Daily Loaf

Tucked into a strip mall near USF’s main campus, along with a sports bar and tanning salon, you’ll find Peter Taylor’s passion project: Wood Fired Pizza Wine Bar. From the rich orange and gold colors of the floor to the wood burning oven visible from every seat in the house, the entire place was assembled by Taylor’s own hands.

Sinatra music plays in the background and there is not a flatscreen TV to be found. Leather seats convince you to stay a while to enjoy your meal and conversation. Pizzas named Sophia and Raquel are an homage to silver screen icons.

Taylor mans the oven and, if you ask, he’ll tell you how the 16th century cannonball at the front of the store represents the birth of pizza, when Italians first thought to put the once-considered-poisonous tomato on yeast bread. He will convey the story of true Neapolitan pizza and how it became bastardized after arriving in America. That said, he does not claim to make true Neapolitan pies. His are part Neapolitan, part New York, part Peter Taylor.

He grows an original strain of San Marzano tomatoes at his home, and harvested the yeast used for the naturally leavened dough himself. Mozzarella is hand-made in-house.

His crusts are thin and perfectly chewy. Black, charred bits speak of the oven it’s baked in, which reaches temperatures between 850 and 1000 degrees. The tomato sauce and cheese balance with the dough, by design, due to carefully controlled acidic profiles.

Save room for dessert — the cannoli is his Nana’s recipe (with chocolate chips added) and a chocolate dessert pizza features Nutella. One bite of this and you’ll wonder how you ever survived on anything else.

Wood Fired Pizza Wine Bar 2822 Bearrss Ave., Tampa, FL 33613
813-341-2900
www.wood-firedpizza.com
All items are available for take-out but Taylor says the fresh mozzarella is best straight out of the oven.  Their alcohol license is currently in the works, so bring your own bottle for a tiny corkage fee of $5.

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