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Caesar salad
Specialty pizza
Submitted photos
Arancini ball
The lockdown spurred a series of delays in opening the shop, but it also allowed Keyser time to further perfect his canny renditions of New York-style pizza. Some people consider New York-style pizza as thin, floppy slices painted lightly with bland tomato sauce, topped with molten shreds of generic mozzarella and sold — in the old days — at $1 a slice. For Keyser, the challenge became, “How do we elevate what everyone thinks is the (New York) dollar slice?” “(The crust) should be thinner, it should be crispy,” Keyser said. “It should have a crack to it, when you slice into it. It also should have a pull to it, when you eat it. New York-style is a little bit chewier. It’s a little tougher.” He researched flour mills on the West Coast, landing on Cairnspring Mills in Burlington, Washington. “It’s arguably the best mill in the country,” Keyser said. “They mill a variety of wheats. We’ve tested them all. What makes them so special is not just the flavor of the wheat but the digestibility of it as well.” Keyser decided on two flours from the mill: Glacier Peak and Organic Skagit. “We do a blend with those two,” Keyser said. “The Glacier Peak has the color and the flavor of really good bread. It chars very well. The Skagit is a lower-protein flour that makes (the crust) crispier but much lighter as well. You still get that great texture. You get a good balance of chew, lightness and bread. It starts with the wheat and you go from there.” At U Street Pizza, the dough is fermented for two days, before being shaped and baked. Keyser uses a state-of-the-art Pizza Master electric triple-deck oven with four stones per deck. Unlike Napolitano-style pies, which barely get a turn in a very hot wood-burning oven — typically calibrated between 700 and 800 degrees — Keyser’s pizzas sit for 8 to 10 minutes at 550 degrees. “Pizza is all about dialing in the dough, the oven and the shaping,” Keyser said. No $1 slices here. At U Street Pizza, the pies are all 14-inch diameter, the crust has body and bite, and the fresh topping combinations are engineered to maximize tastiness and satisfaction. On the menu, there are eight varieties of house pies, starting with a simple cheese pie ($19) with red sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil. More exotic combinations include the vodka pepperoni ($25) with vodka sauce, ezzo pepperoni, provolone and mozzarella; the Petaluma ($25) with organic Petaluma mozzarella, “grandma sauce” and pecorino romano; and the clam ($26) — really a take on New Haven-style —with little neck clams, fiscalini cheddar, mozzarella, fresh garlic, parsley and lemon. Custom pies are the white pie ($20) and red pie ($17) onto which additional ingredients may be added. There are three salads, including a Caesar ($16) and a chopped ($17). Featured starters are crispy cauliflower ($16) and Japanese eggplant ($14). Don’t skip dessert. U Street Pizza also boasts artisanal soft-serve ice cream ($5). For Keyser, it’s an important part of the experience. “Pizzerias, for me, always had soft-serve, growing up,” Keyser said. “I wanted to take that concept but elevate it, just like we do over at Union. We decided to have our own soft-serve program but instead of buying it or purchasing flavors, we wanted to take the (seasonal) fruit at the market and turn that into soft-serve. It took me about a year to really perfect it. I worked really hard on it and I’m really proud of it. We’re going to have some really fun flavors.” Within the next month or so, the pizzeria’s liquor license should be secured and a full bar menu will be offered as well. Looking to the summer, lunch service is likely to start, as the elegant outdoor dining area allotted for Union is engaged for the pizzeria as well. “It’s been great,” Petulla said. “More people create new introductions to the restaurant. It’s more foot traffic. It’s more excitement. It’s everything you want in an area. (The city of) Pasadena has really worked with us. In my opinion they’ve made it very easy to transition to these opportunities that they’ve made available. I think the community loves it. The city of Pasadena will listen and will continue with the al fresco dining, hopefully for a very long time.” Keyser has one simple suggestion for the community, “Come in and eat pizza. Feel like a kid again.”
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