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| - I'm a native Chicagoan so pizza has always been an integral part of my diet. We moved to Madison and immediately started a quest to find the best pizza. Glass Nickel was our first spot.
I must say, color me impressed. It's not the best pizza, I've ever had, but it was darn good and well balanced.
Glass Nickel does not take reservations so make sure that you plan accordingly. The restaurant is fairly small with a short bar. The servers are attentive and the atmosphere is fairly chill.
The beer list is diverse. I am quite happy when I see a beer list that has more than two beers on it that I really want to try. Some places will load their lists with IPAs, but not everyone likes to kill their taste buds with burnt hops, but hey, if you're into that the tap list here is diverse enough to allow you to do that. Of course, you have a great choice of malty beers too!
We ended up ordering some beers, Nickel Nuggets, and a 10 inch Fetalicious pizza with tossed crust.
Nickel Nuggets are bits of pizza dough that have been tossed into the fryer and have Parmesan cheese dumped on top. I LOVED the idea of this dish, but it was poorly executed. The bites were light and fluffy, but it was paired with the wrong sauce entirely. The dish is served with a heavy marinara. Since the bites are so light and the sauce is so thick, it's not really possible to dip, scoop, or otherwise apply sauce to them. I would much rather have seen a thin garlic butter. The marinara was completely useless.
For the main course we got the Fetalicious pizza per Yelp's recommendation. The pie is hand-tossed (you can request otherwise) and topped with tomato, onion, spinach, mushroom, and feta.
Glass Nickel has a well executed pizza with this special! You may think to yourself that dumping feta on a pizza is undesirable, but in this case it works very well. All of the elements of the pizza balance each other out. While the feta may be quite salty, the acid of the tomatoes balances it out well. This pizza is a prime example as to why you do not modify an order that a chef designs. Certain elements of a dish may be important to balance. Very well made pizza!
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