The Richmond

Way back when, on any given night you might've seen me had you walked into Richmond's, a bar on Richmond Street in Rochester. It was a truly great bar. The neon "SORRY WE'RE OPEN" sign in the window pretty much told you what you needed to know about Richmond's. "Dive" doesn't sound quite right, but anybody and everybody was welcome. I think someone best described it as a neighborhood bar without a neighborhood.

 Sadly, Richmond's closed in 2020, apparently a victim of the COVID restrictions imposed by New York State (don't get me started on that). 

But it re-emerged in 2022, under different ownership, as "The Richmond," with a makeover and the addition of pizza. I put it on my to-do list, but saved it for a later day, when I would start doing blog posts again.

I went back recently with my wife for dinner, on a Saturday night around 6 p.m. The layout was about the same as I remembered it -- bar up front, some booths along the back -- but a bit classier looking, which is either a good or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. Happily, the "SORRY WE'RE OPEN" sign remains, now in blue instead of the old red neon.

We shared an appetizer of cauliflower salad, which
was very good. I highly recommend it.

From there, we got two pizzas, a Margherita and a "Cup N' Char." Pizzas are described on the menu as "Neapolitan style," and while I will leave it to interested readers to do further research on the parameters of that style, I would say these fell within that category: thin, relatively soft, and foldable.

I'll start with the Cup N' Char, which is described as topped with cup n' char pepperoni, mozzarella and house red sauce. It was pretty good, with nearly-burnt pepperoni on top and some charring underneath.  But the crust didn't wow me. One mark of a great pizza, for me, is that when I eat through to the edge (cornicione), I keep on going, because it's that good. I didn't get that here. The crust just didn't have a lot going for it. I don't claim to be an expert but it seemed like a quickly-risen dough that didn't have time to develop the kind of complexity I would expect from a Neapolitan-style pizza. But all in all, not bad.

The Margherita was, sad to say, a disappointment.  As with most things pizza, it started with the crust.

 The underside was quite pale. I wouldn't say that the crust was raw -- given its thinness, it didn't take long to bake -- but it was underdone, for sure.

I suppose we could've sent it back, although I've never done that before with a pizza. Come to think of it, I've never done that before, with any dish, but I can see doing it with meat. Pizza? Maybe, with a slice, if you want the bottom to get crisp, but the problem here was that the top side was already well-baked. A few more minutes and it would've been overdone.

The toppings were not enough to make up the difference. My tastes in pizza differ somewhat from my wife's, but we both commented on the sauce. It was thin and tasted as if it had come out of a jar. I suggested Ragu, and she didn't disagree. I have fond memories of Ragu spaghetti sauce, but it's not what I expect on a Margherita pizza. (I am NOT saying they used Ragu. I'm saying that's what it brought to mind.)

 I took a walk back to the oven area and it appeared to me that though the oven has the appearance of a wood-burning oven, the heat came entirely from a gas flame. (I should point out that they don't claim to do wood-burning pizza; I'm not accusing them of false advertising or anything like that.) Again, I don't claim to be an expert but I wondered if the oven hadn't had long enough to come up to full temperature when we got there. I didn't see a temp on the oven, so I don't know how hot it was, but there seemed to be a disconnect between the ambient temperature, where the toppings cook, and the deck, where the bottom cooks.

It occurred to me during dinner that I and fellow pizza aficionados have gotten spoiled over the years. Some years ago, I would've been amazed to get this pizza in a bar. Today, thankfully, standards have risen and I am a little more demanding.

 I will add that the service was great. We sat  at the bar, in my old spot, and the bartender was attentive. When the pizza came out, the server explained that the chef had mistakenly added hot honey and red pepper flakes, and she offered to take it back and have it redone, but I was fine with it. 

So ... 

It was great to get back to Richmond's. Nice to see that wings are still on the menu, although I don't know if they're up to the old standards; maybe next time I'll find out. (Mike, if you're out there, you made the BEST wings anywhere, anytime.) 

Based on this one visit, I would describe the pizza as a bit of a disappointment, but showing potential. Get better sauce and make better use of that oven (and maybe do a longer, colder dough rise), and they might have something great. That may sound like damning by faint praise, but that's not my intent. Some tweaking is all it needs.

The Richmond

21 Richmond St., Rochester, NY  

Mon., Wed. 4 pm - 10 pm

Thu., Fri. 4 pm - midnight

Sat. 1 pm -  midnight

Sun. 1 pm - 10 pm

 

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)

 

Pizza Wizard

After being happily surprised to see that some people had fond memories of this blog (hell, I wasn't sure if anybody would remember it at all), I saw that more than one person asked me to do a post about Pizza Wizard on South Clinton Avenue in Rochester.

I'd been there before, more than once, but this made me realize that in addition to my personal to-do list of places I haven't been to, there are a lot of other places I have been to but never blogged about, because I went there during my blog "vacation." So I've got more than enough to keep me busy for a good long while.

In response to readers' requests, then, I went back to Pizza Wizard for lunch with my wife. For those who don't know, Pizza Wizard specializes in Detroit-style pizza. I don't remember exactly when I first heard of that style, but I believe it would've been in the late 20-teens, since that's when it suddenly seemed to catch on nationwide.

I do remember being skeptical when I first heard of Detroit-style pizza. I thought (and to some extent still do) that marketers are perpetually looking for something to turn into the Next Big Thing. Pick a city, call it a style, and run with it. It doesn't help matters that by the time a genuine style reaches the hinterlands, far beyond where it began, it tends to be a faint shadow of the real thing.  

But even when I wasn't blogging, I was keeping up with pizza news and pizza trends. And as I read more about Detroit-style, it seemed to me that yeah, it sounded like a genuine, distinctive style, not just a marketing gimmick. I won't try to describe it in detail here, but if you want a description I'll refer you to this post by one of my favorite food authors.

So when Pizza Wizard opened in October 2020, I was curious, and I went there not long afterwards. I liked it enough to return from time to time. But for purposes of this blog post, I'm going to focus on my most recent visit.

On this occasion, they had about ten pizzas to choose from, all Detroit style. I'm pretty sure that at one time they also offered thin-crust pizza, but that was nowhere to be found and I didn't see it on the menu.

Several of the pizza options intrigued me, but I always like to start with the basics, so I got a plain cheese slice with red sauce. My wife opted for a veggie slice, which was described as topped with tomato, kale, artichoke, onion, and sun-dried tomato. 

I've never been to Detroit, so I can only go by what I've read, but my slice checked all the boxes. Thick but light, airy crust, crisp and slightly fried underneath, with burnt cheese dripping down along the sides. It was topped with a thick layer of brick cheese, and atop that a wide stripe of tomato sauce, which was thickish and more sweet than tangy, reminiscent of one of those sauces you cook all afternoon on the stove.

 So yeah, I was pretty happy with my slice. I remain a New York-style fan, first and foremost, but I get why Detroit-style pizza has gained a solid place in the American pizza pantheon.

However ...

My wife was not nearly as happy with her slice. Her chief complaint was that it was too oily. She only finished about half of it, and gave the rest to me.

I may have somewhat broader tastes in pizza than my wife, so that may account for part of it. She likes thin-crust pizza. And because it's pan-baked, Detroit-style pizza will inevitably have some oil on the bottom. But I could see her point. Her slice was noticeably oilier and a bit denser than mine. 

I suspect that was attributable in part to the toppings.While "veggie" sounds like a "light" slice, it's not necessarily so. The toppings themselves are often sauteed in oil before being added, and the sheer weight of the toppings will tend to compress the crust. 

I also noticed that what I tasted didn't quite align with the description of the slice. I picked up a distinct note of garlic, which was not on the written description, and if there was artichoke on there, I missed it. Maybe it was scattered across the pizza, and this slice, or at least the part that I got
didn't have any. 

So. Thoughts.

I was happy with my cheese/red sauce slice. I remain a thin-crust lover, but this was much better than the typical thick-crust sheet pizza slice:  crisp, light and flavorful. It also reinforced my natural inclination to stick with the basics. Pepperoni probably would've been a good choice too, but I wouldn't overdo it. 

I would also caution readers that a lot depends on what you like. It's good to be open to styles you haven't tried before, but no matter how much others rave about a particular pizzeria or style, if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. In the case of my wife's veggie slice, I think part of her displeasure was attributable to her personal preferences, but again I could understand why she found it heavy and oily.

I'm still debating whether to again assign any sort of grades or ratings to pizzas. For now, no. I think I can better serve readers and the pizzerias by being as accurately descriptive as I can. To sum up this visit to Pizza Wizard, I'll say that they do a creditable job of replicating the Detroit style (again, based on what I know of it), and that unless you're a thin-crust-only diehard, it is well worth checking out. I mentioned earlier that I have stopped in from time to time, and I will continue to do so.

Pizza Wizard

760 South Clinton Ave. Rochester, NY 14620

585.565.4557