Pitch Pizzeria

Location: 5021 Underwood Ave. - Dundee
Listening to: Padrino - Smashmouth

Pitch specializes in coal-fire pizza and is one of the few Omaha establishments that offers communal dining.  It is the brainchild of Willy Thiesen, the founder of Godfather's Pizza.  Pitch is definitely one of our favorite places to return, but not too many times in one year.  The menu is fairly stagnant, with only a few changes to the starters and salads each season.  Though as soon as we walked in I could smell all the delicious flavors of house-made fennel sausage, pancetta and thyme.  Let's eat!

Drinks

Kasteel Rouge (BEL)

The new drink menu has improved greatly!  We hesitated ordering cocktails the first few visits because the original drink menu was so uninspired.  And the bar was stocked with low-quality spirits that my stomach just couldn't handle.  No seriously, it was pretty bad last year.  It seems they have now jumped on the "Classic Cocktail" bandwagon and started offering libations such as The Aviation, The Negroni, and The Last Word, as well as a premium spirit selection.  Their bar manager just earned a gold star in my book :)
Pitch also improved their beer offerings.  I love to see one particular word after each listing on the beer menu: BELGIUM.  Another gold star!  And a Kasteel Rouge for me please.  Aged with sour cherries, it was light and fruity and paired well with my starters.  Rookies beware, this beer is 8% ABV.

Starters
Peppadew honey glazed carrots
Roasted brussels sprouts with garlic, pancetta and grana cheese
Corn chowder with smoked salmon

Carrots & Brussels Sprouts

The brussels sprouts were divine.  Roasting provides that remarkable charred, caramelized flavor than just can't be imitated.  The pancetta was smoky and chewy, the grana was salty and savory.  I was popping these mini cabbages like candy.  These are absolutely my favorite brussels sprouts in town.
Now some might consider heirloom vegetables a bit passé, but I still thoroughly enjoy them.  They look more appetizing and tend to be sweeter and more tender.  (Commercially grown vegetables are grown for size rather than for flavor.)  I would have been more likely to eat my vegetables as a child if they looked and tasted like this!  The glazed carrots were syrupy and piquant, but I wish they had been cooked a little longer.  The chef came by our table and told us how he pickles his peppadew peppers (shown below), then purées them and reduces that down with honey for the glaze.  The pickling brine was sweeter than I expected with very little bite from the vinegar.  It also had the faint taste of melon, specifically honeydew (perhaps explaining the name?)  Research tells me they are not named for the melon, but my taste buds disagree.

Pickeled Peppadew & Corn Chowder

There was a little mix up with the soup du jour.  Our server told us it was a creamy beet soup with cayenne pepper.  That sounded adventurous enough for a taste.  Alas, we were presented with corn chowder with smoked salmon.  It was a bittersweet surprise as we are always on the hunt for a good corn chowder.  Pitch's is definitely one of the best in Omaha.  I tasted lots of butter and cream, and there were plenty of small corn niblets.  A distinct "chunkiness" helps to discern chowder from bisque (among other differences which shall be addressed in a future post).  There was a hint of smoky fishiness from the salmon, just the way I like it, not overwhelming.

Pizza

Shrooms pizza: roasted mushrooms, thyme cream, truffle cheese, oven dried tomatoes

Shrooms Pizza

Pitch is famous for this pizza, at least, in my circles.  Let me start by saying that I never liked mushrooms until I had this pizza.  Color me converted!  The crust was thin, crisp and chewy, cooked in a coal-fired oven.  This pizza was compounded with plenty of flavor: rich and full-bodied, bright and succulent.  Skip the pepperoni, and give this one a try!

Dessert
We ordered the "Ice Cream Flight" with ice cream and sorbet made by Pitch's Dundee neighbor, eCreamery.  Then, more confusion with the server.  (But she was trying so hard!)  She told us the flavors were vanillla bean, fresh blackberry, and sea salt caramel.  The first two were right, but the last one was straight up butterscotch.  Don't get me wrong, I love butterscotch, but at least know what you're putting in front of people.  If you're not sure, just politely apologize and correct yourself.  Also, if you call it a "flight," I expect three flavors in three separate bowls.  Ours came with three scoops in one bowl, so they ended up melting all over each other.  That's fine when mixing vanilla and butterscotch (or sea salt caramel), but not blackberry!
I must say I enjoyed the vanilla bean.  Most vanillas taste so artificial to me, but this one was obviously made with real vanilla bean pods, not chemically-flavored extracts.  The blackberry was tart and refreshing.  And of course, the butterscotch was my favorite - sweet and decadent.

I loved this entire meal.  Lots of bright colors mean fresh, tasty foods.  I only wish I had more room in my stomach to order one of my favorite salads.  I recommend: Arugula salad with prosciutto, candied walnuts, pears, maytag blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette.

Other notes:
Visit in the summer and sit by the open garage door for "patio-like" seating
8" pies are available during lunch (perfect time to try the Marsala pizza)
Love the overhead music.  They played all my favorite oldies.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!