click to enlarge
-
Peter Lawrence Kane
-
The Crown Point, half-slathered in prosciutto
Matt Molina has a bit of a gangster fixation.
For starters, he works at
Capo’s in North Beach — “Capo” being both Mafia and cartel lingo for a made guy who heads a crew — and he won the American Pan division of the 2014 International Pizza Expo with
The Dillinger, a pie named for the Depression-era bank robber.
This year at the Pizza Expo, Molina won Best of the Best for a pizza he calls
The Crown Point, after the Indiana jail from which John Dillinger escaped only a few months before his death.
Top pie out of some 600-700 entries, The Crown Point is a cast-iron pizza made with cheddar, mozzarella, garlic, red onion, peppadew peppers, broccolini, wild arugula, a balsamic reduction, oregano, and grated Parmesan — and he came up with it on the fly, as the Expo presents its Best of the Best contenders with an ingredient list, giving them barely more than half an hour to create something.
At $37, it’s arguably a bit of a splurge as vegetarian pizzas go, but there’s a lot to love here, and that’s before you say yes to the option to add prosciutto. The three-quarter-inch-thick, focaccia-like crust — which is vital, keeping this topping-laden pizza from sliding into a gloppy mess, as so many “supremes” do — is far sturdier than a marshmallow-y Sicilian yet airy enough that you don’t feel like a stone sank to the bottom of your belly after devouring a slice. Molina’s most curious choice was adding the tangy-sweet balsamic reduction on top of the already-sweet peppadews, but the broccolini balances things out nicely.
The best feature is outer edge. A lot of people simply toss pizza crusts away, but even among those who readily eat it, it’s probably nobody’s favorite part. (This was almost certainly the impetus for Pizza Hut’s regrettable stuffed crust.)
Here, though, because Molina bakes the Crown Point in cast-iron, he chose to extend the cheese all the way to the perimeter, where it crisps nicely and adds to the chew. But for the fact that it’s round, this would be a Detroit-style pizza. But that city has gangsters enough.
Capo’s,
641 Vallejo, 415-986-8998 or sfcapos.com.
