White pizzas—where pesto, butter, garlic and other sauces replace tomato sauce—are also becoming more prevalent. The use of non-tomato sauces frees up pizza’s taste range immensely. There’s teriyaki with smoked salmon and capers, garlic sauce and shrimp, barbecue sauce and chicken, and on and on.
Toppings are becoming more creative, and pizzas are going ethnic and regional. “People want to try to put everything they can consume on a pizza,” Weinburg says. “One of the most important trends is using fresh, locally grown ingredients on pizzas. From local corn and eggplant to locally caught oysters and shrimp, this is what makes a pizza local, makes it belong to a region or town.”
Good bacon is reemerging as a popular topping, and Weinburg’s seeing grilled pizzas (charmarks and all) cropping up, too
Cohen, the Texas chef, makes a popular Pizza La Dier, featured in his upcoming Texas Hill Country Cookbook, that’s emblematic of one aspect of the pizza resurgence. With caramelized onions and Nicoise olives over leftover dough, usually from croissants, it’s rustic, specialized, and high end.
“Pizza’s just one of those things people like experimenting with,” Cohen says. “You can make it with whatever’s left over. Take steak and you’ve got Philly cheese-steak pizza. I’ve put foie gras on pizza, and rhubarb marmalade with a little shaved Mimolette-style cheese and duck confit. I can think of a million different things to make just out of leftovers.”
Cohen recently visited Argentina, and he’s predicting that we’ll soon be seeing pizzas that, for sauce, use that country’s beloved chimichurri sauce (a pesto-like marinade of parsley, garlic, paprika, and oregano) topped with asada (grilled beef), chorizo, or blood sausage.
Quick-serves are rushing into the pizza business because it’s a big, sure-fire market. People of all ages love pizza and most can afford it, even if it’s premium–price, Weinburg says. Plus, pizza doesn’t require fancy techniques or large kitchens.
“It’s obvious why bread and sandwich chains are getting into the specialty pizza biz; they want to use their existing revenue base, i.e. bread, and expand their product offerings to existing customers and attract new customers,” Weinburg says. “Dough is cheap and versatile. Money is made by putting specialty and premium ingredients on the dough.”
The specialty pizza craze really started in the early 1980s and is credited to California Pizza Kitchen, which is now No. 6 among pizza companies, with $25 million in gross sales in 2005. The company’s bestseller—then and now—is barbecued chicken pizza. “They proved that we’ll like anything delicious stuck on top of a freshly baked pizza dough,” Weinburg says. California Pizza Kitchen, however, has an eat-in concept, with takeout comprising only about 15 percent of business and delivery only 3 percent.
“It’s a ripe opportunity for other quick-service chains,” Weinburg says.
Panera launched its Crispani line of pizzas in August 2006, offering seven varieties of fresh-dough pizza cooked in the chains’ stone-deck ovens. The high-end pizzas are made with organic tomato sauce and include such standards as pepperoni and three cheese, along with barbecue chicken, sausage, roasted red and yellow peppers, and crimini and Shiitake mushrooms. The pizzas are large enough to share, and diners can add soup and salad to the side, “which makes for a good dinner meal,” says Andrew Carlson, spokesman for the Richmond Heights, Missouri, company.
Like other sandwich shops that have entered the pizza game, Panera already had ingredients and appropriate ovens on hand, and felt the pizza option went well with its other menu items. “For us, it’s just a natural extension of our lineup,” says Carlson.
New pizza lines are traditional and inventive. Some of them include:
- Cosi, a high-end sandwich chain, launched a shareable flatbread pizza in such varieties as Margherita (mozzarella, basil, tomato), spinach and tomato, and four cheese (mozzarella, Asiago, Romano, gorgonzola).
- Bear Rock Café, another high-end, fresh-sandwich concept, recently launched its hand-tossed Pizzeta gourmet flatbread pizzas, a $7.99 crispy-crust line that includes barbecue chicken as well as some creative combinations. The roasted vegetable Pizzeta, for instance, is topped with roasted eggplant, three cheeses (mozzarella, provolone, cheddar), roasted red peppers and onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes. The Greek Chicken Pizzeta uses a Kalamata olive spread beneath grilled chicken, roasted red peppers, spinach, three cheeses, and Feta sprinkles.