Review: Lefty's Pizza Kitchen - Austin TX

Lakeway, Bee Cave, and Spicewood are suburban towns near Lake Travis* in the Texas Hill Country west of downtown Austin. Here you can find some decent Texas BBQ, plenty of Mexican restaurants, and a smattering of nearly everything else. 

Our lovely neighbors and dining partners

Most importantly for pizza lovers, burgeoning suburban neighborhoods in these towns have brought in new Texans from all over the USA. People from the east coast, midwest, California, and Chicago. Pizza eaters! 

I've been here for three and a half years and remained shocked and thrilled by the variety and quality of pizza this far from downtown Austin. I thought I would need to drive to the city for the great pizzas at places like Salvation or Home Slice, but there's several great places nearby and new ones keep popping up.

Chicago Cut 10" pan pizza at Lefty's

Within a short drive, I can get world-class Detroit style pizza at Via 313, authentic Neapolitan pies at Casa Nostra, Pieous, and Sorellina, St. Louis style flatbread pizza at 'Zza, New York hybrid pies at Lake Travis Pizza and Toss, and New Jersey strip mall slices at Jersey Giant.

10" tavern style pizza at Lefty's

With all that, several of my neighbors from the midwest have lamented the lack of Chicago style pizza. That has changed dramatically with the September 2022 opening of Lefty's Pizza Kitchen, which also has two Chicago area locations.

A larger pan pizza with pepperoni - nice browning on this one!

Every Chicago tourist and every visitor to the national chain Uno comes away with an idea of what constitutes a Chicago style pie, but in fact the city is home to several kinds of pizza. It's useful to know the differences:

Tavern Style. These are round and thin pizzas sliced into small squares (the party cut). I've had great versions at Vito & Nick's in Chicago and at Rubino's in Bexley, Ohio. Other than the odd slicing pattern, most folks would find them similar to east coast "bar pies" such as found at Lee's Tavern in Staten Island. 

A slice of our tavern style pizza at Lefty's

Deep Dish. This is what most folks think of when you say "Chicago." The crust is indeed deep, like a short wide bowl with a flat bottom. The bowl is made from a medium thick and crumbly crust that is often yellow and buttery. It is constructed with mozzarella on the bottom, then a choice of typical toppings, and lastly a thick layer of chunky, bright red tomato sauce. A true belly bomb, it's the pizza offered at the marquee names and chains like Lou Malnati's and Uno's. I once dismissed this in Jon Stewart fashion as "tomato soup in a bread bowl" but I did have great deep-dish pizza at Louisa's in Crestwood and Pizano's in Chicago.

Deep dish pizza from Louisa's, Crestwood IL

Stuffed Pizza. For someone outside of Chicago, it's hard to differentiate stuffed pizza from deep dish, but this style has an additional thin layer of dough above the cheese and below the sauce. Giordano's calls theirs "deep dish stuffed" pizza. I can enjoy deep dish and stuffed, but it's hard to acclimate to cheese and meat "toppings" that are buried under a sea of red sauce and thus denied the browning and crisping they acquire on a thin pizza.

Stuffed pizza from Giordano's, Chicago

Pan Pizza. While this pizza has a thick crust (about the same as a Detroit or Sicilian style pie), it is constructed more like a traditional pizza. It is baked in a pan, with a distinctive cornicione of caramelized parmesan cheese. The dense crust is bready and less crisp than thinner styles of pizza, but generally sturdy enough to carry all the toppings. Importantly, a sea of red sauce doesn't bury the cheese and toppings in the way found on deep dish pies.

Pan pizza at Pequod's, Chicago

Lefty's is situated in a small strip of newly built storefronts, adjacent to a 7-11 store at the intersection of Route 71 and Bee Creek Rd. This area, including the surrounding Sweetwater development, is in unincorporated Travis County. It's not within the boundaries of Spicewood, Bee Cave, or Lakeway; hence the official address is "Austin" even though it is twenty-two miles from downtown.

Inside Lefty's

Inside, the space is large, open, and well-lit. You order at the counter, take your drinks (soda, wine, canned beer) to your table, and the pizza arrives later. Lefty's offers both tavern style and pan style pizzas, even though the pan style is the star attraction. On our initial visit we ordered both kinds, knowing we'd have plenty of leftovers.

Tavern style

I've only experienced authentic Chicago pan pizza once, when I made a long trek across Chicago to get to the acclaimed Pequod's. We waited an hour to be seated and another hour for the pizza, and it was terrible. Their pizza is generally beloved, so I'm guessing I arrived on an off night.

Pale underside of the tavern pie

At Lefty's, we ordered a 10" Chicago Cut pan pizza ($23.95), one of their specialty pies made with sausage, bell peppers, and onion. I confirmed that this pizza would be baked in the proper fashion, with raw sausage that cooks on the pie. Say no to pre-cooked sausage toppings! We also chose a 10" build-your-own tavern pie with half pepperoni and half sausage ($16.20).

Small slices of the tavern pie

Let's begin with the tavern pie, which was a nice-looking pizza with a hint of golden color at the cornicione. The generous amount of cheese (mostly or entirely mozzarella) was applied on top of the pepperoni and sausage, but it didn't smother them completely. The bright red chunky sauce worked nicely with the cheese and meat toppings to deliver a balanced flavor with each bite. It was salty in a good way.

A close-up of the dense, chewy dough on the tavern pie

The crust was thin and sturdy, but its texture and color suggested that the oven temperature or cooking time might need to be adjusted. It seemed to be fully cooked, if a bit pale underneath. It was dense and chewy, not bad characteristics for a pizza crust, but it lacked the snap and crunch of the best tavern style pizzas I've had. It's a good pizza that could be great with some fine tuning.

Brilliant caramelized cheesy edge on the pan pizza

The star of the show was, of course, the pan pizza. The cheesy caramelized edge was perfect -- dark and crunchy near the top, rich golden brown below. The top was a richly colored abstract where bits of softened white onion commingled with bright yellow and green bell peppers and charred brown sausage chunks, all swimming atop a sea of molten mozzarella with pools of chunky red sauce. 

Unlike a Chicago deep-dish, the sausage and cheese are exposed on top to get the benefit of oven browning. This 10" pie was cut into six slices, and each one was a little messy at the narrow end due to the big payload of cheese, sauce, and toppings. Having said that, after eating a few bites with knife and fork, the slice held together well enough to pick it up and eat like conventional pizza. Bonus points for that!

Thick and dense, but good crumb structure on the pan pizza

I think the dough was the same as used for the tavern pizza; it was dense, but appropriately so for this style of pie. The flavors here were superb. I chose the Chicago Cut because I wanted to experience what the real Chicagoans regard as the ideal components for a pan pizza. And it worked beautifully. The only minor quibble is that the peppers added unwelcome moisture, but the flavor was more important.

The red sauce was prominent, and it was especially bright and fresh. The bell pepper was understated but not invisible, and the onions added a nicely sweet umami undertone. The sausage was the star topping, perfectly browned while it released extra flavor into the pie as it cooked on top. 

Golden crisp underside of the pan pizza

Like the tavern pie, this pizza was salty in a good way. As a salt fiend, I typically season every slice with some surface salt, but this pizza didn't need any. And the experience confirmed to me that some famous pizzas are particularly beloved by their devotees because of that salty element. Examples would be a Papa's Trenton mustard pie where a layer of mustard (!) is applied below the cheese and sauce, or the very salty and widely acclaimed best pizza in Staten Island, Denino's. 

No draft beer, but fine local brews like McConauHaze

Could this pizza be better? I think so, with just minor tweaks. I'd like a touch more top browning and snap to the crust. Even though the underside of the pizza had a lovely golden color, a bit more time or oven temperature might help. I suspect that the larger pies are better executed at this point, and it must be difficult to get the same result on the several different size pizzas offered in each style. Every new pizzeria needs to work out the kinks, and I'm confident that this excellent pizza will only improve as the new staff gets a feel for the ovens and the method.

Authentic Chicago pan pizza in a suburb 22 miles west of downtown Austin? It's here, it's real, it's excellent, and we're fortunate to add this great pizza to the wide range of pizza choices in the Lake Travis region. I'll be back often.

Sunset on Lake Travis (from Oasis restaurant)

*Lake Travis is one of the Highland Lakes, a series of freshwater reservoirs in Central Texas formed by dams on the Colorado River (not to be confused with the other Colorado River that flows from Colorado through Arizona and California).