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Overnight Sensation, Pizzaiolo Packs in People and Praise
Oakland Magazine by Stett Holbrook / May 2006
The doors at Pizzaiolo open at 5:30 pm and 15 minutes later, it's hard to find a table. Families with babies in expensive strollers, pierced hipsters and older diners all crowd into the smashingly attractive new restaurant right when it opens. Pretty soon, there's a queue of people outside waiting for a table. Oaklanders know a good thing when they find it, and they've jumped all over Pizzaiolo.
The Temescal restaurant, which opened in early June, was months in the making and an instant hit when it finally opened. The restaurant is part of Temescal's growing culinary attractions that include Dona Tomas, Blue Bottle Coffee Co. and newcomers Bakesale Betty, helping make the Telegraph Avenue neighborhood a food lover's destination.
Pizzaiolo has a weathered, soulful look that belies its youth. Inside, the walls reveal the patina of age, exposed brick, old wallpaper and faded paint from business gone by. The previous tenant was a venerable hardware store. Rather than cover the walls with its own contribution, Pizzaiolo seems to celebrate the old spirits of the place by letting its history show through. Which is not to say the place hasn't been updated and remodeled. Beautiful, blown glass lamps hang from the ceiling. A subway tile-backed open kitchen and bar run the length of the restaurant, anchored by the glowing wood-fired oven in the back corner. Wood floors, baskets of fresh produce and bread set out like works of art, table-tops made from recycled lumber and a thrift store worth of odd chairs give the place a warm but distinctly urban charm.
Owner Charlies Hallowell spent eight years manning the pizza oven at Chez Panisse before opening the restaurant. "Pizzaiolo" means pizza chef in Italian, and the kind of rustic, thin crust that Hallowell pulls from the oven is the work of a craftsman at the top of his game. His years at Chez Panisse's temple of seasonal, local and sustanably produced food are in evidence at Pizzaiolo.
The changing menu is drawn from local farms and purveyors and succeeds on the strength of its premium ingredients and simple but condifent technique. There's little need for fancy adornment or overwrought presentation with ingredients this good. The menu begins with a great list of antipasti. One night we had crostini topped with fresh and light Bellwether Farms sheep's milk ricotta cheese and pureed fava benas alongside pickled beets and Romano beans. If you could put early summer on a plate, this would be it. Also great that night was the oven-roasted calamari with ceci beans and creamy aioli. The squid, colored a ruddy brown by the wood oven, was supremely tender, no mean feat with the easy-to-overcook seafood. On another night, we swooned over the oven-fired fresh sardines with Calabrian pepper and cucumber relish. Two whole beauifully roasted sardines, their silvery skin glistening iridescently, were plump and meaty and bursting with fresh-from-the-sea flavor. The contrasting spicy-and-cool relish was the perfect accompaniment. If this dish were served nationwide, Americans would lose their aversion to this wonderful, sustainably harvested fish. Pastas are great, too. Spaghetti with North Carolina white shrimp, pepper flakes, garlic and crunchy, olive oil-soaked breadcrumbs was satisfyingly simple, a testament to the power of excellent ingredients expertly prepared. Even if the pasta was a bit overcooked, I loved the orecchiette with broccoli raab and guanciale, little pasta disks with bitter greens and cured-pork jowl.
The main attraction here is the pizza. The Neapolitan-style pizzas feature a think-but-chewy crust made from organic flour milled in Oakland. The outer crust is thicker than other East Bay thin-pie contenders like Dopo and Pizza Antica, but it's filled with air pockets and blistered bubbles of papery-thin dough that's infused with a whiff of wood smoke. Pizzas include classics like the marinara and the margherita as well as more inventive ones like the salt cod brandade with tomato sauce, sheep's milk ricotta, cherry tomatoes and anchovies, and housemade sausage, escarole and spring onion. With appetizers, I find a pizza too much to finish on my own, so plan to share or take some home.
The waitstaff exudes an East Bay bohemian cool. The servers, who sport well-inked arms and their own eclectic styles of dress, are as good-looking as the restaurant. And they know their stuff. Questions about the menu are answered authoritatively, and they offer wine recommendations as if they had a hand in putting it together. While there can be lags in service because of the crowds, the staff is friendly and professional.
Speaking of the wine list, it's great. The mainly European offerings are well-priced (most are between $22 and $30), and the list features lesser-known but well-chosen varietals. Many are available by the glass, which makes exploring new wines easy. Desserts are small and easy on the sugar, just the right end to a meal. One night featured a good coarse-grained apricot and brown sugar cake, and on another visit, we enjoyed the hazelnut cake with caramel sauce and whipped cream. The addition of some fresh berries would have enlivened the cake even more. They say an overnight success is years in the making. As long as you don't mind a bit of a wait, it's a pleasure to savor the fruits of Hallowell's labors at Pizzaiolo.