Erie pizzeria owners fired up about brick-oven pies; 'More artisan' ovens require skill
Brick-oven and wood-fired ovens are changing the landscape of Erie's pizza choices. While Erieites love to argue who has the best pizza in town, the truth is, no two ovens can make the same pizza. Every recipe, oven, kitchen, pizza-maker and recipe is different. And several pizza chefs are trying to take theirs up a notch.
Having said that every recipe is different, brick-oven and wood-fired ovens do lead to a similar pie in that they have thin, chewy crusts, "Leoparding" or the way the crust turns darker on top in places, leaving charred circles all over it, depending on which part received the most heat.
Speaking of heat, a brick-oven pizza and a wood-fired pizza oven are often confused. Some brick-ovens actually use gas as the heat source, but in a different way than a conventional oven does. The interior of both kinds of ovens are heavy ceramic or, in fact, brick, and the shelves the pizzas cook on ("the deck") are stone and they have to be preheated to between 500 and 900 degrees.
Some brick ovens offer the chefs the option of using wood for their heat source, whereas wood-fired ovens require the chef to build fire in the cavity, and control the heat by how much wood they add.
All these oven choices make it hard to define one from another. Just be aware that you can get a pepperoni pizza at Colony Pizza and another one at Sticks 'n' Bricks and another one at Firestone's and even though they're all cooked in brick or wood-fired ovens, you'll have a different pizza at each location.
Colony Pizza & Catering
Eric Broffman, owner of Colony Pizza & Catering, 2666 W. Eighth St., recently put in a brick oven that uses gas to crank the heat up into the 500- to 600-degree range, and his deck spins the pizza around in a circle. It takes roughly 4 minutes and 17 seconds to cook a pizza.
He said the style of his oven allows him to speed up the process, though it requires constant monitoring to make sure the pizza is cooking properly. It requires more skill than a conventional oven, which he used for 38 years making pizzas before he had this one installed.
"It's primarily used to get that authentic Neapolitan pizza type," Broffman said, adding that his shop, located adjacent to the Colony Pub & Grill, is 3 years old now and his regular and new customers are loving the new approach.
Sticks 'n' Bricks
Russ Meyers, who owns Sticks and Bricks Wood Fired Pizza, 1301 E. Grandview Blvd., builds a wood fire inside his oven and stokes it with thin slabs of wood throughout the day to keep it at 600 degrees. He said he likes it because it feels like there's more skill involved and the pizzas are popular. But that can also present a problem.
"It's a hard skill to teach," Meyers said as he slid a pizza around inside the oven to keep it cooking evenly. "If you lose someone, you lose a lot of training. A lot of burned pizzas."
He said he bought the business a year ago from its previous owner, who grew it out of a food truck. He thinks the trend toward brick oven and wood-fired pizzas actually started in big cities about 10 years ago, and as people would try them and come home to Erie, they wanted that same experience here.
Meyers said it's easier to cook a pizza with fewer toppings.
"If I put a supreme pizza in with the wood fire, it wouldn't get cooked," he said. "The trick is to go light on toppings."
He says when people think of New York style pizza, they think of a crispier crust, which he can achieve at around 600 degrees.
"I like it because it's more artisan," Meyers said of his pizza. "The nuances of it. It's not a pizza you can throw in and forget. It requires some craftsmanship and skill.
"You combine all that and that's what people want. They want to know the story behind it."
But he admits that wood-fired pizzas aren't for everyone.
"It's a preference," he said. "There are so many different styles. That's the fun part."
Ippa Pizza
Jason Spore, who started Ippa Pizza out of a food truck, then parked at the old George's on Glenwood Park Avenue for a stint, recently moved his operation into the pizza/bar section of the Flagship City Food Hall.
His pizzas aren't just unique because they're cooked in a brick oven that he maintains at 800 to 900 degrees. He also makes a lot of his own cheese and offers lots of gourmet toppings and specials combinations, such as Peppi Squared (with a choice among four different types of pepperoni), classic margarita pizza with fresh mozzarella, milled tomatoes and topped with fresh basil, and chicken bacon ranch. For the Kentucky Derby, he offered a Bourbon chicken pizza. For Cinco de Mayo they offered Mexican street corn pizza.
His pizzas cook in 60 to 90 seconds. He said the brick oven is necessary to maintain those high temperatures. Once they get hot, they hold heat.
He also said it's great that more owners are trying brick-oven and wood-fired pizzas.
"It gives people a choice in experience," he said. "Because the ovens are different, the ingredients are different."
Other brick oven and wood-fired pizza restaurants:
We know we don't know of everyone cooking pizzas this way. If your restaurant has a brick oven or a wood-fired oven, please send information to [email protected] and we'll get you added to this list.
Vintage Wood Fire Catering and Restaurant, 3826 West Ridge Road, 814-315-0795
Firestone's, 4823 Peach St., 814-864-5640
Riverside Brewery Co., 1 Fountain Street in Cambridge Springs, 814-813-5005
U Pick 6: All locations
Public House, 4575 West Ridge Road, Millcreek, 814-520-8495
Harbor House, 4454 Buffalo Road, Harborcreek 814-616-8106
Tap House, 333 State St., 814-520-5419
Bay House, 6 Sassafras Pier, 814-413-7440
John Russell Brewing Co., 7520 Peach St., Summit Township, 814-866-BEER
Contact Jennie Geisler at [email protected] or at 814-870-1885.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Brick-oven, wood-fired pizzas are hot commodities at Erie restaurants
