Review: Sunny Hill Pizza - Seattle

I grew up eating some excellent Sicilian style pizza in the 1970s, but now the few places still making that style typically make greasy pies featuring soft crusts that are overloaded with toppings from cheap mass-sourced ingredients. 

The Sicilian's natural cousin is the Detroit style pizza, which can fairly be described as a Sicilian style pan-baked pie where the cheese is applied all the way to the edges so that it runs down the side to create a crisp caramelized edge, and the sauce is applied after the dough and cheese are baked.

While I'm not sure how Detroit style began its ascent into the kinds of pizza cherished not just in Detroit but nationally, it was already the highlight of my "Best Of" list in 2016: Pizza Quixote Top 2016 Discoveries. 

Cozy interior at Sunny Hill Pizza

My own introduction was at the astonishing Norma's Pizza in Mannheim, PA. Norma is now mostly retired, except for occasional appearances on celebrity pizza shows, but her take on a Detroit pizza set the standard for me. Now I'm fortunate that I get another top-shelf Detroit pie close to home at Via 313 in Austin.

Heirloom tomato salad

Anyhow, I had a short list of pizzerias I wanted to visit during 5 days in Seattle. I couldn't get to them all, but we hit two homeruns with our choices. Our first stop was Serious Pie, and it was a slam-dunk winner. We were close to Sunny Hill after a visit to the Ballard Locks, and that became our second pizza destination.

We arrived around sunset on a beautiful warm late summer night; the restaurant was busy but not packed, and we quickly found an open table. Much like Via 313, Sunny Hill offers both a thin round pizza and the Detroit style. With a larger group I'd have surely sampled both, but we had to make a hard choice as a party of two. We settled on the "Arcade" Detroit square, featuring pepperoni, pickled serrano peppers, mozzarella, and parm with a red sauce.

The dining room was casual and comfortable; we sensed that this was a place frequented much more by locals than by tourists, with a location tucked into an almost-suburban neighborhood (with easy street parking). 

We began with an heirloom tomato salad that was almost as beautiful as it was delicious. It set the stage nicely for the pizza to follow.

The pie came to our table smartly positioned on a metal grid rack, so that the crust wouldn't become soft or damp from sweating on a plate. This pizza had four thick slices, so that each slice had two full edges sporting that caramelized cheese. It was loaded with wonderful cup 'n' char pepperoni cups that were ideally crisped, although some were stacked two and three deep.

Crunchy delightful underside of the crust

The caramelized edges were perfectly executed, just the right crunch and very thorough cheese application. The pepperoni and pickled serranos delivered a serious umami punch, but not enough to overwhelm the creaminess of the cheese and the piquant red sauce.

Most importantly, the crust had a delightful crunchy and oiled underside. It was about the standard thickness for a Detroit pie. Some Detroit pizzas manage to be pillowy and delicate, but this one was more dense, more toothsome, more substantial.

Even with the heavier approach to the dough, I ate two slices and could have managed another, absent any concerns about calories. It was a delicious blend of flavors riding on a sturdy and crunchy crust with textbook caramelized edges.

I actually brought home to Texas the final leftover slice, and heated it up several days later -- and it was superb. I've yet to meet a Detroit pizza that I didn't like. Sunny Hill Pizza is a neighborhood joint, removed from the busy tourist scene downtown by the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. It's a wonderful relaxing stop for locals or tourists who happen to be in the area.