Surprise, Surprise: There's Pizza in Them Hills

AMERICAN FLATBREAD

Our Take:

So we've been to a lot of pizza places in our day. In fact Tara, being a born and bred Brooklynite, can truly lay claim to knowing her pizza pies. Pizza brings her back to her days of childhood when she would walk to the corner store and get a “slice and a small coke” for a $1.10. From Franks pizza in Canarsie, to the heralded Lombardi's and Patsy's, it is a fact that New York knows its pizza. New Yorkers pride themselves on the simple no frills way of eating pizza: sauce, cheese, and crust--period.

When we moved to Vermont, we thought, our pizza days of old were over. David had flashbacks of the skinny sliced, canned toppings, and overly saucy pizzas of his youth in Burlington. When we heard about American Flatbread, we were skeptical. Arriving at the restaurant we saw the menu and our pizza purist red flags were raised. The description of the pizzas on the menu seemed ungapatchka at their core (ungapatchka is a Yiddish word that describes the overly ornate or busy, e.g. strawberry-kiwi bagels, peanut butter ambrosia danishes, or tofu-spelt ice cream). The quirky names of the pizzas like Dancing Heart Bread and Roasted Tomato Salas, made us immediately fearful that Flatbread was going to tamper with pizza’s simple perfection.

How wrong we were. In fact, the base of each pizza on the menu is essentially simple, primarily a mix of bread, cheese and sauce, as it should be. The toppings are not overbearing, but a welcome addition, and do not take away from the pure dahliciousness of the pizza. The variety of homemade and organic toppings is impressive including: farm fresh sausages, olives, red onions, Vermont goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes and nitrate free pepperoni. You can mix and match, or put your trust in the combinations listed on the menu. Our favorite pizza ended up being the Punctuated Equilibrium, the right combination of roasted sweet peppers, VT goat cheese, red onions, rosemary, kalamata olives and fresh mozzarella. A close second was the Revolution: tomato sauce, caramelized onions, mushrooms and a blend of cheeses. The basic cheese and herb is a can't miss as well ... then again, we've had nearly all of them (beside the pork pies), and we've never managed to dislike but a one.

We've yet to try the nightly special pies but they do sound attractive, if not a bit on the experimental side. On a recent night the special pizzas were: wood-roasted eggplant with a house made Thai green curry with roasted chilies, seared green beans, scallions, and fresh cilantro and mint; and a pizza with slow-braised beef, fire-roasted VT Jerusalem artichokes, arugula, red onions and carrots, and Grafton Village smoked cheddar.

All the pizzas come out as soon as they are made, bubbling hot and cut in a variety of shapes and sizes. It makes the eating a lot of fun, not knowing if you're going to pick up a piece with mostly crust and just a speck of topping or a solid square full of cheese, sauce and all the goodies. Either way (the crust could be eaten naked, the toppings with a fork or the sauce sopped up with a spoon) they all stand independently superior in their flavors.

One thing Flatbread has on its brethren to the south, is that they offer the most wonderful salad we’ve eaten at a pizzeria. It consists of a fresh mix of locally grown organic greens, shredded carrots and celery, lightly-dressed with a sesame-ginger tamari vinaigrette (blue or goat cheese optional, but the salad is just as good without). It’s so fresh, so simple and a must to start any meal at Flatbreads.

The only annoying thing about Flatbread is that other people love it just as much as we do. Often it's impossible, literally impossible, to get in on Friday or Saturday night, and it can even be a good 30-minute wait during the week (almost unheard of in Vermont). The bar is a nice place to sit, but a bit small to accommodate the hungry hordes. The pleasant hostess does keep you up-to-date and adequately moves the process along. Once seated, the hurried wait staff is able to get your food to you quickly, so generally by the time you bite into your first octogonal piece of pizza the frustration of the line is long forgotten.

Ultimately though it's all about the pizza. And at times Flatbread can be a little experimental, non-traditional, off the beat and path, a bit like Vermont and Vermonters. While perhaps out there by New York standards, like most good New York pizzas, Flatbread gets the basics right, they get the bread right, the cheese right, the sauce right and the cooking right. Having Flatbread close to home makes our long journey away from New York seem just a little bit shorter.

Our Rating:

Service: ***
Ambiance: **
Food : ****
Price: $$

Rating Scale:
* average
** not bad
*** wicked good
**** the best

$ cheap eats
$$ moderately priced
$$$ expensive
$$$$ wicked expensive