Details enhance baker’s pizzas, breads

Bryan Tyler is an unrepentant artisan who has been called — charitably, of course — “the crazy baker” by his customers.

“I agree with them,” said the owner of Tyler’s Pizzeria & Bakery in Reynoldsburg.

With old-world determination, Tyler takes painstaking measures to craft his dough, bread and baked goods.

Tyler started in 2004 with the Bread Basket Family Bakery in Gahanna, but he decided to move because he couldn’t install a wood-burning oven.

In 2010, he opened the Reynoldsburg location as a satellite store, closing the Gahanna operation a year later.

Tyler said he is a big supporter of locally and regionally sourced ingredients, getting his eggs and ash wood from a farmer just down the street, honey from Roger’s Honey in Baltimore, butter and whole milk from Hartzler Family Dairy in Wooster and ground beef and sausage from Holly Hill Farms meat shop in Reynoldsburg.

Pizzas are served from 2 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; the The OktoberFeast at Tyler’s Pizzeria & Bakery in Reynoldsburg What: Tyler’s Pizzeria & Bakery Address: 7516 E. Main St. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays Contact: 614-322-9587, www.tylerspizzeriaandbakery.

restaurant is closed Sundays and Mondays.

His crust is made from white organic flour — unbleached and unbromated — salt, yeast and water, with no eggs, sugar or oil.

Tyler is one of the few pizza-makers in town who reduces his sauce of tomatoes, garlic, oregano, basil, salt, black pepper, olive oil and bay leaves.

The sauce is the foundation for

many of his artisan pizzas, including the OktoberFeast ($11.25 for 12 inches, $15.50 for 14 inches), layered with freshly shredded mozzarella, Black Forest ham, red onions and sauerkraut.

“We’ve got a lot of people going, ‘Sauerkraut?’” he said. “I tell them, ‘You need to try it.’ ”

The cheeseburger options ($10.50, $14.50) get the same sauce and mozzarella, with ground beef, cheddar cheese, sliced tomato, onion and pickles.

“You eat two slices of that and you can barely walk away from the table,” Tyler said. “It’s extremely filling.”

When pizza hours end at 9 p.m., Tyler rakes out the coals, bricks up the front of the oven to retain

the heat and bakes bread, also using organic flour, the next morning.

The open-faced pepperoni croissant ($4) straddles the world of pizza and bread, with a flaky base cut into squares brushed with egg wash and layered with sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni.

The most popular of the whole loaves is the sweet rustic ($5), similar to a French country loaf, which has a mild honey sweetness.

Sourdough ($5), built from a constantly refreshed starter, is gaining traction with the customer base.

“I tell people — and they don’t believe me — it makes some amazing French toast,” Tyler said.