Pizzicletta- Quite possibly my favorite place ever…

It’s been well over a month since Sean and I visited Flagstaff, AZ, for a taste of Pizzicletta, and writing this article has been on the top of my “to do” list for weeks now. My paying jobs have kept me busy, so every day I look at my list and reminisce on quite possibly one of my favorite places I’ve ever dined.

Caleb Schiff, owner and pizzaiolo of Pizzicletta, came to Boulder in the fall of 2013 to be a guest chef at the original Pizzeria Locale. We got some great friends together in the caffe space (which has now been renovated into a private dining room), and had a private room to drink fun wines, enjoy one of the best meals of the year, and meet Caleb. You can read all about that fine meal on my business site, Local Table Tours.  As much as I’d love to relive that meal, I have another story to tell here… And so, we were so impressed by this chef and his food that Sean decided to surprise me for my birthday with a trip to Flagstaff to dine at Pizzicletta and ski the Arizona Snowbowl. Greatest birthday present ever! He’s a total keeper.

Pizzicletta is a really small, triangular shaped restaurant, in the same building as Mother Road Brewing, which we visited, of course. The Stefano Ferrara oven, a staple for chefs who are serious about wood-fired cooking, is the centerpiece of the kitchen.

We entered that evening to find more than one familiar face. Our server had also been our server earlier that day at Diablo Burger (a place Caleb suggested we experience), so it felt like walking into our neighborhood pizzeria on the first night we arrived in town.

Sean and I ordered the formaggi with focaccia to start the evening and a bottle of Verdicchio. The cheeses, as expected, were delightful. But, the green hue to the freshly pressed olive oil drizzled over the mozzarella was most impressive to me. Green-grass-fresh-pressed olive oil… You’ve got to love that!

Caleb is an artisan, and the featured olive oils from Casa Pau Hana Olive Farm in Paso Robles is just one of his carefully selected ingredients that help make Pizzicletta the finely put together casual dining establishment that it is. But more on our respect for this chef later. Back to our meal…

Our next plate was a salad of greens, toasted pine nuts, and chevre. And, here’s a fun fact: Pizzicletta only has itsy bitsy saucers or large pizza plates, so our salad was served on a rather substantial piece of ceramic. But, the veggie lover in me couldn’t resist something green, so I made sure to lick this platter clean (Jack Sprat, anyone? ), which was not challenging at all despite it’s large size.

We ordered two pizzas that evening- The SS145- a Bianca with roasted almonds, charred kale, gorgonzola, olive oil, and lemon juice, which, by the way, completely blew our minds! We also ordered a special of the evening that had Caleb’s special touch- Calabrian Chilis, and broccoli rabe, a personal favorite of mine in Italian cooking. Both pizzas, with their “leopard-spotted” crust of wild sour dough yeast were next to impossible to put down, despite our full bellies telling us otherwise. Caleb’s pizza, quite simply, is something you must try, as it’s incredibly difficult to explain perfection to someone who hasn’t tasted it before.

Despite the fact that we were literally stuffing ourselves at this point, we both thought Caleb’s house made gelatto was a good idea… and it WAS! There was no olive oil gelatto offered that evening as we had enjoyed at his guest event at Locale, but the chocolate and vanilla were, like all other dishes at Pizzicletta, perfect.

Talking to Caleb made it abundantly clear that he’s not just some guy who likes to cook, or likes pizza, so he opened a pizzeria. He is a man (geologist, actually), who rode a bike around Italy, found inspiration to open a pizzeria, and pays attention to every single detail. The olive oil is one example. Another is the wood he burns in his artisanal oven that comes from southern AZ and is dried for years before reaching Pizzicletta. This particularly dry wood allows his oven to reach a very high temperature that creates the well known leopard spots on his crust. Caleb’s dough, by the way, doesn’t even make it into the oven until the wild yeast sour dough ferments for days, sometimes upwards of a week. He hand crafts every pie to order topping them with very few ingredients.

And, I must admit the notice on the menu of “No Substitutions Please” was very much appreciated, coming from the substitution or ingredient exclusion capital of the world, Boulder CO.

So, if you’re on  a food quest of some kind, please add Pizzicletta to your list. And if you’re even just passing by Flagstaff, perhaps on Route 66, I suggest a brief detour to enjoy some of Americas best pizza.

Pizzicletta

203 W Phoenix Ave, Flagstaff, AZ

928.774.3242

A 16 at Pizzeria Locale- a culinary excursion to Napoli, via A 16 San Francisco, in Boulder, CO

Pizzeria Locale is my neighborhood pizzeria. I live one block away and take great pleasure in their contemporary Napolitano style pizza. Their pizzaiolo, Jordan Wallace, studied the art of pizza in Napoli, and I dare say he’s one of the best pizzaioli in the US, especially if we’re talking about pizzaioli who serve the wet, uncut Napoli style pizza.

When Locale announced their first guest pizzaiolo event with Chris Thompson of A 16, San Francisco, I cleared some space in my calendar.  The A 16 dinner was three courses for $18 per person, which, by the way, is the most reasonably priced meal I’ve had in a long time.  As with any visit to Pizzeria Locale, we started out with some spritzers. I enjoyed the IPA (Indian Pale Americano) spritz which, like a traditional Americano cocktail, features Campari, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, soda water, and some of their house made hops bitters. My friend Matt, a total gourmand who had not yet been to the pizzeria, enjoyed a Rabarbaro Zucca spritz- a simple spritz of dark amaro and soda water. I’m also constantly craving Locale’s arancini, so we ordered four perfectly crispy balls of risotto to go with our spritzers.

And let’s not forget to mention the lovely couple across from us that evening: Lacey and Paul of DiNalo Glassware. You’ll see some fine glass straws in my drinks in this post and from now on- Once you sip a cocktail from a DiNalo straw…

First came our insalata with escarole, pickled and roasted grapes, caciocavallo, and saba.

I never even read the menu, so my first bite of salad with the grapes was quite a pleasant surprise. Why didn’t I read the menu? It was a bit hectic… There were so many pizza fans dining out that evening, that I walked in to a bustling pizzeria full of friends, associates, and Locale staff, all eager to say hi, chit chat… and then once I brought out the glass straws… talk about a conversation piece.  They’re pretty in Locale’s water glasses-

Anyway, arancini, check. Insalata, check. Next in line was Le Pizze- either a bianca with mozzarella di bufala, radicchio di treviso, prosciutto cotto, garlic, oregano, and parmesan, or una rossa with provola di bufala, cavolo nero kale, tomato, red onion, parmesan, and chili flakes. How is one to choose? Well, between the four of us we ordered two of each. Simple.

There are few things that I enjoy more than eating pizza with a knife and fork, by the way.  That’s just one small reason I’m such a huge fan of this place. But, I got to see a side of Locale I’d not known before- They were so crowded when we arrived that they set up the Caffè with a four-top and a two-top. It was a more private dining experience being in the cozy private room (known as Frasca’s caffè during the day), yet we were attended to as you’d expect within the Frasca family of establishments.

Let’s see, dear reader… what else happened? We enjoyed a bottle of southern Italian red wine with the meal (it doesn’t matter which bottle, it was quite drinkable with pizza and friends), and before dessert, I left the private dining room to say hi to some people and snap photos. Next thing I knew, manager Chris Donato was bringing my friends on a mini private food tour to check out the kitchen and get a behind the scenes view of the pizzeria. I jumped on board, of course. I love getting near the 1000 degree Stefano Ferrara pizza oven. That right there is something worth writing home about.

We returned to our table and found some dolce there- we had a chocolate budino with sea salt and olive oil, which I had actually been looking forward to all day since Locale posted a photo of it on their Facebook page earlier that morning.  We also sipped, in the Italian tradition, a little amaro while guest Chef Chris Thompson was at our table talking about pizza, pizzerias, being a guest chef at Locale… and all kinds of food topics, such as glass straws, that we were able to squeeze into the few minutes he had to say hello.

Writing this makes me want to go to Pizzeria Locale for dinner tonight, as I truly believe that any day is a perfect day for a Locale pizza. But, more to the point- I’m looking forward to future guest chef evenings at Locale. It’s a great way to bring a little bit of the rest of the world into our perfect little Boulder bubble while sharing great pizza.

Taste 5: Frasca Food and Wine

For the fifth day of my 14-part series of giving him a taste of just how much I care, I had plans to cook dinner, as usual.  I finished guiding a dining tour, got home, and started to prep. Then he walked in and said, “Baby- you’ve been cooking so much for me… Why don’t I take you to Frasca tonight?”

Um… yeah. Sure… Definitely.  You want to take me to Frasca? Let’s go and enjoy Frasca. Yes, Please, Thank You.

And that’s what we did. We walked two blocks from my home to Frasca in the midst of a snow storm and wound up enjoying ourselves tremendously.  The snow did not stop, and perhaps it’s partially responsible for our fantastic dining experience.  The restaurant, only half full during a seemingly never-ending storm, was a spectacular place to watch the 18+ inches of snow accumulate. In fact, the snow reached 16.5 inches while we were there, which I only know because owner and Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey went outside with a tape measure while most tables in the restaurant were talking back and forth guessing how much snow had fallen.

Frasca Food and Wine may be described as a quintessential dining experience, and I would agree.  An experience it is. We were there for more than four hours, attentively served course after course, libation after libation… and left with no complaints at all except that, by close to midnight, it was time to go home.

As I said, dining at Frasca is a gustatory experience akin to a carefully orchestrated symphony.  It is possibly the food equivalent to live music. Just as one leaves a world class philharmonic praising the seemingly perfect performance, if you take note as a diner, everyone involved in the dining symphony at Frasca performs nearly perfectly in solos, duets, and as an ensemble.  I’m not just talking about checking coats, pouring water, and serving bread in a timely fashion.  Water glasses seem magically filled (with either still or sparkling… whichever you prefer… ours will always be sparkling), the table is crumbed, napkins folded when you step away from the table, questions answered, conversations encouraged and welcomed.

I’m not going to offer a standard restaurant review, nor recount the evening course after course. I’ll save that for another day… for another feast. Instead, I’d like to share with you some photos that Giovanni Castillo shot of our snowy evening and let the photos tempt you to choose Frasca next time you feel like thoroughly enjoying your meal.

Giovanni ventured into the kitchen with his camera.  Notice there’s a dining table in the kitchen.  I’d like to dine there, I think.

He also got a shot of one of our dishes being plated.

There’s a reason this restaurant is named Frasca Food and Wine.

Reflections make angels, which come in handy when dessert is sinfully good.

From wine to Prosecco to Port to…. the new digestivo cart. Grappa, anyone?  I tried a merlot Grappa. This cart alone offers a number of reasons to return to Frasca.

And I’m looking forward to it…

Photo Credit: Giovanni Castillo