The food truck experience can be fun, and deliver a lot of variety. But never quite so much…read morescenery since you're staring at, well, a boxy truck. Not so with Big Love Pie. Sure it's portable, and sure it shows up at locations convenient to entertainment, just like food trucks.
But it's an open trailer with a massive, gorgeous wood-fired pizza oven that's immediately visually appealing. A big part of the fun is watching them precisely control the wood temperature, smoke amount and flow, and tend to the fresh pizza you're about to enjoy.
First you'll watch your home-made dough hand-stretched and hand tossed, then topped with items that vary by the visit. The whole process is entertaining and definitely whets the 'tite.
And the result... wow! What an amazing crust! Your pie is about 12-ish inches in diameter with the outer 3/4" to 1" left mostly untopped, and for a good reason -- that crust alone might be your favorite part. It's thin, it's crispy, it's chewy, and it's almost flaky, put not quite pastry. It holds up and doesn't crumble, so you can pick up a slice of it just like it's a piece of New York pizza and fold it to hold in one hand.
Not that those toppings will disappoint you. There are always a couple of staples, like plain cheese -- a creamy-good mozzarella -- which you can get in a zippy but light tomato or a white bianca sauce. And of course pepperoni in either sauce. They had goat's cheese and I got the impression that's something they offer most or all nights.
The special toppings vary, and can be as simple as maple-chicken sausage with basil, or my fave, their super-thick, meaty bacon, diced flavorful tomatoes, topped with arugula. A squirt of balsamic sauce is a staple drizzle option, and perfect with this bacon-tomato number. Oh, and they'll make about anything you want... as long as they have the ingredients there.
Owners Tom & Tracy are talkative, so I hung around to watch the process, and learned how much care goes into it -- how they've perfected the recipes. They even bring in special water for the dough so the minerals and pH deliver the right consistency that makes it marvelous. Their yeast is classified secret. The wood used requires a certain amount of seasoning times, and until now i never realized things like flame-rollover (affected by shape of the oven -- they've chosen an igloo configuration) and differences in temperature from oven floor matter so very much in how a pizza bakes.
Their igloo-shaped oven is a heavy, concrete and mastik, tiled monster. Not sure any food truck can replicate the size and openness. The owners made it themselves after extensive study about what they theorized would distribute heat and flame ideally. The crust tells me they sure got it right.
Some random but useful notes: They're not always at Central28. On Fridays and Saturdays they're currently at Celery City Brewing in Sanford. Beverages are just limited to canned sodas. Sometimes they will fold over that wood-fired dough into a sandwich style -- their salami, which I sampled, is well-chosen and doesn't rely on too much salt. They also have
Crucially, there is a limited amount of dough and when they run out all you can do is watch the coals glow and wish you got there earlier. Still a nice view. I really enjoy watching that oven... simple things amuse me perhaps.
Finally, I got the impression that the owners weren't yet sure what they have on their hands here -- they seem to have a lot of opportunities but it's clear from many things they do (limited amount per night) they want to keep things special -- they're perfectly with making fewer but better pizzas. That feeling came out in everything they said.
So it's a "Craft-Style" Wood-Fired Pizza. It's truly "artesanal," an oft-misused word which should mean small, handmade batches that are never quite uniform, and totally original to the artist. It goes well with your Craft-Brewed Beer from whatever place they're parked outside of.
Pricing (menu photo) is so well within reason it's not even a thought. A pizza can fill two light appetites or well-satisfy a hungry solo. I stupidly told them it was too cheap for this level of quality...(Then clamped my mouth shut. I hope that doesn't cost me on my next visit!)
The downsides are kinda obvious: limitations on the portable (food truckish) style. I'll mention 'em: There's only a place to sit in the establishments they're near -- they have no tables. They have a VERY limited menu. You'll get wood-fired pizza or sandwiches. Salads or sides are infrequent. They're in different places different nights, so you hafta know where they'll be, but I think they're now posting location and menu specials nightly on Facebook (@biglovepie) which is easy to check.
And no, there's no alcohol -- that's the point...these folks do the food right outside where you get your beer.
Big Love Pie does one great thing, and does it better than anybody else I've tasted, maybe ever.
