Review: Serious Pie, Seattle WA

The Pacific Northwest. What things come to mind when you think about the region? Coffee, rain, grunge music, Keepin' Portland Weird, rain, the Space Needle, Dungeness crabs, rain, hazelnuts, salmon, and rain? Accurate enough, but we also found an extensive list of cutting-edge pizza places to seek out in Seattle. 

Seattle isn't known for its pizza joints, so there are no legendary or iconic places like Totonno's in Coney Island, Pepe's in New Haven, DeLorenzo's in Trenton NJ, or Tacconelli's in Philadelphia. Like every city in America, Seattle is blessed with dozens of worthy pizzerias making reasonably authentic Neapolitan style pies (personal size, puffy edge, baked at 900+ degrees, often eaten with knife and fork).

Beyond that, many other regional styles abound, including Chicago, Detroit, and New Haven style pizza. We only had pizza twice during our 5 days in Seattle, and our first stop was the downtown location of Serious Pie, walking distance from a lot of the major attractions like Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.

We arrived without a reservation at 6:30pm on a Wednesday, and the comfortably appointed seating space was full of happy patrons. We ordered drinks from the bar and were seated soon afterward.

Heirloom tomato salad

Serious Pie found its way to my Seattle pizza radar based on some online reviews and pictures. Their website reports that it’s a "pizzeria with a bread baker’s soul" featuring blistered crusts that are "light textured but with just enough structure and bite " baked in a 600-degree applewood-burning oven." 

Sweet fennel sausage pizza

For starters, we ordered the Heirloom Tomato Salad ($13), because we love tomatoes and don't often find passable ones near our Texas home (unless we grow them ourselves). It arrived as an artful presentation, a swirled mound of eye-popping multi-colored tomatoes with cucumber on a palette of spiced yogurt, all dusted with herbs. It was delicious and refreshing, with authentic heirloom tomatoes that tasted like they were field grown. It really heightened the anticipation for the pizzas.

Mushroom pizza

The oval pies are a tad larger than the typical personal-sized pizzeria, enough to feed one hungry person or two people with modest appetites. We were somewhere in between that, so we erred on the high side and ordered two pizzas: a red pie featuring sweet fennel sausage, roasted peppers, and provolone ($24) and a white pie with roasted oyster mushrooms, crimini, and truffle ($22).

When our pizzas arrived, I was delighted that they looked wonderful - none of the pictures I had seen online revealed the beauty of the crust. We had arrived hungry after a day of driving (from Vancouver) with a stop-off in La Conner on the way; we dug in ravenously.

These pies had a bit of a New Haven vibe, given their oval shape and deep golden edges. The cornicione was puffy like a Neapolitan, albeit with a lot more density and crunch. Despite being topped with "sweet" fennel sausage, the red pie had some spicy elements coming from somewhere, perhaps that deep vibrant red sauce.

Lovely crunchy undercarriage

Also lurking in the flavor mix was a hint of sweetness. Certainly, it was a complex and layered flavor, sweet, salty, spicy, herbal. Bursts of umami riding on the crispy, chewy, puffy, sturdy crust. That pizza alone was more than enough to declare "great pizza" here.

Golden puffy cornicione

The white pie shared that same magnificent crust, with a tiny bit more crunch because it didn't carry the moisture load of red sauce. The flavors went in a completely different direction than the red pizza, but equally delightful. 

The kitchen and pizza oven

I like big mushroom flavors for the earthiness, but here the trio of oyster, crimini, and truffle worked in harmony for a more subtle umami. It was a happy accident that this pizza paired so perfectly with my pint of Rooftop "Glorious Basker," a blood orange wheat beer.

Superb hole structure, brilliant texture

This was a particularly satisfying meal in every regard. Nice setting, terrific service, a spot-on salad, and superb pizza occupying some hybrid region between New Haven, New York, and Naples. I'd for sure be a regular if I lived in Seattle.