Review: Backdraft Pizzeria - Bee Cave (Austin) TX

Lakeway and Bee Cave are lovely outposts about 30 minutes west of Austin, Texas. There's rolling hills and captivating views of Lake Travis, but not many interesting dining choices. It's all so new that there's little history or character to the culinary scene; folks are excited just to have a big new H.E.B. grocery store.

Route 620 is the main artery through Bee Cave, and there we found a dusty roadside stop that featured a few picnic tables and three food trailers. All of them looked authentic and terrific; there was a Chicago-themed trailer featuring Chicago hot dogs, a BBQ outpost, and Backdraft Pizzeria. Naturally, we came for the pizza.

The pies at Backdraft are all 12", enough for one large hungry person, or enough for two to split at lunch, as we did. You can customize your pizza with a broad range of meat or vegetable toppings, but we decided to trust the experts and select from their five different specialty pies.

All of the pizzas are made with Caputo 00 flour, Wisconsin cheese, and canned San Marzano tomatoes. We were able to order a half-and-half pie, one side featuring the "Sweet Sow" that has thinly sliced pear, Canadian bacon, and fresh basil, while the other side was the "Shrooms to the Moon" with sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and house made spicy sausage.

Scarlett and Izak Rock, from tinyurl.com/QuixoteBackdraft

Our pie took about 10 minutes for assembly and cooking as we waited at a picnic table on this warm day in February. The chef/owners, Scarlett and Izak Rock, are using a brick oven that reaches 800 degrees, but this is not a Neapolitan pie, as it has been mischaracterized. 

Neapolitan pizza has a soft, droopy, charred crust and a puffy cornicione. The crust here was thin, rigid, and crisp. I love a good Neapolitan pie, but I prefer a slice that doesn't droop.

A slice from the Sweet Sow side

The crust is the key to every pizza, and this one was superb. It had a wonderful toasty flavor, a good snap to the crunch, and yet a bit of tender chewiness inside. The toppings were of a like quality. With so many bold flavors from the bacon and the sausage, the red sauce was still shining through. It was remarkably bold and rich without dominating the other elements.

Shrooms to the Moon

The "Sweet Sow" was inspired by the sweet fruit with salty pork of a Hawaiian pizza, but this was far superior. Thinly sliced and crisped Canadian bacon is a serious upgrade to the square chunks of ham applied to most Hawaiian pies, and thinly sliced delicate fresh pears are a much better complement than cloyingly sweet wet chunks of canned pineapple. Wonderful stuff.

The "Shrooms to the Moon" side was also bursting with flavors, but a much bolder mix. The fresh mushrooms set a rich and earthy tone, while the pepperoni and sausage lent a savory note and a serious touch of heat. The best experience was to alternate slices of this fiery side with slices from the delicate pear/bacon side.

Thin, crisp, and tasty

I loved this pizza; it was easily the best thing I ate during a week in the region. It may be a dream, but Roberta's Pizza was a pioneer in Bushwick, transforming that industrial part of Brooklyn into hipster central. Could Backdraft be the Roberta's of Bee Cave?  I'll let you know after I try the neighboring BBQ and Chicago hot dogs.