Pie's the Limit

Stella may well redefine how Philly eats pizza.

by David Snyder

Jessica Kourkounis TRUFFLE SHUFFLE: Pizzeria Stella's tartufo pie — featuring truffle creme, truffle purée and truffled pecorino cheese — is decadent and delicious.

[review]

Fourteen years ago, Philly's dining scene appealed to a much older crowd — to the extent there was a dining scene at all. But after Stephen Starr opened the Continental in 1995, everything changed. The Old City martini bar "struck a nerve with people who were young, and people who wanted to feel young," Starr recalled in a recent interview. Other restaurateurs, in Starr's eyes, "wanted to aspire to have that sort of reaction." Many have succeeded.

Pizzeria Stella, the latest addition to Starr's ever-expanding restaurant galaxy, may turn out to be just as revolutionary for Philly.

Stella ("star" in Italian) is Starr's first foray into proper pizza, something he tackled for the same reason he initiates many of his projects — he wasn't satisfied with the existing landscape. "The only pizza in Philadelphia I thought was good was Tacconelli's," Starr said. "Other than that, I didn't know where to go."

But that's pretty much where the parallels to Starr's other eateries end. There were no movie-set designers brought in to translate Parisian al fresco drama. No color-changing escape-pod booths. No tricked-out low-rider bikes. Instead, Starr took a minimal approach to revamping a former Cosi — root beer glass tiles; industrial lighting fixtures from a flea market in France; reclaimed wood from discarded planks of the Coney Island boardwalk; airy ceilings.

The focus here is on the food. Before it opened, Starr and his crew organized pizza research trips to New Haven, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Starr's culinary director, Chris Painter, traveled to Phoenix's Pizzeria Bianco as well as to Charlotte, N.C., to study dough with American Pie author Peter Reinhart.

The result of all this exploration — a 12-inch, thin-crust pizza, slightly crispier than a Neapolitan-style pie, with a puffy cornicione (the crown, or end crust).

The device (or "Buddha," as Starr likes to call it) that makes it all possible is Stella's Renato wood-fire brick oven — the best seats in the house are at the counter in front of this flame-licked, igloo-shaped beast. As I sat drooling into my tumbler of house red, I couldn't help but succumb to the hypnotic clip of the kitchen team as they worked raw dough around the peels of flour-dusted Tuscan pizza paddles. After decorating with toppings, they slide the pies into 700-degree heat stoked by burning oak, apple and cherry woods. (Occasionally, they toss a handful of pecan wood shavings into the fire, creating a hiccup of flame that curls the heat around the inside of the dome.) After roughly two minutes and three turns with a metal paddle, a Stella pie is ready.

I watched Painter and Stella chef Shane Solomon (Tangerine, Angelina, Washington Square, Parc) inspect each pie with an intensity akin to clerics poring over religious tablets. Does the cornicione have the proper width (an inch to an inch and a half)? Does the puff of the crown rise from the surface? Are the topping levels and colors right?

All that fussing pays off. Stella's pies — fiercely artisanal, yet light on the wallet — may well redefine the way Philadelphia eats pizza.

What I love about the dozen pizzas on offer here is that they're far from flashy. The bitter broccoli rabe and gently smoky pancetta topping the vongole (inspired by Frank Pepe's in New Haven) makes for simple equilibrium with fresh clams. Crushed pistachios, thin-sliced red onion and a trio of mozzarella, fontina and shaved Parmesan team up to provide unexpected bliss on another pizza. Roasted fennel provides a wonderful counterpoint to delicate Lingurian olives on the finocchio. Peppery arugula and salty slivers of prosciutto partner perfectly on the San Daniele. Curled-up coins of Abbruzze salami and San Marzano tomato sauce are reminders of what a pepperoni pizza is really supposed to taste like.

Team Stella plays with heat very well, adding long hots to the pesto slathered on the sausage pie and matching hot capicola with red pepper flakes on the piccante. (It was apropos that Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" began piping through the restaurant the moment the latter pizza arrived.)

My favorite pizza here is perhaps Stella's least subtle — the tartufo. Intensely decadent, this white pie is an orgiastic ménage-a-truffle — truffle crème (mascarpone, Parmesan, chopped truffles), truffle purée (truffle paste and truffles blended with extra virgin olive oil) and a truffle pecorino. Loaded with fiore de latte (a cow's milk mozzarella), fontina and scamorza and topped with an over-easy egg that's broken tableside, there's nothing quite like the intoxicating perfume of this earthy mistress. It's the most expensive item on the menu, yet it remains a relative steal at $17.

Given the quality of the pizzas at Stella, I was disappointed that many of the side dishes are not yet reaching their potential. Painter says the size of Stella's kitchen limits the antipasti and beverage programs, which may be leading to some inconsistency. A simple ribollita, or Tuscan bean soup, was refreshing, as was the octopus and calamari; I loved the sheep's milk ricotta sourced from Italy. I can't say the same, however, about the grilled radicchio. I was disappointed to learn that they began cutting this classic with bibb lettuce because customers complained that the radicchio was bitter (isn't that the point?). I found an onion-based appetizer, heavy on plumped-up raisins and reduced balsamic vinegar, overwhelmingly sweet.

Save room for dessert, though. Stella's house-made gelati, especially the olive oil rendition (made with a peppery Sicilian specimen), gives Capogiro a run for its money.

So Stella is well on its way to influencing the dough-stretching scene in Philly. And the restaurateur who lent the pizzeria its name feels the trend's only going to grow, both locally and globally. "I'm just part of the cosmos," said Starr, who's already expressed his intent to expand Stella in and around the city.

(david.snyder@citypaper.net)

Pizzeria Stella | 420 S. Second St., 215-320-8000, pizzeriastella.net. Mon.-Thu., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri., 10:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Su., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Pizzas, $10-$17; antipasti, $6-$9. Wheelchair accessible.