Pizza is my love language.
There is something about dough and sauce, cheese and meat, that is more than the sum of its parts. My fixation on pizza is well-documented. I once accidentally spent the night in Napoli (the birthplace of pizza), when I got off a train to get an authentic Margarita, only to discover that it was the last train of the day. It meant bonus pizza for me, and so the accident was happy. One Valentine’s Day, when my husband and I were both laid off only days apart from each other, he spent his literal last dollars on a heart-shaped pepperoni pizza.
With my great love for pizza, I’m overdue for sharing my pizza food crush. My favorite pie in town is from Osteria Amore: Pizze Marco, aka the signature dish named after executive chef and partner Marco Cuttaia.
What is a food crush, you ask? When a dish stops being dinner and starts being an obsession. It’s the flavor you keep chasing, and the reason you find yourself back at the same restaurant days later pretending you’re “just in the neighborhood.”
The Pizze Marco is a pizza bianca and forgoes a red sauce base. Which means that the crust has nowhere to hide and must be perfect.
This particular pizza makes good use of a white cheese base, bubbling hot from the oven with pink folds of mortadella scattered atop. Mortadella is the original cured sausage from the Bologna region of Italy. Nothing like packaged lunch meat: Mortadella is made with finely ground pork, emulsified to a paste, with chunks of white, flavorful lardo (pork fat) mixed throughout like confetti. While not a “traditional” meat you find on pizza, it makes sense at Osteria Amore since Eduardo Daja, the owner, is originally from the region.
The scent of the hot Marco pizza as it hits the table is sweet and laurel-y, with the mortadella lightly crisp at the edges and the fat melting into the pizza. The thin slices of sausage dissolve on the tongue. The crust is free-formed (read: not perfectly round) with jagged edges for soaking up the liberally drizzled olive oil. But the real magic comes from the contrast of cold burrata, rustically torn over the top of the hot pizza with a sprinkling of chopped pistachios and fresh lemon zest. With the grassy olive oil, cool and milky cheese, crunchy toasted nuts, hot crust and smooth mortadella, this pie becomes a tour of flavor, an experiment in temperature and a delight of textures. All crush-worthy.
In Italian, an Osteria is a traditional casual family restaurant or tavern with good food, warm service and a community feel. Osteria Amore captures that community spirit nestled just west of the University of Utah. Many of the servers have been there for years. They will suggest a glass of wine for the perfect pairing and even craft a multi-course dinner. I’ve visited for romantic dinners and on a random Tuesday on a whim. Both are appropriate.
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