Four meats, and less sauce because of it
Meat Lovers Pizza
Crumbled fennel sausage, sliced meatball, pepperoni cups and diced ham, with the sauce deliberately cut back.
The mistake with a meat pizza is treating it as a plain pizza with meat added. Four meats bring a great deal of fat and salt with them, and if you sauce and cheese the base as usual the result is heavy and one-note. So this pie gets about two thirds of the normal sauce and slightly less mozzarella, and it is better for both.
The sausage and the meatballs are made here. The sausage is a coarse fennel sausage crumbled on raw so it cooks in the oven; the meatballs are cooked in the sauce, cooled and sliced, which is why they are moist rather than the dry little spheres you sometimes get.
It is the heaviest thing on this menu by a distance. Two slices and a salad is a better dinner than three slices, and we would rather say so.
What goes on it
The sausage
Coarse fennel sausage, made here, crumbled on raw.
The meatballs
Beef and pork, cooked in the sauce, cooled and sliced rather than crumbled.
The pepperoni
Natural-casing cups, on top and last.
The ham
Diced cooked ham, folded in among the rest so it does not dry.
How it is made here
Sauced light
Roughly two thirds of a normal ladle. The meats bring their own moisture and fat.
Cheesed light
A little less mozzarella than a plain pie, for the same reason.
Fourteen to fifteen minutes
Slightly longer than a plain pie so the raw sausage cooks through.
Checked in the middle
The sausage is the thing to check. It comes out and goes back if it is not done.
Meat Lovers Pizza — what it costs
- 18" pie$36
- 14" pie$28
- By the slice$5.75
Prices include every topping listed above. Extras are $3 for vegetables and $4 for meats. Prices change when our costs do; the menu here is the menu in the shop.
Before you order this
A shared flour kitchen, and what that rules out. Our kitchen handles wheat flour in open air all day, along with milk, eggs, soy, tree nuts and fish. Flour becomes airborne every time a dough ball is opened, and it settles on every surface in the room, including the peels, the oven floor, the cutting board and the wheel. We can tell you what we put on a pizza, and we will tell you honestly. We cannot tell you that anything leaving this kitchen is free of an allergen, and we will not say it. If a reaction would send you to hospital, this is not a safe kitchen for you, and we would far rather say so than take the order.
The kitchen is one room. Every pizza here is opened on the same bench, baked on the same floor and cut with the same wheel, and that is true of this one as much as any other. The pages on allergens and cross-contact and vegetarian, vegan and dietary questions set out plainly what we can and cannot tell you, including the things most shops leave you to assume.
The rest of the menu
Other things worth ordering
New York Cheese Pizza
The plain pie the whole shop is judged on: a thin, foldable base, a thin bright sauce and low-moisture mozzarella browned in patches.
From $3.75
Pepperoni Pizza
Small-diameter natural-casing pepperoni that curls into cups and chars at the rim, over the plain pie.
From $4.50
Sicilian Square Pizza
A thick square pie proofed in an oiled steel pan: an airy open crumb, a fried golden base and a crisp cheese edge.
From $4.25Asked at the counter
Meat Lovers Pizza — questions
Can I get it with hot sausage?
Yes, at no extra cost. Say so when you order — the hot and sweet sausage are made separately and both are on the bench.
Are the meatballs made here?
Yes, beef and pork, cooked in the pizza sauce every morning. They are the same meatballs that go in the hero.
Is any of it halal?
No. Three of the four meats are pork or contain pork, and this is not a halal kitchen — see the dietary page.
Twelve to fifteen minutes, and worth the wait
Order a pie
Telephone the shop and we will tell you honestly how long the kitchen is running before you commit to anything. Collection is always quicker than delivery and the pizza is always better for it. If you are ordering for a crowd, the catering page has the trays and the notice we need.