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| - The menu at Pizzeria Bianco is extremely limited, with two "Small Plates," two salads (three, if there's a seasonal salad available), and six pizzas. There are ten toppings you can add to jazz up your pizza.
Bianco's small plates are an antipasto selection and spiedini, which consists of "Italian Fontina wrapped in Prosciutto di Parma, served warm." Salads are the house salad w/mixed greens going for $6 and the caprese carrying a hefty $9 price tag.
The dining room at Bianco is about 1/65,245 the size of a dining room at the Cheesecake Factory, making it a far more intimate space. With hall ceilings and brick walls, Pizzeria Bianco feels as rustic as it looks. Although the dining room is small, your waiter has a lot of other customers to take care of, so don't expect star treatment.
Containing the three colors in the Italian flag, the caprese is a plate of thick, watery slices of house-made mozzarella, large slices of ruby-red tomatoes, and bright leaves of basil. Olive oil and vinegar are perched in the middle of the table, so patrons can garnish their salad as they see fit. Although caprese is a summery dish, it was equally enjoyable in November.
My favorite pre-pizza dish was the spiedini. Atop mixed greens (not mentioned on the menu! yay for unexpected salad!) sit two skewers. Each skewer is poked through a chunk of fontina cheese, all of which is then wrapped up like a birthday present in prosciutto. Inside the slightly caramelized prosciutto hides softly melted cheese which oozes out upon being cut. The contrasts of temperature, texture, and flavor dance inside your mouth.
No matter which pie you order, the standout of the pizza will be the crust. Fired in a wood oven, every pizza is prepared individually by owner/chef Chris Bianco. Like the bread served at the beginning of the meal, the pizza crust is incredibly delicious. A slight crunch on the crust gives way to a chewy center. Char marks freckle the ring of crust at the circumference as well as the bottom of the pizza.
The marinara, is the plainest pizza on the menu. The sauce overpowered the crust both in flavor and in texture, making an otherwise glorious crust into something floppy and flaccid. The addition of cheese and basil, as found on the margherita, makes a world of difference. Less sauce is used on this pizza, meaning the crust stays crisp and the flavors are allowed to complement each other in better proportions.
Gutsier choices on the menu include the Rosa and the Wiseguy. The Rosa, sans tomato sauce, is topped w/red onion, parmigiano reggiano, rosemary, and Arizona pistachios. Although I've put walnuts on a pizza before (curry sauce + walnuts = whoa), I'd never thought to crumble up pistachios to use as a topping. The crushed nuts provide an earthy flavor as well as a fantastic contrast in texture. The combination of toppings makes for a light yet satisfying pie.
The Wiseguy, also without red sauce, comes topped w/thick, wood-roasted rings of onion, house-smoked mozzarella, and fennel sausage. A hearty pie, the Wiseguy tastes mostly of the fennel-spiked sausage. It's easy to lose the smoky flavor of the cheese and the roasty flavor of the onion beneath the overpowering punch of fennel. Regardless, that sausage is really, really tasty.
During one visit, I combined the Rosa and the Wiseguy by ordering a Rosa topped w/some of the fennel sausage ($3 extra as a topping). The sausage had the same effect on the Rosa as it had on the Wiseguy, basically wiping out any other flavors I would've tasted otherwise. So, while the fennel tasted good, it was impossible to distinguish the rosemary, cheese, or pistachio. Unless you can taste beyond the sausage, you'd be wise to leave it off your pizza.
These are no desserts at Pizzeria Bianco--unless you consider pizza a dessert, which I certainly do. There is a list of a couple dozen whites and reds, though, so oenophiles will be able to enjoy their pizza w/a glass or a bottle of the good stuff.
But don't feel obligated to order a drink. Unlike those chain pizza restaurants, you don't have to get drunk first in order to enjoy the pizza.
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