I’ve previously lamented that aside from my beloved Pizza Mind—I’ll stand by my claim that any pizza place that serves fountain drinks in red, translucent tumblers is going to at least be decent pizza, and Pizza Mind, which I think is excellent pizza (and beyond excellent wings, salads, and sandwiches) proves my point—which is one of my favorite places to both eat and hangout, Asheville is lacking on the pizza front.
Now, if you’re into overpriced, woodfired pizza with upscale toppings—which I am in the mood for occasionally—then Asheville is your town. However, if you were raised like me, in the Northeast, where even most small towns have 2-3 more-than-decent old-school pizza-parlor offerings, you might feel like you’re missing something. Like, I sometimes just want a plain, moderately priced pie that isn’t reinventing the wheel. Sometimes I just want a big, greasy slice of pizza or an uncomplicated pie I can eat in its entirety in one sitting (aka the reason I still am a frequent patron of Pizza Hut takeout—if I had to rank my very favorite pizzas, I would unironically include Pizza Hut Thin-N-Crispy® in my top five).
Recently, however, I’ve tried a couple of new pizza joints—one new, most just new to me—that I think will have me taking back my laments and admitting that Asheville is a decent pizza town.
Join me on this pizza journey, won’t you?
Contrada
Contrada is a small neighborhood bar serving wine, draft cocktails, pizza, and snacks.
That’s what Contrada’s website says front and center, anyway, a claim I’m going to immediately dispute—their inauthentic branding was partially the reason I was so reticent to try Contrada for so long.
Contrada is the sister restaurant to Cucina 24, a fancy Italian restaurant on Asheville’s Wall Street. For those who don’t know Wall Street, it’s about as downtown as downtown Ashville gets and arguably the epicenter of Asheville tourism. Respectfully, there is nothing neighborhood about Contrada, as there is no neighborhood to speak of surrounding it. I will give them, it’s small. I think three tables are inside, a sideboard with some stools, and a handful of two-person tables outdoors.
I’ve been to Cucina 24 and liked my experience. Still, it’s expensive, and while I liked it, might be overrated—again, coming from the northeast where you can find so many reasonably priced, good Italian joints, I tend to steer clear of “elevated” Italian. I’ve known about Contrada and also seen their prices, which aren’t obscene obscene, but just a little bit more than I typically want to pay for a pizza (and a bit above your typical neighborhood bar).
Both Cucina 24 and Contrada are also the types of places where elevated food connoisseurs bring their elevated i.e.itudes, i.e. the kind of place that immediately upon being seated, you can overhear a Lululemon-clad mommy blogger—I don’t know for certain this was her job but would bet good money it is her top aspiration—with an out of control pair of children squeal, “This is the best pizza I’ve had outside of Tuscany” to the server, who didn’t great this was a grimaced smile, but rather, a satiated one.
Cucina 24 is also the type of place where the server will somewhat loudly correct your pronunciation of Arribiata, even though he or anyone else you slightly mispronounced this word towards would which of the five pizzas on the menu you were referring to.
Still, good pizza is a good pizza, and my Arribiata (is the Italian accent coming through to you via type? If not, I sincerely apologize) was excellent, spicy in a way that kind of knocked me on my ass, and deliciously crispy. My buddy had the classic pepperoni which was also delicious. And somehow, the tiny nature of Contrada adds to the experience—it doesn’t feel like a neighborhood bar, but it could be tucked into some side street in Manhattan that most people don’t know about but should. This is all to say that I look forward to returning to Contrada again; I just hope my English pronunciation of Italian is up to code by that time.
Asheville Brewing
Despite Asheville Brewing being the brewery that has Asheville Brewing right in the name, and despite it, like Contrada, being about as downtown Asheville as you could get, when I’m trying to figure out where to go for food or beer, for whatever reason it’s never one that springs to mind, despite the fact that the one time I went there, I was super impressed by the affordability and taste of both their beer and food.
I ended up at Asheville Brewing with some friends recently and tried one of their pizzas (on my first visit, I had the boneless wings, which were excellent), specifically, the Hot Sexy Mother Clucker, which, per their website, has a “ honey base, hot & spicy fried chicken, pimento cheese, goat cheese, sliced red onion & crumbled bacon.” I got it with no sliced red onion because, aside from tomatoes, I like my pizzas primarily made of meat and dairy.
I said that the Contrada Arriabiata knocked me on my ass in a good way, but the Hot Sexy Mother Clucker took that to a different level. Trigger alert for TMI: I felt the aftermath of the Hot Sexy Mother Clucker for two ensuing days. This is a high compliment. Too many places these days claim their food is hot and spicy, yet they elicit no bodily reactions. Additionally, the Hot Sexy Mother Clucker also made me realize that not enough pizzerias are fucking around with goat cheese. More goat cheese on pizzas!
Mean Pies
Finally, Mean Pies, which I feel comfortable saying is my new favorite pizza in Asheville. (I don’t think I will rank it above Pizza Mind just yet, but it’s stiff competition.)
My top pizza of all time, my very favorite pizza in the world, comes from DG’s Bar and Grill in my native Forest City, Pennsylvania (DG’s doesn’t have a website, which generally means you know it’s either excellent or terrible, no in between, and I can personally vouch here that it’s excellent). Critics of DG’s—admittedly, DG’s is an acquired taste, but also these critics are WRONG—will say that DG’s pizza is too heavy, that the sauce is too sweet, that it is too cake-like. Critics, I will say that all the things you hate about DGs are precisely what I love. I love a heavy pizza. I dig a sweet sauce, and the fact that it is cake-like makes it a perfect day-after pizza. Whenever DG’s closes, I will go into deep mourning.
I bring up DG’s because I love a thick, Sicilian slice, and when I first saw Mean Pies—a rather new pop-up that lives at Pleb Urban Winery—grace the pages of my Instagram, I knew I needed to try it. Now, I loathe foods I think were created just to be I photographed, but also can’t deny that if that was the case with Mean Pies, it worked because it’s fucking beautiful to look at.
I already wanted to try Mean Pies, but when I read their write-up in the Citizen-Times, I knew I needed to do it ASAP. The way the sauce is often atop the cheese on the Mean Pies Instagram is reminiscent of one of my other top 5 pizzas of all time, Santucci’s in Philadelphia. Philly has a specific kind of square, Focaccia-adjacent pizza that puts sauce atop the cheese that I love, and the aforementioned Citizen-Times article let me know that the owner of Mean Pies got his start in Philly.
I don’t know if I could adequately describe how good Mean Pies pizza is, but I woke up the day after eating it, and my first thought was, “That pizza was so good.” Then, I proceeded to text several friends about it and call my mom to tell her how much it reminds me of DG”s and how we need to get it next time she visits. I’ve since been back twice.
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