The 5 best pizzas our food writers ate this week

When I was an East Coast kid and my parents ordered from the deli, I would spend who knows how long painstakingly extracting each and every caraway seed from the rye bread before making my sandwich. By then, the pastrami and corned beef were gone, and all that was left was the tongue. (No matter, it was delicious.)

If they could see me now. As an adult, I love a dark, seeded rye bread just like the best of my grandma’s Mah Jongg buddies. So I was intrigued to see that the “bustenders” making pizza on a fleet of repurposed school buses, otherwise known as the Brick Oven Bus, had labored over a recipe for a pizza crust that could pass for a good pumpernickel rye.

The crust “could be a world’s first,” said Brick Oven Bus owner Paris Rosen. “Pizza places have done a Reuben but not with this style of crust because of the difficulty in execution.” It starts with the food truck’s signature sourdough, and the addition of cocoa powder for color and caraway for flavor. The dough requires extra hydration and a longer second rise than usual, since the cocoa breaks down some of the gluten structure, causing it to lose some elasticity — but only enough to give the crust a slight crispness that’s still chewy.

Rosen is understandably proud of this new pizza creation. “No good things come easy, though, right?”

The Reuben pizza ($17) gets topped with a scratch-made thousand island, shreds of sauerkraut, thinly sliced corned beef, and copious cheese. The pizza will stay on the menu through April, after which time it’ll be retired until the beginning of next year through St. Patty’s Day. (Sharyn Jackson)

Multiple locations, brickovenbus.com

There’s magic that fills the air when a well-made crust is kissed by a crackling wood-fueled fire. That’s exactly what’s happening inside the hearth at El Hornito Wood Fired Pizza as the pies are quickly stretched by hand, topped and then twirled through the oven that sits around 600 degrees. It bubbles, picks up a little extra flavor from the wood and ash before getting delivered with speed to the table.

El Hornito began as a food truck that would haul that oven to local breweries and tempt pizza fans with intoxicating aromas. When we visited, it was at the South St. Paul restaurant, with a few wood-backed booths inside a neighborhood strip mall.

We always start with a level-setting pepperoni ($13). This one sports large, flat cured meats that pick up a little salty crispiness in the oven. The crust possesses a desirous balance of chew and thin texture that disappears with alarming quickness. It’s the kind of first bite that promises it’ll live in my memory as a gnawing kind of good pizza craving. (Joy Summers)

1527 5th Av. S., South St. Paul, elhornito-pizza.com

Charming doesn’t begin to describe Smith Coffee & Cafe. It inhabits a 19th-century boardinghouse that used to offer respite to settlers arriving in Eden Prairie from the East by rail. The bright-red brick Victorian with white columns and trim looks plucked from a Hollywood soundstage making a film whose main theme is wholesome Americana. Its reuse as a coffeeshop is but a blip in its long history, but Eden Prairie has been lucky to have it that way since 2002. (The space opened as a Dunn Brothers, and spent two short years as a Rustica.)

In 2018, the spot opened as Smith, with a roasting operation, food and coffee by day, and, on Thursday evenings, pizza. Everything is made in house for those special weekly dinners — even a selection of doughnuts and, as of recently, soft-serve. (Obviously, there’s affogato.)

The Neapolitan-style pizzas are loaded with fresh and creative toppings, but none that overwhelm a bright red sauce and flavorful crust. The Fresco scallion pie ($24) forwent the sauce, instead topping a base of whipped feta with thinly sliced peppers and green onions and crumbles of spiced pistachios and honey-sweetened chili crisp. The gorgeously composed salads were equally abundant with housemade ingredients, such as buttermilk dressing.

Pizza nights run every Thursday, 4 to 9 p.m. And while it’s a delight to find a corner of the old house and settle in, we can’t wait to come back in summer to picnic on the lawn. It’s got all the pizza farm vibes, but closer to home. (S.J.)

8107 Eden Prairie Road, Eden Prairie, smith1877.com

Say what you want about strip malls, but sometimes, the right combination of businesses can become a food gold mine. See Centennial Lakes Plaza in Edina, near Southdale, which boasts a Hope Breakfast Bar, Master Noodle, El Camino Gourmet Tacos, and now, the new Fired Up Pizzeria.

The woodfire pizza oven is from some of the family members behind India Palace in Eden Prairie, and they’ve brought their Punjabi flavors to a Minnesota-style thin crust.

We ordered the Punjabi Tikka ($15.95), which comes with a creamy tomato mahkhani sauce and cubes of paneer cheese, along with chunks of chicken, peppers and onions. You can get the same sauce on wings (bone-in or boneless), too. Don’t worry about the heat; it’s all the cozy spices of garam masala. (S.J.)

7531 France Av. S., Edina, fired-up-pizzeria.com

Touted as “Woodbury’s oldest restaurant,” Ronnally’s is a place where first dates, birthday celebrations and other sentimental memories are made. It’s also a place to go for a classic pizza as well as pastas and sandwiches.

For a small, quaint space, the place was bustling on a recent weekend evening with those picking up takeout orders while diners out on dates or with their families filled tables against a backdrop of wood-paneled walls.

We ordered the Special ($13 small, $18 medium, $24 large), which arrived on a red cafeteria tray. The generously piled sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, green peppers and gooey mozzarella that stretched to the edges were satisfying and reminiscent of a Minnesota-style pizza, square cuts and all. Our only quibble was the dough underneath was slightly undercooked and could have used a minute or two more in the oven. But the edges were wonderfully charred and crisp and the bottom crust crackly, so we’re chalking it up to an off moment and not a reflection of daily execution. After all, the place that debuted in 1973 continues to draw crowds. And we were glad to snag a table. (Nancy Ngo)

1560 Woodlane Drive, Woodbury, ronnallys.com