The rise of NeoPapalis

A theory: Pizza ranks among the world’s most popular meals because 1) irresistible magic happens when good dough meets aromatic sauce meets rich cheese, and a hot oven melds them into a crispy-edged whole greater than its parts, and 2) simplicity in concept enables individuals to tailor their pizza pies to highly personal definitions of culinary happiness.

To phrase it another way, and show said theory in action, consider: Sis is vegetarian again, Bro has hit a growth spurt and wants meat and lots of it, Dad is forgoing cheese these days ’cause his pants are too tight, and Grandma suggests piling up an “everything” so she can take leftovers home for a week of balanced lunches (those nice sturdy cardboard to-go boxes are so convenient, aren’t they?). Such a scenario could arise even before we start talking low-salt, gluten-free, raw food, organic, locally sourced, vegan, religiously defined, cultural, or other preferences. One beauty of pizza is its potential to accommodate essential and faddish dietary requests better than most restaurant fare.

In Ann Arbor we are blessed with many venues to get good pizza and fast pizza. In the blocks just west of the Diag, where Main Street sensibilities meet worldly tastes and opinions, two new places opened this summer, further stretching a lineup that already ran from organic to Original.

One new place in particular has rapidly risen here, thanks to a stellar combination of quality and flexibility. Good luck finding pizza in town more sublime than the “North Coast” Bianca, in which chopped dried figs and creamy gorgonzola forge a slightly sweet and totally delectable cheese topping. Condolences if anyone in your party needs a greater variety of options than the dozens of meats, veggies, cheeses, and spiced oils lined up along the open kitchen (broccolini and prosciutto, even).

The place that offers all this range dependably, and in just one year has turned doubters (like me) into happy customers, is NeoPapalis on the corner of East William and Thompson. From its humble debut last October as the ground-floor eatery in the Zaragon West student apartment building, NeoPapalis has evolved into a first-choice bistro-like destination for families, couples on date night, and discriminating individuals intent upon their perfect twelve-inch, six-slice personal pie.

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Visionary chef and hands-on co-owner Joe Sheena is likely the first person you’ll see when you walk into the modern glass-walled NeoPapalis. He may look you right in the eye from behind the dough prep counter, eager to tell you anything you’re not picking up from the overwhelmingly detailed whole-wall menu and stacks of order slips.

“Have you been here before?” he may ask if you haven’t, since he really wants you to understand how he runs the place, giving you a good thin-crust pizza platform to customize the way you–and maybe only you–want.

If yours is a repeat visit, don’t be surprised if he picks right up where your conversation left off last time, about why whole wheat dough won’t work with his slow-rise Neapolitan recipe (“it’d come out hard as a board”) or the importance of crushed tomatoes for the sauce (“and not just any tomatoes, or even any Italian ones, but the best San Marzano ones that we even private label for our other Pizza Papalis places around Detroit”).

While he’s talking to you, in a big-city fast clip, his eyes occasionally dart down the prep line to check on his young employees at their stations. Sheena is one intense foodie entrepreneur “mother hen.”

As customer, you get the payoff in a meal with your choice of quality ingredients cooked in a very hot stone oven literally in minutes (between four and ten, on my visits). Or not cooked, in the case of salads you can also customize over beds of arugula, spinach, or romaine–again with high-quality ingredients, including some really fresh tomatoes and amazing sweet peppers one late-summer evening. The vinegar-and-oil dressing in a Greek salad had a bit of separation still, a pleasant thing in this era of emulsification. My favorite veggie pizza topping (also available in sandwiches) was the seasoned sauteed mushrooms, which had the pleasant woodsiness that justifies eating fungi.

There’s room for improvement, of course. A disappointing fail arose from egg-size fresh mozzarella chunks that turned the center of a Margherita pizza unpleasantly soupy, so that milky cheese juice dripped down between nubs of the clever metal serving platter designed to keep the crust crispy. Hey, Joe: don’t you think the easy fix would be to make those fresh moz chunks smaller and line them closer to the edge where the crust takes on that nice black char?

Caramelized onions seemed undercooked as well, and thus not caramelized. Little triangles of canned pineapple stuck out as machine cut among the otherwise beautiful-looking real food atop our pizzas. Again, Joe: you go to so much trouble on so many other fresh toppings, how about giving my teenage son even half as much pineapple that remembers where it came from, so I can really get excited that he ordered it and green peppers along with smoked meats on his version of a perfect pizza? A last thing: some of the Michigan beers on tap were too fruity to go well with pizza. Yes, the liquor license just came through only a few months ago, but I’m happier going less far afield for my mealtime pint.

Consider such niggling pro forma, because truly these were the first Ann Arbor quick pizzas to remind me of Boston’s North End and New Haven’s Wooster Street–and maybe even Joe’s beloved Amalfi Coast itself. I’m glad that business at NeoPapalis has picked up after a slow start, that it was named the Michigan Daily’s best new restaurant of 2013, and that it’s likely to stay around for a while, because I left after three visits in September still wanting to try pizzas with the rosemary chicken, steak, and curry chicken toppings. And I’m guessing those crispy sweet potato fries with spiced-right chipotle dip are going to be wonderfully warming when winter starts infringing on fall. Ditto for the cinnamon sticks, which I didn’t have room for yet. And since my subject was pizza, I never tried one of those good-looking fresh-baked sandwiches that start at $5.50 but likely will run higher by the time I start tucking in more of the awesome toppings at NeoPapalis.

NeoPapalis

I think NeoPapalis has the best mix of quality and “user experience” where town meets gown in Ann Arbor, but that doesn’t mean it will be your favorite. Several family members and friends had other priorities and ranked other places higher. To wit:

Heritage award: The Original Cottage Inn traces its history back to 1948 (hence its sixty-fifth birthday celebrations this year–in October, in fact, with three days of retro-priced specials and a sixty-five-pizza giveaway). It claims to be the first restaurant in Ann Arbor to serve pizza, and longtime Ann Arborites tell me it was much appreciated during decades of few options (other than Domino’s and Little Caesars). It has sentimental loyalists and fans among the super-cheesy, crispy crowd. I like how the free sesame seeds enhance the flavor of the crust in this straightforward presentation, and the Greek toppings combo tastes great. The $8.95 all-you-can eat lunch buffet with salad and soup is quite a deal, and several Mediterranean main dishes round out an expansive menu.

The Original Cottage Inn, 512 E. William, 663-3379. Mon.-Wed. 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Thurs.-Sat. 11 a.m.-midnight, Sun. noon-10 p.m. Sandwiches $7.99-$8.99; pizzas $9.99 and up; pasta dishes $10.99-$14.99. Wheelchair accessible. originalcottageinn.com

Glocal groove: Silvio’s Organic Ristorante e Pizzeria has that European yet homey vibe that is intriguing but kind of clubby (think hipsters and locavores). Its backroom hideaway is cheered up by classic red-and-white checkered tablecloths, flower vases, and gorgeous shelves of basil plants under grow lights. There’s a bright case of scrumptious homemade Italian desserts, placid staff who will humor your attempts to speak rusty Italian, and some potentially fantastic food if you have the patience to overlook the misses and wait for the hits. The Medoro family brings generations of bread-baking experience to a crust that comes hot from the oven with fluffy texture, a yeasty tang, and sufficiently crusty edges. Trendy toppings and fillings range from custard cream to tuna to zucchini. Not all ingredients are organic, but the pineapple (and most everything else) is fresh and not canned. The sauce had a tomato bisque-like subtlety that was lovely on the side for dipping but dried to a paste on ready-to-warm slices. Custom order a personal six-incher, settle in for the wait, and mangia bene. You can even get it gluten free.

Silvio’s Organic Ristorante e Pizzeria, 715 North University, 214-6666. Daily 11 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Pizzas start at $6; pasta dishes $6.50 (half order) and up. Wheelchair accessible. silviosorganicpizza.com

Pick a Slice, Any Slice Attitude: New York Pizza Depot’s pizza isn’t the only thing that’s saucy at this hard-to-pigeonhole joint. It’s the place to go for slices in town (for atmosphere and slow-food chops, head back around the corner to Silvio’s). Scaled back to just its original location and now serving beer, NYPD is central-cast with tough guys–including grandmotherly and bleach blonde varieties. You can feel them rolling their eyes behind the tall, dark glass-topped counter as you slowly peruse the dozen or so portions of pies on display, ready to be slapped into the hot oven and onto a paper plate for you. The variety is endlessly surprising, from cheeseless multi-veggie to BBQ chicken to ziti-pasta-topped. The hot oven will give any of them a passably crispy bottom crust, but the toppings don’t always warm much, which makes me a little nervous about those chicken options sitting out … I can’t remember which types I’ve liked best over the years–maybe that feta and veggie? And is that the spinach and mushroom I once really liked … did it have those olives and onions? All right, you don’t have to wave the spatula! I’m almost ready to decide …

New York Pizza Depot, 605 E. William, 669-6973. Daily 10 a.m.-4 a.m. Pizza by the slice from $2.22; pizzas $7.99 and up; hot subs $7.49; Italian specialties start at $10.50. Wheelchair accessible. newyorkpizzaannarbor.com

Imported from Madison: Toppers recently made its Ann Arbor debut right next door to NYPD. In any other neighborhood, 100 percent Wisconsin cheese, lots of quality ingredients, and clever marketing graphics that work hard to not look mass-produced might rise above a franchise feeling. But competition is tough here, and longer-than-promised wait times and stringy spinach generate head shakes and tsk-tsks. It might do just fine so near campus–I saw a lot of folks carrying those graffiti-style boxes, and mac and cheese as a pizza topping could be a hit–but it won’t be a dining destination like our final entry …

Toppers Pizza, 607 E. William, 585-5337. Daily 10:30 a.m.-4 a.m. Pizzas $8.99 and up. toppers.com

Urban, Urbane: Mani Osteria in the Google-land at the corner of Liberty and Division will probably put twice the hit on your budget as any other pizza place discussed. It’s loud and absolutely kinetic if you come on a busy night and sit at the counter alongside the open kitchen, where the “many hands” name plays out with ten pairs of them flying from the prep space to the wood-fired oven. Microthin-crust pies here can be exquisite and include the only clam one I found where town meets gown, full of shellfish flavor but not fishy–although it’s served with half a lemon just in case. The brand new bacon and caramelized cipollini combo was tasty, although again the onions weren’t as crispy-sweet as would be ideal (a complaint I had at NeoPapalis as well, you may recall). I was sad to find the farmers market pizza I loved last fall had disappeared from Mani’s menu. But when owner Adam Baru stepped in for our overtasked server to take our money and check on our satisfaction level, he told us to try ordering off menu next time, and they’d make anything they could round up the ingredients for.

I’ll remember that–but truly, I’m pretty much set for pizza for a while. If you want to expand the tasting survey down to the brewpubs near Main, Pizza House on South U, etc., go for it–con gusto!

Mani Osteria & Bar, 341 E. Liberty, 769-6700. Tues.-Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Sat. 4-11 p.m., Sun. 5-9 p.m. Closed Mon. Pizzas $13 and up; pastas $14 and up; appetizers in various price ranges. Wheelchair accessible. maniosteria.com