Wednesday, December 19th, 2012
I love cheese. Let me restate that. I love good cheese, fresh cheese. So I don’t need a lot of cheese or a lot of different cheeses on my pizza.
Recently I saw an ad for Papa Johns’ six cheese pizza. Six cheeses because five cheeses just isn’t enough. Six Cheeses? I don’t think I can name six cheeses. One less cheese per pie, a little less cheese on all the pies, you’ve just paid for employees health insurance. Your workers get benefits and your patrons don’t get diabetes. It’s one of them win wins.
I was so shocked to hear 6 cheeses that I almost missed hearing the pie had double bacon. Is he trying to kill us? I admit I haven’t tasted the pizza, I couldn’t get a note from my cardiologist. The point is, if you have to put six cheeses on a pizza in order to sell it, maybe you shouldn’t be making pizza.
This is a photo of what is to me, the perfect slice.
This is a slice from my pie at Antico, Atlanta Georgia. First of all the dough is first rate and could stand alone baked with some olive oil. Which they put on the pizza. I like sauce and this slice has a healthy amount of San Marzano tomato sauce. The cheese is minimal but very flavorful, a fresh Bufala, a mozzarella cheese made from the milk of domesticated water buffalo. Who knew?Then the pie is topped with fresh garlic and basil that gets seared by the nearly 1,000 degree oven. The pie is out of the oven in 90 seconds.
Only problem with this slice was it was the only one like it on the pie. Some slices had almost no cheese and others no basil. I still have to give Antico a nod for the best if not most consistent wood-fired pizza in Atlanta. Some people call me a perfectionist, I just like things done the right way, and by the right way I mean my way.