Roasted first, which is the whole difference
Garden Vegetable Pizza
Roasted peppers, red onion, mushroom, black olive, wilted spinach and cherry tomato — none of it raw, because raw vegetables steam a crust.
A vegetable pizza is the easiest pizza in a shop to make badly. Pile six raw vegetables on a base, bake it, and everything they contain comes out as water into the cheese; the middle goes soft, the topping steams instead of roasting, and the whole thing tastes faintly of nothing. It is why so many people believe they do not like vegetable pizza.
Every vegetable on this pie is cooked before it goes on. Peppers and onions are roasted until the edges catch, mushrooms until they have given up their water and browned, cherry tomatoes until they collapse, spinach wilted and then squeezed hard in a cloth. It costs a prep cook most of a morning and it is the entire reason this pizza works.
It is vegetarian as it is built, and we are not going to make more of that than we are entitled to — the dietary page explains what a shared kitchen and one cutting wheel actually mean.
What goes on it
The peppers
Red and green, roasted until blistered, skinned and cut into strips.
The mushrooms
Sliced and roasted hard until they have shrunk by half and browned. This is the one that matters most.
The rest
Red onion roasted, cherry tomatoes roasted until they burst, black olives, and spinach wilted with garlic and squeezed dry.
The finish
Olive oil and oregano after the bake, and grated hard cheese unless you ask us to leave it off.
How it is made here
Roasted every morning
On trays in the pizza oven, each vegetable separately because they do not cook at the same rate.
Cooled before use
Warm vegetables melt the cheese under them before the pizza ever reaches the oven.
Twelve to fourteen minutes
At 600°F. Everything on top is already cooked, so the bake is about the base.
Dressed after
Oil and oregano at the end so they taste of themselves rather than of the oven.
Garden Vegetable Pizza — what it costs
- 18" pie$33
- 14" pie$26
- By the slice$5.25
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
Garden Vegetable Pizza — questions
Can you make it vegan?
Yes — the standard dough contains no dairy or egg, so it is the mozzarella and the hard cheese that come off. Ask for the plant-based cheese and see the vegan pizza page for what we can and cannot promise about a shared oven.
Can I add or swap vegetables?
Yes, $3 each. Artichoke, broccoli and jalapeño are the usual additions. Anything we would have to roast to order will add ten minutes and we will tell you so.
Why no fresh tomato slices?
Because they are about ninety per cent water and they release all of it into the pizza. The roasted cherry tomatoes are there instead and they taste of considerably more.
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.