Dec. 3, 2008 – Pizza (particularly thin-crust) doesn't travel well, yet people want to
eat it at home without taking the time to make it from scratch. That's
why one thing you won't find in any of the company's sleek little
storefronts is an oven.
Here's the dilemma this Chicago chain seeks to solve: Pizza
(particularly thin-crust) doesn't travel well, yet people want to eat
it at home without taking the time to make it from scratch. That's why
one thing you won't find in any of the company's sleek little
storefronts is an oven.
At HomeMade Pizza Co., which opened its first Washington store in
Spring Valley in late October, they do the making and you do the
baking. Order a pie and the team stretches the dough, tops it with
sauce, cheese and other ingredients, sets it on a parchment-covered
cardboard round and seals it in plastic. You take it home, unwrap it,
then slide it and the parchment directly onto the rack of a preheated
oven. Ten or 15 minutes later, you've got a bubbling crisp-crust pizza.
We tried the drill twice: once using a convection oven, against the
company's written advice (the crusts were a little underdone even as
the top browned) and once in a conventional oven (the crusts cooked
perfectly).
Even an underdone crust couldn't detract from the quality of the
ingredients on top. The Four Cheese showcased a delectable combination
of asiago, fontinella, mozzarella and ricotta on a thin layer of tangy
red sauce. The Miesian, a take on the classic Margherita, was loaded
with shredded fresh basil, roasted garlic and ripe (and bright-red)
slices of Roma tomatoes. The Georgia, which combined Santa Fe chicken
sausage with still-crunchy poblano peppers and smooth ricotta, got a
boost from the whole-wheat crust we asked for. The whole-wheat version
had more flavor than the regular crust, which was a bit bland even
though it had great structure.
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