Posts Tagged ‘Serious Pie Downtown’
I have two pizza classes scheduled within a month. I was at Serious Pie Downtown on a Wednesday morning for the first one. The pizza classes are held on weekdays and Saturdays before the restaurant opens. The city felt lethargic on a cloudy midweek day and it was a little odd walking into an empty Serious Pie.
Coffee and banana chocolate walnut loaves greeted us. I nibbled on the sweet, nutty bread as I leafed through the printed notes.
The Kitchen Table is the new private dining room at Serious Pie Downtown. For dough-shaping and dining parties, the dual purpose room was rustic and decorated in warm tones. Twinkling lights were strung overhead.
Vases of dried flowers lined the window sill as an organic curtain. Metal shelves were laden with commercial size tubs of World Spice herbs and spices.
I was happy to spot a large container of Murray River flake salt in their inventory.
Chef Audrey Spence was ill so Cari kindly shared her expertise with us. The Serious Pie dough recipe is a secret but there is a modified version for the home cook. Cari detailed the three-day dough making process. Bread flour, semolina flour, biga starter, olive oil, honey, salt and water are mixed, proofed and hand-shaped. Cari demonstrated how to stretch the dough.
Silky and supple, the wet dough wobbled and yielded easily to touch. We each dusted the wooden surface with flour and stretched a ball of tacky dough. Gentle and nimble fingers were the key! We sprinkled the pizza board with semolina flour and slid the dough on top.
Mise en place: basil, caramelised onions, clams, fennel sausages, hedgehog mushrooms, pancetta, potatoes, olive oil, roasted garlic, roasted peppers and tomato sauce.
Parmigiano, Provolone, Feta, Mozzarella and herbs were in terracotta dishes for us to sample.
Clockwise from top right: Provolone, tarragon and Parmigiano.
I created a half and half pizza. On the left: olive oil, hedgehog mushrooms and caramelised onions. On the right: tomato sauce, pancetta, roasted red peppers and basil.
My half and half pizza on the rack in the queue for the oven.
Our cheeks were rosy from the heat of the apple wood burning pizza oven.
Gauge of the wood fire pizza oven indicated a temperature of 658 °F (348 °C).
The pizza was placed at the edge of the fiery glow and in one swift motion the board was displaced. An enormous stainless steel paddle pushed the raw pizza to the side and back where it blistered and crisped. After five minutes, Cari dabbed on the Provolone, and the pizza was rotated and cooked for another two to three minutes.
A pinch of marjoram perfected the seasoning. I wielded the mezzaluna and sliced the pizza into eighths.
We settled into the dining room with our artisanal, personalised pizzas.
A selection of Italian varietals was paired with our pizzas. I sipped a glass of Villa Giada Surí Rosso Barbera d’Asti, a fruity red.
It was deeply satisfying to eat the pizza I had handmade, and without any clean up afterwards!
It was fun to be in the Serious Pie kitchen to learn some of the techniques of their famous pizzas!
- In: Downtown | Eating | Seattle | USA | Washington
- 2 Comments
Unlike baseball, ‘pie for six’ was music to my ears. After the Mariners‘ clean sweep loss, we were in need of Serious Pie to sate our appetite and reflect on this peculiar bat and ball game.
The weekday mid afternoon happy hour was just about full. This was our first visit to the original Serious Pie and it’s smaller and cosier than the Westlake loft.
Painted tiles line the olive green walls and we were seated at the back by the bay window. Service was a little haphazard and this was the first time in Seattle that I’ve had to do some hand waving to get the attention of the wait staff.
Mr S called it a ‘retiree dinner’ – early and discounted! At two-thirds the size and less than half the price of the standard ones, the mini pies were outstanding value.
It’s remarkable how consistent the pies are across both locations. The dough is always a lovely combination of crispy and chewy, and never soggy. A generous scattering of ingredients cover the hand stretched crust.
The chanterelle mushroom and truffle cheese pie is my favourite. I would be very sad if this is removed from the menu. Only two ingredients and yet the pie was rich and perfumed. I chewed slowly, savouring each bite for all its flavour.
The sweet fennel sausage, roasted peppers and provolone pie was almost as delectable. There was a delicious sweet spiciness to it, freshened by the tomato base.
One benefit of an early dinner was we returned home with many hours of daylight left, with baseball all but forgotten!
