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    Restaurant Review: Goremade Pizza in Italian Village

    Let’s start here: Goremade Pizza is pretty much all the nice things its fans have said about it since its opening last year. Goremade earns high-praises, not just because pizza is generally a lovable genre, but because Goremade’s pizza is a special exemplar of excellence.

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    But there’s something else too. There’s a special proprietor and a house staff with a sense of investment. You walk in the place, and you’re in one room with that team; you are their guest and they are excited to share their wares. The whole “food is love” dynamic spills into the human interactions. You don’t find that most places.

    So, no wonder everyone loves it: it’s hard not to reciprocate.

    Let’s talk about the pizza itself. Every distinctive pizza place has its own schtick — Chicago-style, New York-style, Columbus-style, et cetera — and there are a couple of schticks at work here. First, the pizza is cooked in a wood-burning oven imported from Italy. Wood-burning ovens create a particularly distinctive sort of pizza crust. In this case, the house dough teamed with the oven produce a painfully tender crust that boasts all the nice toasty accents provided by wood ovens. Personal tastes tend to lean more towards toppings, generally speaking, but Goremade’s crust is worth eating all on its own (like naan bread).

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    The other schtick involves the integrity of the toppings. Goremade sources its ingredients locally. So, while you might not find green peppers as topping options in January, you will find butternut squash. And although restaurants that depend on local (non-mass-produced) agriculture can put out some pricy menus, the pizza prices at Goremade feel like about par for the course. It’s not a $5 Little Caesars pizza, but it’s in line with joints like Harvest.

    To be clear, if you want only a Chicago Pizza, or if you want only a Domino’s pizza, then you want to patronize those sorts of places. That’s cool. There’s room in this world for all sorts of pizzas. But in a town where people are in love with $12 hamburgers, Goremade’s pizza seems like a way better bargain.

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    First up is Goremade’s Porkestopheles ($16). It’s loaded with soft mozzarella, crumbles of fennel-laced Italian sausage, ringlets of pepperoni domes and bacon. The elements merge together in a nicely briny orchestra of cured meats.

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    The Clintonvillain ($16) is another winning combination. While the establishment isn’t based in Clintonville, the velvety mushrooms that cover the pizza are sourced from there. They’re sublimely spiked with truffle oil and smoked salt which is enough to keep things both interesting and binge-worthy.

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    The Comfort Zone Harry ($12) delivers exactly the experience it promises. Clots of melted mozzarella merge together to form a dense and dewy network of cheese that covers the crust. Given the option of olive oil or red sauce, the oil lets the toastiness of the wood-baked crust shine.

    Guests can design-their-own options, building on the Harry foundation. Alternately, they can play Russian Roulette and let the chef have total creative control in choosing pizza toppings.

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    The salad ($6) is truly big enough for a meal. Built on a substantial heap of mixed greens, it’s baptized in droplets of balsamic. An upcharge will crown it with feta, onions and olives, making it big enough to share if you’re planning on eating pizza too.

    Goremade is also exceptionally child friendly, but not in a way that will aggravate child-haters. It’s child friendly because first, it’s fast. There’s not much waiting for food. Second, the proprietor takes a special interest in little people, pointing out games and offering tips in between pizza duties. In fact, there’s a table with a checkerboard shellacked into it. As playing pieces, the house offers wooden rounds painted with pizza toppings. It’s unbearably cute. There’s more cute shellacked* art in the bathroom too. Make a trip.

    You can find Goremade at 936 N. Fourth St. in Italian Village.

    For more information, visit www.goremadepizza.com.

    *I’m using “shellacked” loosely. It’s probably polyurethane, but “polyurethaned” is an unfortunate term.

    All photos by Lillian Dent.

    Photo by Lillian Dent.

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    Miriam Bowers Abbott
    Miriam Bowers Abbotthttps://columbusunderground.com
    Miriam Bowers Abbott is a freelancer contributor to Columbus Underground who reviews restaurants, writes food-centric featurettes and occasionally pens other community journalism pieces.
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