I still remember the "life skills" class I took in high school — mandated by the State Of Florida to make sure that kids could balance a checkbook and prevent osteoporosis — where I learned that pizza can fill up the whole food pyramid all by itself. Grains, check. Vegetables, check. Milk and cheese, check. Meat, check. Fats and oils, check! According to the federal nutritional guidelines, there is never a need to eat anything else.
Pizza is the perfect food — portable, lots of variety, tastes good hot, cold or in-between. I like to think that God filled Eden with Chicago-style pizza trees and Neapolitan pizza bushes and focaccia vines (for a little variety) laden with hot crust and gooey cheese. If only Adam and Eve hadn't ruined it, we'd be wearing loincloths made from pepperoni and basil while munching slices under the stars.
These days, we try to fill the void from our lost pizza paradise with a mass of low-end dreck. In 2005, we bought almost 1 billion frozen pizzas and spent over $16 billion at pizza chains. That's definitely a case of quantity over quality. It may even be sacrilege.
Pizze Rustica may not be the Holy Grail of pizza, but it's good enough to provide some earthly salvation.
Like all good pizza, the crust is the star here. It's thick, as much as an inch or more, and square, baked in low-edged pans in blindingly hot ovens. Don't think it's doughy and bready, though, like the "pan pizzas" of the chain joints; this crust has a crisp bottom, the airy interior of focaccia and a richness born from good olive oil. With a crust like this, toppings are like gravy — good, but unnecessary.
With that in mind, Pizze Rustica relies on spare amounts of high-quality stuff to top their crust, enough to add a layer of flavor to the pie but not enough to become the headline act. Cheese covers each slice in a thin sheet; vegetables and meats are scattered instead of piled; and there is never too much sauce to change the character of the crust.
The classic Margherita ($14.99) shows how well this spare approach works. There is a mere hint of garlic throughout, with spicy, bright-green fresh basil and tart and sweet tomatoes adding a punch of flavor to occasional bites, sometimes one topping, sometimes another, sometimes all three together.
Even the "Rustica Meat Bomb" ($18.49) is less a carnivorous explosion than a carefully considered collection of sausage, pepperoni, ham, ground beef, spicy soppresata and bacon aligned atop the pizza, so as not to overwhelm the palate. Only the "Lo Fat No Cheese" ($15.99) breaks this rule with a mass of soft and crunchy veggies, but even that's more restrained than at most places. Like I said, the crust is the important part.
Thanks to Wolfgang Puck's California pizza experimentation in the '80s, we've had to endure the most frightful conglomeration of wacky ingredients at gourmet pizza joints over the past two decades. Pizze Rustica does indulge in this a bit, with options like "Thai Peanut Chicken" ($15.49) — topped with bean sprouts, of all things — and the "Hat Dance" ($17.99), with about a dozen odd ingredients. Both of these are surprisingly acceptable, but the best pies are simpler concoctions.
Like one topped with a few velvety, nutty roasted garlic cloves, strips of grilled chicken, and onions glazed with bright balsamic vinegar ($16.49). Or another dotted with earthy roasted mushrooms, rich pockets of ricotta and subtly herbaceous rosemary oil ($16.49). Each has three simple combinations of flavor and texture. Simple is good on pizza.
Pizze Rustica has a wide variety of slices available at any one time, but the pizza is best when ordered fresh and whole, or when picked off the slice line just as it comes out of the oven. When it sits, the crust can dry out quickly. It's still far better than anything you'll find from the chain delivery outlets, though.
Salads are fine, especially the Italian chef ($7.49), loaded with a deli full of chopped meats, cheeses and raw veggies. Pressed sandwiches are usually worth a visit, as well, like a "rustica" ($7.99) packed with Italian cold cuts and a refreshing olive salad. The Thai BBQ cheesesteak ($7.99) isn't bad, but it's hard to justify calling it "Thai" when the only non-Philly ingredient is some spicy and sweet hoisin-like sauce.
Pizze Rustica's meat lasagna ($7.49) is one of my favorite St. Pete takeout dinners. It's a nontraditional format — instead of a section cut from a big pan of the stuff, this comes in the form of rolled spirals, with sausage, cheese and a dried-herb red sauce rolled in strips of thick pasta. There are three of these spirals in every order, enough for a hearty dinner with one left over for lunch the next day. The veggie lasagna ($7.49) I tried — prepared the same way — suffered from charred veggies and tough skin. Stick with meat.
You can sit on the patio with a glass of wine, overlooking cars whizzing by on Fourth Street, or pile into the small pseudo-Tuscan dining room where, more often than not, an odd conglomeration of '80s rock blasts over the speakers. Most people stop by for take-out, though. It is a pizza place, after all. They even deliver to a pretty wide section of St. Pete.
All right, perhaps neither God nor the federal government meant for us to glean our sustenance solely from healthy, nutritious pizza — at least after we pass the age of 25 — but with places like Pizze Rustica around, you can certainly upgrade your once-a-week delivery habit. Unlike the pizza from most of the places we spent $16 billion on last year, Pizze Rustica's pies taste vastly better than the cardboard box it comes in.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. He can be reached at brian.ries@weeklyplanet.com. Planet food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2006.
