediterranean.
It had a thick crust, rather pale all around, though not underdone. I wondered if it had been baked at a relatively low temperature, which caused the surface not to brown. So it lacked some of the flavor and aroma of good, freshly baked focaccia.
It wasn't bad, though. The crust had a tight crumb, but was not heavy or dense. The texture was somewhat biscuitlike, and there didn't seem to be a lot of gluten development. It was not overly dry, brittle or crumbly, but it wasn't very chewy either.
The crust's very plainness, however, made it serve admirably as a base for the toppings, which were quite flavorful. Bits of fresh herbs were visible in the pesto, which combined well with the salty olives, the slices of sweet, roasted red bell pepper, and the Boursin. I don't think I've ever had actual Boursin cheese, but I've seen it described as creamy yet slightly crumbly. Vive's version leaned more toward the crumbly than the creamy, and was reminiscent of a crumbly blue cheese. Overall, the combination was quite pleasing on the palate, with complex but harmonious flavors.
And that seemed, I'm happy to say, pretty typical of the food at Vive. This blog post is already longer than I'd anticipated, and I want to focus on the pizza, so I'll try to keep this brief, but we began by sharing a plate of tartines, which are essentially open-faced sandwiches similar to crostini. Of the four varieties that we had, the surprise standout was the avocado and grapefruit. Those aren't two ingredients I would've thought of putting together, to say the least, but they made for a happy marriage, with the citric acidity and tanginess of the grapefruit cutting through the buttery richness of the mashed avocado.
I also liked the acorn squash risotto with toasted pecans and parsnip ribbons, with its mix of creamy, crunchy and crisp textures. I'd rank the sweet potato gnocchi as the least successful dish, as the gnocchi had a slightly gummy texture; for me, texture typically takes precedence over flavor. But having said that, the flavor of the dish wasn't bad, with a puree of smoked cauliflower and caramelized onion as a base for the sweet potatoes.
All in all, I came away from Vive rather impressed. I knew that vegan meals can be good, so good that even omnivores like me won't miss the meat, but it takes creativity and skill to pull it off.
Vive did so. Vegan here doesn't mean just hockey-puck black bean burgers and fried, rubbery tofu. The ingredient combinations were innovative, well-thought-out, and well-executed. I'd like to go back. I might even discover that chickpeas make for one wicked pissa crust.

Vive Bistro and Bakery, 130 East Ave., Rochester
(585) 481-2021
info@vivebistro.com

Lunch daily 11 - 3
Dinner Mon. - Thu. 5 - 9, Fri. & Sat. 5 - 10

Back to Fiamma

As regular readers of this blog will surely know, Fiamma on Buffalo Road has been one of my favorites since my first visit there in October 2012. So it didn't take any arm-twisting to get me to accept an invitation for my wife and me to join two friends there for dinner on New Year's Eve.
After being seated, we shared some appetizers, a Caprese salad with fresh buffalo mozzarella, and a plate of mussels in a spicy tomato sauce. They were very good, but I did not want to overdo it on the antipasti, or the complimentary bread, because I was saving room for the pizza.
Fiamma is not just a pizzeria; it's a full-service restaurant, and they offer several pasta, meat and fish dishes. I don't doubt that those are very good, but I simply can't bring myself not to order pizza when I'm there.
I was leaning toward the Montanara pizza, which is topped with sliced potatoes, among other things, but instead - maybe it was the festive holiday mood - I decided to try the stella, which is unique among Fiamma's pizzas. The crust is formed into an eight-pronged star, and each prong is wrapped around a nugget of smoked buffalo mozzarella. The whole pie is topped with mozzarella, olives, sausage, arugula and cherry tomatoes.
The pizza was so pretty, I hated to cut into it. But after taking the leftovers home, I realized that the individual slices made for very nice Christmas-tree-shaped pizza.
The toppings provided contrasting flavors, which varied from one bite to the next: a bit of saltiness from the olives, some sweetness from the tomatoes, and the underlying bitterness of the arugula. But there was no sauce, so what I mostly got was the smoky-charred-bready-chewy crust. And it's that slow-risen, fast-baked crust that I love most about Fiamma's pizza.
My stella gave me more than enough to keep me busy, so I didn't sample my companions' pies. But my wife got a Napoletana, topped with tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, basil, pecorino Romano, and extra virgin olive oil. One friend got a Carminuccio, with double tomato sauce, spicy pancetta, basil, Parmigiano & a blend of Gran Cru cheese. Her husband ordered a Capricciosa, with tomato sauce, parma cotto ham, mushrooms, olives, mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Each pie displayed the leopard-spotted underside that is Fiamma's signature, and everybody was happy with their pizza.
I'm not a huge dessert guy, but I do love tiramisu, so I couldn't resist that. It was moist, light and appropriately sweet.
At this point, my notes become rather sparse, probably reflecting the effects of a full stomach and carb overload. But my wife and one friend each got the same dessert, which I believe was the semifreddo, chocolate mousse topped with gelato. The fourth member of our party ordered a frozen, fruity dessert. For the life of me I can't think of what it was called but it was stuffed into a tiny, split squash or pumpkin.
Owner Giuseppe Pacciulo was quite busy (they were short-handed that night, due to an employee's illness), but I did manage to chat with him before we left around 10:00. He informed me that a second Fiamma's location, in Rochester, remains in the works, but the date remains TBA. I will pass on any information I get, as soon as I get it.
Someday, I will order something other than pizza off Fiamma's "primi" and "secondi" menu. The baccala al forno sounds especially intriguing. But next time I go, I'm getting that Montanara pizza. I'll do another post, when I've done so.

Fiamma, 1308 Buffalo Road

585-270-4683

info@fiammarochester.com

Lunch
Mon-Sat - 11:45am-2:00pm

Dinner
Mon - Thurs 4:30pm-9pm
Fri - Sat 4:30pm-10pm
Sun 4:00pm-8pm

Matthews East End Grill

I'm always on the lookout for places that serve pizza, even if they're not pizzerias as such.
One that's been on my list for a while now is Matthew's East End Grill in downtown Rochester. I stopped in recently for lunch.
Pizza is not the main focus of the menu at Matthew's, so my expectations were tempered a bit. When I order pizza at a restaurant or bar that doesn't specialize in pizza, or that doesn't have a full-fledged pizza kitchen, I'm generally just hoping that it's decent. If it turns out to be very good, so much the better.
Matthews offers seven- and ten-inch pies. The choices are relatively few, but they cover the basics - pepperoni, white pizza, veggie, and a pizza of the day. The available toppings include onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese and pesto.
I got a seven-inch pepperoni pizza. As always, I first checke out the underside.
It was crisp and dry, and marked by browned concentric rings. The cornicione (the thick part along the edge) was deeply browned on top, but white along the sides, suggestive of direct, radiant heat from above. From there, the crust tapered to a thin center. The interior was a tad dry but had some chewiness, and a faint bready aroma. With its surface crunchiness and browning, the crust can best be described as toasty. 
The toppings were rather good. The sauce was a basic red, but had a rich tomatoey flavor. Despite the deeply browned cornicione, the generously applied mozzarella was not at all browned. It was nicely melted, smooth, stretchy and a little gooey, in a good way; it struck me as high-quality stuff. The wide, thinly-sliced pepperoni was flavorful, and the pie looked to have been given a light dusting of hard, grated cheese, although I didn't detect it on my tastebuds. All in all, the components were well balanced and worked well together.
Matthews is a laid-back place that should satisfy a variety of crowds. There are enough TVs for sports fans, and I'm sure it does a brisk business during games, but it's not overly sports-oriented. The bar and dining areas are well separated, and there's some outdoor seating in warm weather. Owner Carl Falk is often on hand, chatting with patrons and occasionally pitching in behind the bar.
Beyond pizza, Matthews' menu extends to burgers, sandwiches and wraps, wings, salads, soups and other pub grub. They offer a kid's menu and a few desserts, and free refills on soft drinks.
The pizza? Overall, it was reasonably good. I can't say Matthew's is a "must" destination for local pizza lovers, but I can say that if you're dining there, the pizza is worth considering. And that Matthews is worth a visit, whether for a casual workday lunch, family dinner, or drinks and socializing at the bar.

Matthew's East End Grill, 200 East Avenue, Rochester
(585) 454-4280

11:30 - 2 a.m. daily

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

Fiamma Update

If I seem to post about certain places over and over again, it's not necessarily that I'm running out of pizzerias, it's just that I keep returning to certain places, because I like them, and that I've got something new, I hope, to say about them.
Fiamma is one such place. I had lunch there recently with two friends.
I got a "San Daniele," topped with mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, baby arugula, prosciutto, shaved Parmigiano Reggiano, and balsamic cream.
I tend to lean toward minimalism where pizza is concerned, but I'm not a purist. I understand that in the Italian tradition, pizza is a base, the same way that pasta or rice is a base, for other toppings.
That said, I'm still not a fan of overloaded American pizza. Just dumping a bunch of toppings onto a crust does not make for good pizza, in my opinion, although I know there are those (including my daughter, whose default pizza is the "meat lover's") who will disagree with me.
But this pie, despite all its toppings, was not an exercise in gluttony. There's a reason that Fiamma's pies, like those in Italy, come with a knife and fork and a pizza cutter. You treat it as a main dish. And this was a well-balanced dish, with classic Italian flavors over Fiamma's excellent crust.
One reason I like going to pizzerias with my friends, besides the pleasure of their company, is that I get to try three pizzas. One friend got a diavola, topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella, spicy soppressata, basil, and spicy olive oil, and the other got a capricciosa, with tomato sauce, parma cotto, mixed mushrooms, mixed olives, mozzarella, basil, and extra virgin olive oil.
As much as I liked my San Daniele, I think I would've traded it for theirs. I love good olives, and I love spicy food, so both pies were right up my alley (although I will never love mushrooms, so I'd probably ask to have those left off if I ordered a capricciosa).
It may be needless to say, but all the pizzas had an excellent crust - blackened but not burnt, crisp but chewy. Thin in the middle, thick along the edge, this crust could stand on its own, with no toppings at all.
I had a moment to chat with Giuseppe, the proprietor. Work continues on Fiamma's new location in the city, at the corner of Atlantic Ave. and Russell St. It sounded as if they had hit a few minor snags, physically, which is typical, I think, so look for them to open later this summer or this fall.
In the meantime, get to Fiamma at its original location in Gates. It's world-class pizza.

Fiamma, 1308 Buffalo Road


585-270-4683


info@fiammarochester.com

Lunch
Mon-Sat - 11:45am-2:00pm

Dinner
Mon - Thurs 4:30pm-9pm
Fri - Sat 4:30pm-10pm
Sun 4:00pm-8pm

Akron, NY Part I: PizzaBella

I took advantage of my recent visit to the Perry's Ice Cream plant in Akron, NY to hit a couple of pizzerias in town.
Conveniently, they are located on the same block, on the north side of Main Street. First up was PizzaBella.
My cheese slice was a New York style, thin-crust pizza. And it was a good one.
The underside was spottily browned, but not quite blackened. It was crisp, and a little crackly along the outer edge. The crust was a little chewy, and very thin, but firm. I got some nice toasty notes from underneath, but there wasn't much interior to speak of. The narrow cornicione was crisp.
On top, the sauce and cheese likewise stuck to the NY-style profile - lightly seasoned tomato sauce, and a well-melted layer of mozzarella, with a few pockets of sauce poking through. The pizza was very well balanced, with the crust, sauce and cheese in good enough proportion to complement but not overwhelm each other.
PizzaBella offers 15 pizza toppings, and 14 gourmet pizzas. The latter range from an "Old Fashioned" with tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese, to a "Godfather" topped with tomato sauce, pepperoni, sausage, ground beef, mushrooms, green pepper, onions, black olives and mozzarella. They also offer several white pizzas.
PizzaBella is a convenient place to stop for takeout, but it's also a full-service restaurant. Aside from pizza, you can get wings, salads, burgers, wraps, hot and cold subs, calzones and tacos. For more substantial fare, PizzaBella offers several pasta dishes, chicken or sausage cacciatore, and eggplant or chicken Parmigiana. They also serve wine and beer in the dining room.
Akron, which is about 55 miles west of Rochester, is more within the Buffalo metro area than in Rochester's. So I'll not give it a grade. Aside from its neighbor pizzeria just up the block (which I'll review soon), I simply don't have enough experience of pizza around there to say whether it's truly one of the best, or "just" above average.
But make no mistake, this was very good pizza. I could pick a few nits, I suppose - the underside was a bit more browned than charred (which affects the aroma and flavor as it hits your palate, although there you start getting into matters of personal preference), and the crust was so thin that it lacked much of an interior (though to its credit it was not floppy), but I would definitely go back, and if you're in the area, it's well worth stopping for.
Lastly, I should mention that PizzaBella is going to be moving down the street, to 66 Main Street, in a few months. Just keep that in mind.

PizzaBella's Italian Bistro, 42 Main St.
Akron, NY 14001

(716) 542-1122

Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Sun. 4 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.