Restaurant Mon Dec 31 2007

Remembering a Summer's Pizza Alfresco

I had stayed in and ordered Pizza Metro delivered this weekend. When I think of their square cut slices on my dining room table, I want it to be warm outside. I want to sit once more at their sidewalk tables on Division. I'd often grab a friend and share a potato rosemary pizza done with the extra sauce, no cheese. Extra sauce gets some crusts soggy, but not here. It comes out crispy on the edges, and firm underneath. Their sauce comes thick, moist and tangy when you get more of it. Toss on mushrooms, green olives or whatever you want. There's no liquor license, but stores a few steps in either direction that will sell you containers. Pizza Metro here has been glad to provide an opener.

Once when the Division Street Pizza Metro had a closed on the door, I had my first experience at the Ashland location. I didn't see outdoor seating or a counter like at Division, where you could sit in front of the ovens. Instead, a few quaint tables filled the front. A mural depicted rough sketches of many small crowded city buildings. I ordered at the register from a woman who remained quite pleasant while juggling another walk-in customer and orders that continued to come in on the phone. I took a half sheet pizza, half of that with cheese for a friend and the other half with the extra sauce, no cheese, jalapeños, spinach and onions. It came perfectly hot. The spinach had been perfectly wilted without making the pizza soggy. The crust's edges were crispy, and the extra sauce was nicely salted with a deep tomato flavor. As I went to pay, a cook put in someone else's pizza, closed the door, and slapped the side of the oven in such a deliberate way that it seemed part of the process - perhaps to get the convection to work.

925 N. Ashland, (773) 772-3267
1707 W. Division, (773) 278-1753 or 1765 for Delivery
Pizza Metro West (not reviewed): 2534 W Division St, (773) 489-9880 or -9896

— Chris Brunn / Comments (1)