Expect the unexpected at cheeky Pi Pizza in the Heights
Mac-and-cheese pizza? Seriously?
It sounded like a stunty, carbodacious idea straight out of the darker recesses of the foodtruck genre, which is where Anthony Calleo, the guy behind Pi Pizza, got his start. Left to my own devices, I’d never have ordered the Who’s the Mac pie at his new brick-and-mortar establishment in the Heights.
But my guests wanted it. I wanted to to be nice. And that’s how a 16-inch wheel spangled with fat, ridged curls of macaroni and glistening hanks of thick-cut bacon wound up before me on a recent evening.
One bite and I renounced my misgivings. Who knew smoky bacon, sturdy noodles and a mellow mesh of cheese would play together so happily on a thin, crisp-bottomed crust? A thin swipe of sweet-tart, herbal tomato sauce lifted up all the flavors and tied them into a memorable package.
I should have known, I found myself reflecting sheepishly. The wiry, fast-talking Calleo is something of a flavor savant, as I discovered when I reviewed his pizza truck back in 2012. I noted then his uncanny knack of making the improbable-sounding palatable in such madcap creations as his Drunken Peach pizza, in which peaches and blueberries soaked in whiskey syrup somehow clicked mightily with sharp, salty goat cheese and a bit of habanero chile burn.
At his very likable new restaurant, his quirky talents seem even sharper, his skills more mature. He has acquired a veteran restaurant partner in Lee Ellis, who struck out on his own with Cherry Pie Hospitality after years shepherding the F.E.E.D. TX group, which counts the Liberty Kitchen ventures among its concepts. So Calleo finally has a nice
big kitchen to call his own, along with systems backup from pros like Cherry Pie’s Rob Harvey and Laurie Sheddan Harvey, the beverage whiz who has done a bang-up job with Pi Pizza’s frisky bottled and frozen cocktails.
Everything adds up, from the eager service, to the array of custompainted skateboards on black-and-gold calavera wallcovering, to the exhilarating edge of the ’80s and ’90s punk soundtrack. The pizzas can be terrific. Calleo has upped his crust game. And all sorts of delightful surprises lurk in unexpected places on the menu.
About that crust: Calleo is not working in the Neapolitan or wood-fired modes so popular of late. He’s always dealt in a thinner, crunchier style that reminds me of New York pizza, with a notably crisp bottom and a chewy crown. Blistering, char or sootiness are not part of the deal. Crunch and even the occasional crackle is part of the textural equation, though, especially when the pies are given a bit of extra time in the deck ovens. Two times out of three my crusts have emerged with admirable snap; the third, they were almost but not quite there.
The toppings seemed near-uniformly fine. I was particularly enamored of a pie called The Business, graced with a crumbly, fennel-spiked house-made sausage and wonderfully soft, sweet butter-thyme onions. The Calleo grace note? Salty little blasts of feta among the milder mozzarella-and-provolone blend he has always favored.
I could have eaten an entire 16-inch American Classics: Supreme pie by myself, to my surprise. I’m not a big fan of meat-stravaganza pizzas, but Calleo’s festival of salty-hot soppressata, Italian sausage, pancetta and blobs of ground beef woven together with strips of butter-thyme onions and roasted red pepper was delicious, a word I use sparingly. Roasted mushrooms and whole Kalamata olives added some earthy pop.
Calleo puts some Houston Dairymaids specialty cheese to good use in his pizzas, salads and starters. The Luv Ya Blue pie uses bolts of buttermilk blue cheese to set off blobs of ground beef and caramelized onion. The Funk & Circumstance pizza adds rich, aromatic Taleggio to a mix of lemon-roasted cauliflower, softened garlic cloves and red chile flakes. A bit more lemon lift to that cauliflower and the flavors would have been gripping.
But the flavors gripped and held in the Herbivoracious pie, strewn with springy little arugula leaves on a base of roasted garlic oil, toasted almond and red chile flakes, all kicked into focus with lemon zest and the fragrant, spicy zing of fennel pollen. Just perfect.
So, for that matter, are similarly seasoned appetizer “breadsticks” which are more like soft yeast rolls glazed in roasted garlic oil and jumped up with fennel pollen, chile flakes and haunting mesquite-smoked salt.
The same could be said for the absurdly good pizza fries, hand-cut skinny potatoes dolloped with Italian-seasoned queso and tomato sauce, lord help us; or the elegant Barney’s flatbread appetizer, layered with creamy, mixed-milk Robiola cheese and escorted by a wonderful tart salad of arugula and toasted pumpkin seeds.
I wish Pi listed this salad in its worthy salad section, which features a lovely tumble of baby spinach leaves in warm bacon vinaigrette, sparked with buttermilk blue and more bacon; as well as an idiosy-cratic whole-leaf romaine Caesar, the leaves coated with a spunky scratch dressing and wisps of good grated Parmesan. You’re meant to eat it with your fingers, to my delight. On my first try a few of the leaves had browned spines, there was too little dressing, and the house-made croutons had been sorely overfried. On my second, all was well, and the salad’s cheek paid off.
At Cane Rosso earlier this year, I was dubious about the cocktails-and-pizza equation. At Pi, I finally began to get it, even if their craft beers and a few funky pizza wines (try the Crusher Petite Sirah) seem like a more natural fit. Laurie Sheddan Harvey’s marvelous Hanoi High Five bottled cocktail — a mix of chile-tinged gin, Chartreuse, lemongrass, cucumber, ginger and citrus that’s a souvenir of her partnership with Leslie Ross — has enough grip and edge to work well with pizza, and with Calleo’s big flavors.
Sheddan Harvey’s intriguingly bittersweet frozen Negroni does, too. And her head-spinning “Old Fashioned” ice cream, with its swirl of Bourbon and voluptuous Luxardo-soaked cherries, writes a fine finish to a meal at one of 2016’s most