Pizza at Delancey
Our Pizza Margherita fresh out of the oven.
My husband and I just returned from a two-week vacation around the Pacific Northwest. Seattle was our last stop and on the final night of our trip we searched out Delancey to try their wood-fired pizza. I had read about Delancey on Molly Wizenberg's food blog, Orangette. Molly is also the author of the book, A Homemade Life. It's a delightful series of vignettes and essays and recipes. I've given away two copies so far; you can read my daughter's praise for it here. Anyway, in the book we learn about how Molly meets her future husband, Brandon, their long-distance romance, and eventually their wedding. They opened this pizza place in Seattle together in 2009, so I thought it would be fun to go find it.
When I called to see about a reservation I was told they only accepted reservations for parties of six or more and that it could be an hour to an hour and a half wait for a table of two on a Thursday night. (Delancey was written up in the New York Times just a few days before; I wasn't sure we'd be able to get in at all.) We decided to take our chances and showed up about 6:30 pm, hoping we could still make a 9:20 movie showing of Life in a Day (very worthwhile!) We were told it would be about an hour until a table was free, but if we wanted to eat at the bar (which was really just four stools and a counter overlooking the kitchen and wood-fired oven) we might be able to sit down in 30 minutes. Of course, I jumped at the chance to not only try the pizza, but to watch it being made and see Brandon himself slide our pie into the oven and pull it out. It's a tiny space and I had great fun watching all the action.
We started with a charcuterie plate of prosciutto, lonzo (another cured meat), and marinated green olives. We ordered the simple Pizza Margherita--just tomato sauce, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and olive oil. The sauce was excellent--no herbs in it and I didn't even detect garlic--just a very fresh, robust tomato flavor. The crust was thin and crispy and black around the edges. There was just enough mozzarella to make the pizza substantial, but not so much that we felt stuffed. I had the server wrap up one of Molly's Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Cookies with Gray Salt to sneak into the movie we were heading to afterwards. Yumm!
Molly is currently working on a book about the opening of Delancey. If you happen to be in Seattle, it's definitely worth a visit.
