Review: EVO Pizza, North Charleston, SC

Coastal Carolina is a wonderful place for visitors - historic mansions and plantations, pristine beaches, the charm of Charleston, and of course that low country cooking. During an 8 day stretch spent on Kiawah Island and in Charleston, I had (and fulfilled) great expectations for local fare like shrimp and grits, fried chicken, and okra gumbo.

My pizza bar was set a bit lower - but I did some scouting ahead of time and found four pizza places of interest in or near Charleston. I expected nothing better than ordinary tourist stuff around Kiawah, but we were astonished and delighted to stumble upon La Tela in a modern shopping center just a mile or so outside the island.

We struck gold again on our short trek from Kiawah to Charleston, stopping at Crust Wood-Fired Pizza on James Island. Before we even got into our hotel room in the French Quarter we'd found two wonderful Neapolitan-style pies. That's already two more than I had anticipated.

Our last day was a Sunday with a short agenda. We had visited the wonderful Drayton Hall on the outskirts of Charleston and found ourselves in a remote area with time to kill before a late flight home. Since we hadn't yet visited the top pizzeria from my scouting report, we decided to head to EVO in North Charleston on a hot afternoon.

What remained of our corn salad

EVO ("Extra Virgin Oven") is located on a quiet boulevard that looks like an old-time Mayberry-ish strip of downtown storefronts, except that every one had been updated to a hip destination for dining or yoga or other services. We felt that we could likely get a good meal in any spot there.

The interior was comfortable and casual, and we were greeted promptly and warmly. Because the personal size pies were listed at 12" and we had no capacity for taking home leftovers, we decided to split one salad and one pizza.

The salads come in two sizes, and the large size ($11) is big enough to be a meal. From an inventive list, we chose the Corn Salad, which featured tender mixed greens, fresh roasted corn, and a cured meat that (I think) was bacon, all in a savory dressing. We were hungry and that salad was terrific, which explains why there is only a picture of it after more than half was eaten. 

The pizza menu likewise offered options that were inventive without venturing into the weird or the excessive. We settled on a special "speck and mushroom" pizza ($15) that featured that wonderful cured meat (speck is - to me - the best take on prosciutto), deeply flavored mushrooms, and basil pine nut pesto.

The pizza arrived at our table cut into 6 slices. It looked beautiful, top and bottom. A big and puffy cornicione, plenty of leopard spotting, and a generous distribution of curled and crisp speck.

EVO is both a bakery and a pizzeria, and it seems they have some special bread skills. The pies at Crust and La Tela had both sported flawless Neapolitan or Neapolitan hybrid crusts, but this crust was at another level. It had all the elements of great bread - flavor, a tender chew, structure to support the toppings, and a crisp crunch.

But the crust was only the beginning here. Some white pies can be tame in flavor, lacking the acidic punch of a good red sauce. Here, though, was an explosion of deep savory flavors. I wish I had taken note of what kind of mushrooms were used (shittake?), but there was an umami party going on here.

While the cured meat and mushrooms provided the first burst of flavor, it was the basil pinenut pesto that brought all the elements into harmony. I'm sure the cheese was top grade, but it took a bit of a back seat to the intense flavors even as it was an essential element to balance the textures.

Mrs. Quixote rarely battles me for the last slice, but here we instantly lamented when it was gone. This was about a perfect pizza, and she said it was the best pizza of her life. I'm not ready to go that far, but it's the most flavorful pizza I can recall and this pie should make anybody's Top Ten list.

The "Extra Virgin Oven"

There's a thousand reasons to visit the Charleston area, and EVO may be the best of them. Absolutely destination pizza, worth the trip no matter where your starting point may be.

Review: Crust Wood Fired Pizza, James Island SC

Crust Wood-Fired Pizza occupies a cozy spot in a James Island strip mall on Maybank Highway, just south of the Charleston peninsula. We visited at lunch time on a Friday and chose patio seating despite the intense heat of a Carolina July day; shade and porch fans kept it comfortable.

From a list of creative pizza options, we chose to share two 12" personal size Neapolitan pies. One was a fairly conventional pizza with red sauce and mozzarella, albeit a bit heavily loaded with the three-meat topping of pepperoni, sausage, and bacon. The second pie was the "Crustacean" with spicy shrimp, prosciutto, arugula pesto, feta, fresh mozzarella, fresh arugula,  and chili oil.

At a pizzeria named "Crust," the expectations are high for the dough base of the pie. I'm happy to report that Crust earns its name. This is a pretty pure version of the traditional Neapolitan pizza, made in a wood-fired oven (although not a dome oven) with the characteristic puffy cornicione and leopard spotting.

On both pies, the crust was soft but not floppy, thin everywhere except the cornicione, and delicious all by itself. On some Neapolitans, the white pies work better because the reduced moisture load (no red sauce) prevents the pie from becoming soggy in the middle. 

Here, both pies were expertly crafted and there was no hint of the wet center that spoils so many otherwise tasty Neapolitan pizzas.

The Crustacean pie sported several large brick red pieces of shrimp, made dark by spices. Seafood on pizza is a difficult challenge, because the intense heat required for any pizza - and especially a Neapolitan - is a threat to obliterate delicate seafood like shrimp. The shrimp here did not seem to suffer; perhaps they were added toward the end of the bake cycle.

What dominated that pie, though, was the arugula pesto. It blended smartly with the fresh mozzarella cheese and prosciutto. There were a lot of flavors going on here, and the shrimp got a little bit lost in competition with the meat, cheese, pesto, chili oil, and fresh arugula. All told this was a wonderful pizza, but I think it would not have been very different if made with any spicy meat in place of the shrimp.

The three-meat pie was also a bit of risk of too much bulk in the toppings, but the crust was up to the job. The red sauce was simple but prominent among the flavors. 

The pepperoni was thin and nicely crisped, and adhered well to the base as did the bacon. The sausage, pre-cooked large crumbles, added another dimension of flavor.

On most pizzas, Neapolitan or otherwise, I prefer traditional dry mozzarella to fresh mozzarella, because it doesn't release much water into the pie and it typically has more flavor. On both of these pizzas, however, the wonderful flavor of the fresh mozz was a standout. It seemed creamy and somehow more dense than most fresh mozzarella. It helped turn good pizza into great pizza.

The wood-fired oven

Just days earlier, we'd eaten shockingly good pizza at La Tela, also on James Island just outside Kiawah. Here again, we found pizza that was essentially flawless. An ideally-rendered and authentic Neapolitan crust topped with deeply flavorful fresh mozzarella and well-mated toppings. We asked ourselves if Crust or La Tela had better pizza - but the answer is that they are both wonderful.

Review: La Tela Pizzeria - Kiawah Island, SC

Kiawah Island is a superb beach and golf destination about 40 minutes south of Charleston, SC. Within the sprawling resort, there are plenty of good but pricey dining options. Just outside the resort property is an outdoor mall called Freshfields Village, with a nice mix of shopping and dining options. There we found La Tela, which bills itself as a wood-fired Neapolitan pizzeria.

Opened in 2009, the La Tela website says:

Family-run and operated, we are proud of the relationships we’ve built with the local community and farmers we buy from. Whether it is the pasta made with eggs from SC pasture-raised chickens, wood fired pizza topped with shrimp from SC waters, or a bottle of Barolo from a family-run vineyard in Piedmont, Italy, you can taste the love we have for only sourcing the best.

We stopped in for lunch on a sweltering Monday in July. The dining room was not quite full, but there was a happy bustling of activity. Our waitress was especially friendly in greeting us and gave terrific service throughout our meal.

In a Neapolitan pizzeria, I often feel like I should get a more autentico pie that includes red sauce, but we were intrigued by the Quail Egg pizza, made with olive oil, pancetta, mozzarella, Parmigiano Reggiono, Pecorino Romano, and cracked black pepper. The 14" version was $20, pretty modestly priced for resort-area dining.

We began by sharing a dry roasted golden beet salad that included baby arugula, dried apricot, ricotta salata, pistachios, and a vanilla bean vinaigrette. The good news is that we loved it - a terrific mix of fresh flavors, colors, and textures. Scrumptious and good for sharing. The bad news is that we ate it so ravenously that I forgot to get a picture.

The pizza came out looking terrific. I love the "egg on a Neapolitan" concept, but it often seems that one conventional chicken egg doesn't cover much of the pizza surface. It's also a difficult trick to add the egg at the right time to get it cooked perfectly. The quail egg approach is a great solution. I counted nine eggs on this 8-slice pie, so you get an egg on every slice. And the much smaller eggs cook faster.

With the savory pancetta, this was very much an eggs and bacon pizza. The three Italian cheeses blended into a smooth but robust flavor. Everything about the toppings of this pie were spot on in flavor, texture, and balance.

None of that matters if the crust can't measure up and stand up to the toppings. A lot of Neapolitan pies are too soft and too thin to support the toppings; many are soggy in the middle. Purists argue that Neapolitan pizza has a wet center by design, but I want no part of that tradition.

Happily, that was not an issue here. Even though the lack of tomato sauce disqualifies a pizza from being authentically Neapolitan, a white pie is less likely to become soggy due to less moisture on top. I suspect this crust, though, would stand up just fine even with a red sauce. 

Cooked in a wood-fired oven, the crust seems like a Neapolitan hybrid. It was a little thicker, much more sturdy, and the cornicione was downright crunchy. Crisp outside, pillowy inside with great hole structure, this crust also had a wonderful flavor on its own, like a fresh loaf of Italian bread. I often prefer a Neapolitan hybrid crust - like the one at La Porta - over an authentically rendered Neapolitan pie.

This pie was essentially flawless. It was a well-chosen pairing of cheeses, eggs, and pancetta on a delectably crunchy and chewy crust. The amount of toppings were in harmony with the crust, and the whole pie was impeccably balanced. Add in the friendly ambiance, terrific service, and modest pricing and this stands out as an exemplary pizza experience - a delightful surprise in a resort area. Absolutely destination pizza.