Flourchild blooms
Crust is key for the new pizza place, starting as a pop-up.
It didn't look like a Detroit-style pizza, this round-not-rectangular pie from the downtown pop-up restaurant Flourchild, but it definitely tasted like one.
It had that hallmark buttery-flavored crust, an extra dimension of deliciousness for the long-fermented dough — although the long rise takes after New Haven's style of pizza.
When Chef Andrew Miller announced in winter that he'd open a pizzeria and small-plates restaurant next door to his Third Coast Provisions, he said Flourchild would combine New York, Detroit and New Haven styles of pizza. Miller, who'd been working on refining that crust for a while, said the dough ferments for 72 to 90 hours before baking.
Toppings get the glory, but crust is the underappreciated hero of pizza, a reason in itself to choose one pizza over another. Flourchild nails both the flavor and the texture, crisp and chewy.
Its crust doesn't have the loft of a traditional Detroit-style pizza, a sort of deep-dish pie traditionally made in the steel factory pans that held auto parts. (If you want a straight-up homage to Detroit pizza, check out the local independent Classic Slice pizzeria in Bay View for its excellent version, or the Michigan chain Jet's, with locations around Milwaukee).
Flourchild's crust is thinner than that — not a cracker crust, but a crackly crust, thanks in part to the teeny bubbles trapped just beneath the exterior.
For now, the pies are sold for takeout out of Third Coast Provisions. The menu of three rotating pies typically is released on Instagram and Facebook on Mondays or Tuesdays; customers reserve their order and pay for it online through Tock (a link is atop thirdcoastprovisions.com) and choose a time to pick it up on Saturdays, between 3:30 and 9 p.m.
Construction — demolition, to be precise, at this stage — is proceeding on Flourchild's permanent home, the former Distil lounge. There's no telling, though, when the restaurant will open, even just for takeout, considering the coronavirus pandemic and related hurdles.
So Miller is making the pies indefinitely at Third Coast, 724 N. Milwaukee, having gotten a handle on how to bake them with the ovens he has instead of the ovens he one day will have for them (electric, heating to 900 degrees while the exterior stays cool to the touch).
The pop-up menus change more or less weekly, but the cheese pizza ($19) is a constant: fresh and aged mozzarella and pecorino over red sauce with a slight tang. some olive oil, some torn fresh basil. It's basic and luxurious at the same time. Minimalist pie that it is, this pizza stayed crispest.
Flourchild, when it opens, will have eight to 10 pizzas forming the core of its menu.
A few seasonal ones will make limited appearances. That would be a pie like the Green Machine ($21), a pizza for springtime: asparagus and ramps two ways, in pesto and as pickled bulbs with a burst of acidity. Herbs made the flavors pop, too, with fresh basil leaves and dill in creme fraiche.
And then fresh mozzarella and pecorina — the soft, mild yin and hard, zesty yang of Italian cheeses — plus brick, the Wisconsin-invented cheese that Detroit uses to top its pizzas. I've never understood why more Wisconsin restaurants don't use this creamy cheese, but I'm glad to see it here.
It was an especially delicious combination of toppings that made me wish spring lasted longer.
The Froman ($21) might help form the core of the menu: red sauce, mozzarella and pecorina with the house sausage, caramelized onions, and cream cheese blended with giardiniera, a pizza with spice and tang. Delicious, even if the load was a little much for the crust to bear.
Flourchild sells a package deal weekly, two pizzas with a crisp chopped salad of romaine, ditalini pasta, blue cheese, cherry tomatoes and creamy vinaigrette, plus a bar dessert for $50 — a good idea even if you have a smaller household. The leftover pizza crisps up like a dream in the oven; throw it on a cast-iron pan, if you have one.
Planning a restaurant during a pandemic isn't exactly ideal, but it does present opportunities: Miller is using the extended time-frame to get feedback from customers, to determine which pizzas make the cut.
It's also a chance to get customers acquainted with the natural wines the restaurant plans to stock someday. The weekly menu suggests wine pairings by the bottle.
"Regardless of whatever the restrictions look like whenever everything is open, it being pizza, it obviously lends itself really well to pickup and delivery," Miller said, looking on the bright side.
Carol Deptolla has been reviewing restaurants in Milwaukee and Wisconsin since 2008. Like all Journal Sentinel reporters, she buys all meals, accepts no gifts and is independent of all establishments she covers, working only for our readers.
Contact her at carol.deptolla@jrn. com or (414) 224-2841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_ diner.