Omnivore Atlanta

Thanks to Alice Kaufmann for finding this clip of Houseboat. The scene with Sophia Loren instructing Cary Grant’s son to fold his pizza, is at the end of the clip, starting around 8 minutes, 45 seconds.

So, Jeff Varasano’s own instructions on how to eat pizza are completely supported by the world’s preeminent sex symbol of the ’60s. Then again, it should probably be noted that Cary Grant’s kid seems about as impressed with the instructions as some of our own commenters.

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Jeff Varasano was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” Sunday. You can hear the piece on the NPR website.

Meanwhile, a couple commenters on my recent post about tweeting for free cake at Varasano’s are griping about a new card on the tables there. They instruct diners to fold their pizza slices for maximum deliciousness. I reminded them that Sophia Loren gave the same advice in the film Houseboat. I’ve looked everywhere for a clip of that scene but haven’t found one yet.

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Here’s my friend David Sandler photographing his chocolate cake at Varasano’s Pizzeria earlier this week. Dessert is free if you use your mobile device to post something “nice” about your meal on Twitter or Facebook.

It wasn’t hard to say something nice. I ordered the margherita pizza with bufala mozzarella and David ordered the Nana, a similar pie that features more complex herbs than the straight up fresh basil on the margherita.

I noticed that the restaurant now has instructions on the right way to eat pizza (right) on every table. It’s true that eating it this way makes the sometimes gooey texture less problematic. But we got no goo with our pizzas. They were just about perfect.

(Top photo by Cliff Bostock; right photo by David Sandler)

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Tonight, beginning at 10 p.m., is piggy pie night at Varasano’s. For $12.95, you get a slice of every pizza on the restaurant’s menu. Your entire table must participate and — here’s the worst part — the offer is only good for the first 20 people who get there. I’m sure you won’t mind camping at the front door for a few hours with your iPod.

By the way, I notice that Tom Maicon of Atlanta Cuisine is troubled by the inconsistency he finds at the vaunted pizzeria. The very mixed reviews of the restaurant themselves bear witness to the inconsistency.

Tonight is also P’cheen’s “Bone Lick BBQ” night. And $15 buys you all the mussels you can eat at the Peasant Bistro.

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Bon Appétit’s “Foodist” visits Atlanta and files rave reviews, replete with pics, of near-neighbors Varasano’s and Holeman & Finch. Excerpts:

Varasano’s won’t win any design awards for hipness; it’s a few steps up from an airport food court. (I was reassured, though, to notice the girl sitting next to me wearing a t-shirt that read “Shakespeare hates your emo poems.”) But never mind that. I challenge you to find me a better pizza pie…

H + F’s menu is devoted to small plates: trad Southern meets trad pub. Cornmeal Fried Oysters were perfect. One poached egg served with a small, thick piece of house bacon and a Johnnycake was satisfying–and just right size. Best of all was the house-made currywurst served with Savannah Red Pea dahl, a brilliantly balanced melding of flavors and smart nod to England’s love of Indian food.

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We hit Fritti tonight around 9:30 and found Enrico Liberato, the restaurant’s new pizzaiolo, hard at work, turning out pies for a crowd that was rather large for late Sunday night. In fact, restaurant owner Riccardo Ullio reports that business has been so good that April was the restaurant’s best month ever — by a large amount.

The flip side is that the wood-burning oven can hardly keep up with the demand, so Fritti will be getting a new one soon.

I departed from my usual Napoli tonight, and ordered the Robiola e Pesto, a white pie made with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and argula pesto. Wayne ordered the Quattro Formaggi — four cheeses with San Marzano tomato sauce. Both were nearly perfect, but nothing beats the Napoli here.

The restaurant will begin offering a new pie made with scamorza affumicata in a few weeks. A smoked cow’s milk cheese, it’s seldom seen on menus in Atlanta. Ullio plans to develop some starters using the scarmoza, too.

Meanwhile, the Pizza Wars continue. Readers are still responding to my original Omnivore post about Varasano’s Pizzeria over a month ago. AJC critic Meridith Ford Goldman basically shared my own view of Varasano’s in her must-read review last week:

But often the pizzas are soggy and laden — and worse, inconsistent. A “New Haven clam” pie touts clams, mussels, lots of garlic and either a white or red sauce (all of which are far better on a mound of linguine than a mound of dough), at one offering limp and lifeless and at another much more appropriately crisped.

The rest of the menu is as uneven as the pizzas: the zeppole are a fun, but nothing sensational. Insalata Caprese is made with mealy heirloom tomatoes prepped ahead of time so that the entire salad is ice cold when it’s served, making it as much a heap of “tasteless cardboard” as Varasano so infamously calls Fritti’s pizza on his website.

It ain’t bragging if you can do it, goes the old baseball saying goes. Varasano’s Pizzeria has a little more doing to do.

Friends who visited Varasano’s last week had the same experience of radical inconsistency. I have to wonder if all the comparison to Varasano’s isn’t what has caused Fritti’s business to boom.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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Well, it’s official. Varasano’s Pizzeria doesn’t suck.

No, really. It was great today. I lunched there with my usual Friday companion Brad Lapin and Frank Miller. Brad, as I’ve reported many times before, lives in Rome part of the year and is a super-picky eater. He ordered the Nana’s pie. Frank chose the New Haven Clam and I ordered the Margherita and paid $5 extra for bufala rather than the fiordilatte mozzarella.

Personally, I found Brad’s choice much too gooey in the center, but he considered it a minor objection, claiming the pizza style belongs more to Rome than Naples. My own pizza (pictured) was really delicious: the appropriate crispy outer crust, bufala melting into the tomato sauce but not losing its solidity, enough basil to provide an occasional blast of flavor and not too soft in the center. Frank’s clam feast, not my favorite there because of the ultra-heavy garlic, looked structurally sound.

I was surprised to find the restaurant nearly empty on a warm afternoon ideal for patio dining.

The debate will continue whether Varasano’s or Fritti serves the better pizza, but I’ll be craving the Margherita regularly.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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Yep, Varasano’s Pizzeria is now open for lunch. Check it out and file a report. The restaurant, by the way, has a new website, replete with menu.

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I received this review of Varasano’s on Facebook. It’s from Steve Harper:

I convinced Ken he needed an adventure, and we hoofed it into Buckhead tonight (Friday) from Alpharetta to visit Varasano’s for the second coming of pizza.

I have to say…what we ate was terrific, and we had a great time.

The place was packed, and we were told we would have a twenty-five minute wait, which I expected. After about that length of time, the hostess asked if we would like to sit at the “pizza bar,” and we did.

This turned out to be a bit of luck, as the kinetic craziness of the folks in the kitchen was a show in itself. We had full view of nearly every aspect of the pie-making that was going on for the restaurant. It was interesting to see staff training each other, offering suggestions and support, and keeping their heads as they attempted to work together against the potential melee of a million pizza orders.

So, the food. We started with delicious spinach salads with candied pecans, raspberry vinaigrette, and little bits of mozzarella. Basic, but quite delicious.

One great thing about this new restaurant for vegetarians (one of us) is that there are several equally interesting options. We decided to share two veggie choices, the caramelized onion pie with emmenthaler and the “dulci” with mission figs and walnuts.

Both were delicious. The CHAR (as mentioned by some reviewer this week) was indeed, charry, in a lovely way. Crunchy, slightly “burny” on some bites. I was amazed at how many different flavors came out of both pies, which were well-layed with the various ingredients. (It was fun watching the fellow do the layering right in front of us.)

The onion pie was slightly sweet and savory, but the fig pie, I think, would make a better dessert offering than the free doughnuts we received for a minor glitch from our otherwise excellent server.

Jeffrey Varasano. seemed relatively calm as he surveyed the profitability.

Ken, who (bless his heart) can be both loud and honest, made a comment to me about the cleanliness of the pizza cutter and a certain rag on the counter, and what do you know! The super-friendly staff were really trying to please (and vegetarians are, after all, a little crazy, in my estimation),

We made a game of guessing which pies we were seeing constructed, and I can tell you, I would like to eventually try them all.

Eat on!

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Let’s hear it for that rarest of psychiatric disorders, folie à plusieurs, “the madness of many,” whereby large groups of people develop a shared delusion.

You remember how thousands drove to Conyers once a month to see the Virgin Mary screw with astronomical phenomena and channel messages to a woman living there. That was arguably a case of folie à plusieurs, even though nobody really deserved classification as loony-toons. (Of course, religion always exempts itself from characterization as crazy, even when its statues are bleeding grape jelly.)

I’m sorry, but I feel some of the same is going on with Varasano’s, the new pizzeria in Buckhead, whose opening — 10 years in the making, according to our server Sunday night — has caused more buzz than any restaurant in memory. Last week’s opening was even announced in the New York Times.

There’s a very simple explanation for all of this: Owner Jeff Varasano (whose passion for pizza I certainly do not question) has been hosting foodies at his home, where he has long experimented with making the perfect pizza.

(more…)

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Varasano’s. Hurry.

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The much-awaited Varasano’s Pizzeria is on the verge of opening in Buckhead. Staff has been training and cocktails have been tested (tonight!), according to gossip on Facebook. The hysteria is building. Soon, Flip will be so yesterday. It’s all about pizza now, baby.

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UPDATED BELOW

I filed a Grazing column about the new Pizza Fusion this week (and it should appear online soon).

Meanwhile, every pizza fanatic in the city is eagerly awaiting the opening this month of Varasano’s Pizzeria in Buckhead’s new Mezzo building. Jeff Varasano has become the Internet’s pizza guru, as John Kessler wrote in the AJC in July.

Our favorite new blogger, Foodie Buddha, wrote a great post after previewing Varasano’s at a private gathering last month. Among his observations:

Varasano’s humor comes through in the form of two pizzas: The Dude and The Chic. As you may guess, the dude pizza is heavy on the meats while the chic tends to lend itself to ones’ lighter sensibilities. The dude pizza was so delicious that I gladly swallowed the black olives served on top! That’s saying something – I do not care for black olives on my pizza. Other classic ingredients found their way onto my plate throughout the evening. These included, but were not limited to, prosciutto, lemon, basil, mozzarella, and sausage. In addition, a handful surprises showed up. Both Polly and I agreed that our favorite was the New Haven Clam, a New England tradition based loosely on a white clam sauce. One enthusiastic fan went so far as to call her bite of New Haven orgasmic! We also enjoyed a red clam pizza and a fantastic calzone filled with meat.

UPDATE: Jeff Varasano writes to say this about his opening date: “I don’t have a date but I’m shooting for Valentine’s Day. It’s looking good but coming slow…”

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