Serious pizza

Serious Pie
316 Virginia
Seattle, WA

This restaurant is one of five headed by Seattle chef Tom Douglas, who is known for using local ingredients in creative ways. He's published three cookbooks and won the James Beard Award for Best Northwest chef in 1994.

Serious Pie is Douglas' newest restaurant, and it's all about the 'za. The first thing you see when you walk in is a large wood-burning oven, sheathed in stone. The dining room itself is rather cave-like, all brown and black. The seats are high leather stools, comfortable enough once you get up into them, but a little disconcerting for children, drunks and height-challenged folk.

While we waited for our pies, we shared plates of duck salumi and bruschetta. There were two bruschetta toppings; the combination of cherries and crescenza (a soft cow's-milk cheese) was good, but I preferred the pairing of figs and lardo (pig fat cured with rosemary and other spices).
The pizzas had an excellent crust, like a very good bread. The special of the day involved beet greens and copacola (a cured meat made from pork), with a translucent crust of cheese.

We also tried a pie with roasted morels, aurgula pesto and cacio (cheese). The morels and pesto were both very strong flavors; even B thought they were overwhelming. I was glad to share; a whole pie would have been too much. C said, "It looks like a landscape."

The next day, when I asked E and C what they wanted for dinner, they said, "Serious Pie!"