chicago station wrote:

Did it have about this much sausage?

In addition to what Ronnie says about cook time, I think it's a perfectly acceptable aesthetic choice in terms of flavoring your pizza, how much you taste the sausage relative to the sauce, cheese, and crust.

I like their sausage pizza quite a bit, and I don't really understand what's embarrassing serving a pie in this style.

ronnie_suburban wrote:It seems to me that these pizzas are made this way for a very specific reason -- in order to cook properly. If there's too much riding on top, the crust finishes cooking before the cheese and toppings do. Striking a balance between these elements is difficult enough and with oven temps between 730-800 F, those thin-crusts cook very fast. I think Coalfire's pizza is a great example of 'less is more.' Now, is the price too high? That's certainly a valid question but as you say above, customers are "backed up out the door" and the market ultimately decides if the asking price is fair.

I think there's a time and a place for Coalfire's type of pie. I really like it. That doesn't mean, however, that I always want it when I want pizza. Sometimes I want a more "loaded up" style of pie or a deep dish, etc. Still, I think they're very good at what they do at Coalfire and since their stuff truly is distinctive and delicious, paying what might be considered a "premium" for it is ok in my book.

=R=

What you say about the cooking is certainly a possibility. But if the issue was truly about whether or not the sausage would be cooked or not, they could certainly cook or parcook the sausage before putting it on the pizza and firing it. It wasn't a bad tasting pizza, but I felt that those folks who took the photos of sausage pizzas and posted them a few months back either got preferential treatment, ordered extra meat or the recipe has changed. The sausage pizza I had last night looked NOTHING like the pictures that I saw on LTH. I certainly wasn't looking for, or expecting, a "loaded" pizza. I just wanted to see something that was recognizable as sausage on the pizza that I was served. My girlfriend joked that our little dogs get more sausage scraps off the floor during a meal than what was placed on our pizza on purpose. As I said, the pizzas were tasty. But if I ever return there, I would order something other than the sausage pizza.

Aaron Deacon wrote:

chicago station wrote:

Did it have about this much sausage?

In addition to what Ronnie says about cook time, I think it's a perfectly acceptable aesthetic choice in terms of flavoring your pizza, how much you taste the sausage relative to the sauce, cheese, and crust.

I like their sausage pizza quite a bit, and I don't really understand what's embarrassing serving a pie in this style.

Absolutely not. That pizza would have made me VERY happy. Mine had what I would call "a dusting of sausage crumbs."

Mr. X and I tried Coal Fire for the first time about a month ago. Under the guidance of this thread, we ordered a sausage pizza and the roasted red pepper and salami pizza. I was not as impressed with the sausage as I was hoping. I think our sausage pizza looked like the one in Aaron's post. I didn't find the sausage to be all that exciting. However, I loved the red pepper and salami 'za, despite the red peppers weren't roasted. It was a great stop before a Bulls game.

I finally got back to Coalfire for the first time since my one and only visit during the "Smoque Effect" long ago. Also, of course, since it was branded the best pizza in Chicago by the absolutely unimpeachable Time Out.

I was deeply impressed with the crust this time. The pliability, the dusty burntness of the bottom, all these things are truly first rate.

As for the toppings... boy, that sure is a good crust all right!

I am just not that impressed by anything happening on the top of a Coalfire crust. And that makes it hard for me to want to go back, much as I admire the foundation. The sparse meats, the less than top shelf mozz., the very simple tomato sauce with few seasonings... A few weeks ago at Spacca Napoli we had a pizza with little smoky bits of bacon; the bacon melded with the cheese into a succulent meaty-cheesy unctuousness that made it one of the best pizzas I've ever had. Coalfire has the base for a pizza that good, but that potential isn't fully paid off in my book.

Mike - you have to try the Santander Special, which is the 'White' pizza with the 'Sausage' toppings; it balances the top of the pie perfectly. Of their mainstream suggestions, I highly recommend the Fiorentino, which also seems to have a better flavoring ratio than the others.

Mike G wrote:I am just not that impressed by anything happening on the top of a Coalfire crust. And that makes it hard for me to want to go back, much as I admire the foundation. The sparse meats, the less than top shelf mozz., the very simple tomato sauce with few seasonings... A few weeks ago at Spacca Napoli we had a pizza with little smoky bits of bacon; the bacon melded with the cheese into a succulent meaty-cheesy unctuousness that made it one of the best pizzas I've ever had. Coalfire has the base for a pizza that good, but that potential isn't fully paid off in my book.

Interesting, but I thought the exact opposite. I felt that Spacca's pizza weren't quite up to snuff and the crusts getting a little thick. A neapolitan pizza is not supposed to be drenched with toppings, cheese, or bacon! They don't even have bacon & cheese in Italy.

PS Coalfire has calzones (folded over pizzas) for $7.99 and think about it: you can get 2 of them for the price of 1 pizza!

PS again: Coalfire's white pizza is ok. But if you like pizza with tomato sauce (95% of all pizza in Italy), think twice. Or get it as a side pizza to split.

RiverWester wrote:They don't even have bacon & cheese in Italy.

Not at any price? How peculiar.

RiverWester wrote:They don't even have bacon & cheese in Italy.

YoYoPedro wrote:Not at any price? How peculiar.

Now pancetta and mozzarella, that's another story.

Yeah, I'm sure I meant Jonathan had opened up a package of Hormel Maple-flavored and was putting that on his pizza.

With Monterey Jack cheese.

RiverWester wrote:They don't even have bacon & cheese in Italy.

RiverWester wrote:But if you like pizza with tomato sauce (95% of all pizza in Italy), think twice.

We are all talking about Italy, Earth here, correct?

Are you sure you actually went to Italy and didn't just read about it in the brochure, RW? I can't believe anybody who's spent time there would makes these claims... unless you visited an Italian city once, ate in a few places and took that to represent the country as a whole?

Mike G wrote:I am just not that impressed by anything happening on the top of a Coalfire crust. And that makes it hard for me to want to go back, much as I admire the foundation. The sparse meats, the less than top shelf mozz., the very simple tomato sauce with few seasonings... A few weeks ago at Spacca Napoli we had a pizza with little smoky bits of bacon; the bacon melded with the cheese into a succulent meaty-cheesy unctuousness that made it one of the best pizzas I've ever had. Coalfire has the base for a pizza that good, but that potential isn't fully paid off in my book.

I don't think anything in the city will ever top Spacca's mozzarella di Bufala but, as much as I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, I actually prefer Coalfire's pie for some reason. I haven't been able to figure out quite why, yet.

Binko wrote:I don't think anything in the city will ever top Spacca's mozzarella di Bufala but, as much as I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, I actually prefer Coalfire's pie for some reason. I haven't been able to figure out quite why, yet.

I'm with you Binko. Although I don't dislike SN at all, I prefer the Steve Z special of sausage and anchovy at Coal Fire.

Finally made it to Coalfire on Saturday night for both the white and sausage pizzas. The crust was incredibly tender with lots of char. The white pizza was near perfect with the char and cheese terrific complements. The sausage was lacking (well, sausage). Each piece had less than a tablespoon's worth of sausage and two pieces were void of any sausage. Already craving the crust so will revisit and order double toppings.

Kathleen

Kathleen K wrote:Each piece had less than a tablespoon's worth of sausage and two pieces were void of any sausage. Already craving the crust so will revisit and order double toppings.

Take a gander at the pizza Gypsy Boy had in rome towards the middle of his post.I think it looks very much like Coalfire's, including the judicious use of toppings. The double (or maybe just a little extra) toppings idea sounds like a winner if you want more of an American take.

stevez wrote:

Kathleen K wrote:Each piece had less than a tablespoon's worth of sausage and two pieces were void of any sausage. Already craving the crust so will revisit and order double toppings.

Take a gander at the pizza Gypsy Boy had in rome towards the middle of his post.I think it looks very much like Coalfire's, including the judicious use of toppings. The double (or maybe just a little extra) toppings idea sounds like a winner if you want more of an American take.

That Gypsy Boy pizza looks marvelous, but certainly is packing a lot more topping ingredients than Coalfire's. If only Coalfire's looked like that!

I have to agree. That's somewhere between the Larry Rivers-like application of cheese and meat common here, and the nearly Malevich-like hand at Coalfire.

YoYoPedro wrote:That Gypsy Boy pizza looks marvelous, but certainly is packing a lot more topping ingredients than Coalfire's. If only Coalfire's looked like that!

Really? I thought it looked very much like the pizzas I've gotten at Coalfire. I just looked in my photo library to post an example and found that I don't actually have any pictures of a Coalfire pizza. I'll have to go again soon to both remedy that situation and to see if they have changed the way they are assembling the pies.

stevez wrote:

YoYoPedro wrote:That Gypsy Boy pizza looks marvelous, but certainly is packing a lot more topping ingredients than Coalfire's. If only Coalfire's looked like that!

Really? I thought it looked very much like the pizzas I've gotten at Coalfire. I just looked in my photo library to post an example and found that I don't actually have any pictures of a Coalfire pizza. I'll have to go again soon to both remedy that situation and to see if they have changed the way they are assembling the pies.

From what I can tell, the crust is quite different. Coalfire's crust has a slight bready thickness at the top, which is crunchy at first but chewy after. Gypsy Boy's Roman pizza looked uniformly thin and crisp, a la the pizzas at Cafe Spiaggia. Similar, but different. I still think that Coalfire is approximating the NY/East-Coast style of Neapolitan (as opposed to Roman) pizza. And doing a good job of it, I might add.

In my visits to Coalfire, I have never had an issue with the ammount of toppings on the pizza. I have found the ammount of sausage to be the perfect compliment to the cheese, and sauce. For me it is all about the crust, which is the best I have ever had.

Perhaps folks need to remember Coalfire isnt stuffed, or pan pizza that in my opinion is overwhelmed with toppings.

G Wiv wrote:Now pancetta and mozzarella, that's another story.

Pancetta is not a usual topping for pizza in Italy. If anything it'd be prosciutto and not cooked with the pizza in the oven. Like this:

Dmnkly wrote:

RiverWester wrote:They don't even have bacon & cheese in Italy.

RiverWester wrote:But if you like pizza with tomato sauce (95% of all pizza in Italy), think twice.

We are all talking about Italy, Earth here, correct?

Are you sure you actually went to Italy and didn't just read about it in the brochure, RW? I can't believe anybody who's spent time there would makes these claims... unless you visited an Italian city once, ate in a few places and took that to represent the country as a whole?

OK, what % of all pizzas served in Italy are non-tomato sauced? You tell me.

Here's a pizzeria in Italy: review their menu for pizza, the vast majority of what they serve in volume has pommodoro sauce. http://www.pizzare.it/dati/imen.htm (Rome)
http://www.pizzare.it/dati_n/imen.htm (Naples)

Emphasis on beer and soda, not bottled Taurasi, Fiano, Greco, etc. for $30+.

aschie30 wrote:From what I can tell, the crust is quite different.

Yes, that's true. I was really comparing the topping density. Not so much the crust.

RiverWester wrote:OK, what % of all pizzas served in Italy are non-tomato sauced? You tell me.

I don't know because, even though I've visited Italy more than a dozen times and spent time in nearly as many cities, I don't consider myself to have had anywhere near enough experience there to be able to make such specific, sweeping, extreme claims. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt you have either. Anecdotally, I've seen tomatoless pizza all over the place, especially at the pizza a taglio places where at times they seem to be a minority (though not at the trattorie, where tomato has, indeed, dominated, but that's one class of restaurant. That's like saying that America serves mostly burgers because all of the fast food places seem to have them).

RiverWester wrote:Pancetta is not a usual topping for pizza in Italy.

First off, you didn't say this. You said they don't have it. And furthermore, I HAVE seen tomatoless cheese and pancetta pizza in Italy. Yes, I would agree that it's not common, but it certainly exists and I've seen it enough that I doubt it's perceived as strange and foreign. My point is that you seem to make a habit of authoritatively wielding authenticity as a cudgel with which to bludgeon foods you don't like, which is bad enough except that you also don't appear to know what the hell you're talking about. If you don't like something, that's enough! Authenticity and quality are independent of each other. You don't have to invent definitions of what's authentic to justify liking or not liking something. So I ask again -- on what basis do you make these claims? Or are we expected to swallow that this menu you point out is singularly representative of the nation of Italy?

Pancetta on pizza in Italy is in the extreme minority. Tomatoless pizzas are also in the large minority. That's all I'm saying. Why would you want to argue so much about that?

The PizzaRe restuarants in Rome and Naples pretty much define the genre. Take a look at them please for reference. It's not worth arguing about what is only found in unusual circumstances. All I ever said is that bacon on pizza is non-existent and pancetta is very rare. That's all I said. Plus all I also said is that most pizzas have tomato sauce which they do, and that I prefer them to white pizzas. Calm down buddy.

If you peruse this link, you can see this is the real deal for naples pizza:

http://www.pizzare.it/dati_n/qual.htm

MikeG said that he is just not that impressed by anything happening on the top of a Coalfire crust, and he likes bacon/pancetta on pizza.

I disagree with MikeG.

RiverWester wrote:Pancetta on pizza in Italy is in the extreme minority. Tomatoless pizzas are also in the large minority. That's all I'm saying. Why would you want to argue so much about that?

The PizzaRe restuarants in Rome and Naples pretty much define the genre. Take a look at them please for reference. It's not worth arguing about what is only found in unusual circumstances.

It is NOT unusual. Walk around Rome, stop into ANY pizza a taglio place, and you will almost assuredly find multiple offerings with no tomato of any kind, and in many such establishments, tomato sauce is the minority. This is why I ask, again, on which basis you make this claim, because I have to believe that if you'd spent any substantial time in Italy, you'd realize how ludicrous this claim is.

Pancetta is less common, agreed, but there is a huge difference between claiming that it's less common, and saying that Italian pizza isn't supposed to have it. The first is a simple fact about which one may or may not be correct. The second implies that you speak for the nation of Italy in stating what their pizza should and should not have, and while there are many people who are qualified to do so, I fail to understand what makes you one of those people, given that you aren't even familiar with how common tomatoless pizza is in the largest city in the nation.

But all of this is less troublesome than the fact that upthread, you lambasted a pizza for its inauthenticity -- nevermind that it doesn't appear you've even tasted the pizza in question, nevermind that whether or not it's authentic has no bearing on whether or not it's tasty, and nevermind that your grasp on what's authentic seems to be tenuous at best.

I thought we were talking about the Naples pizza genre, the one exported worldwide as the overall basic definition of pizza, incl. Coalfire and SN.

Kindly stop being quarrelsome. There may be pizza rustica places in Rome or wherever, but they are the minority, and pancetta on them is in the very extreme minority. Let's just drop this. I just checked SN's website and they don't even have bacon/pancetta on their menu, so MikeG must be mistaken.

Pizza has tomato-sauce and no matter how cool you want to seem to appear, you cannot deny or revise this very basic fact. It's defined by tomato sauce and mozzarella, look it up in the dictionary.

It was a special.

Incidentally, Grupo d'Amici aims to make a Roman rather than Neapolitan pizza-- and offer one very much like the non-oven-cooked prosciutto and arugula one shown above.

RiverWester wrote:There may be pizza rustica places in Rome or wherever, but they are the minority...

It's a simple question, RW... How do you know this??? You keep stating this as fact -- a fact you used to decry the pizza Mike G spoke of as inauthentic -- and I'm asking you on what basis you say so. On what basis can you claim that tomatoless pizza comprises 5% of Italian pizza, and on what basis can you claim that pizza with pancetta is inauthentic?

If you simply don't like Spacca Napoli's cheese and bacon pizza (I don't believe Mike even specified whether it was American bacon or pancetta), just say so. It's a perfectly intelligent and valid opinion that's shared by many. But if you're going to call it out because of its inauthenticity, I'd like to know on what basis you state its inauthenticity as fact.

RiverWester wrote:I just checked SN's website and they don't even have bacon/pancetta on their menu, so MikeG must be mistaken.

They DO have specials, you know.

But I know that you like to refer to websites as canonical, so you must be right.

Clearly SN's website is cutting corners.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Carry on!