Tom Douglas is Seattle's celebrity chef - won a James Beard award in the mid-90's and opened a slew of popular eateries across the Emerald City. One of those is Serious Pie in the Belltown district. Just like the name, Serious Pie is all about the pizza!This place doesn't take reservations, so after putting our name on the list, we headed next door to Dahlia Lounge (another Douglas joint) for drinks. 45 mins later it was our turn. The restaurants is cramped full of bar height and standard communal tables spread amongst multi-level rooms. The wood fired pizza oven takes center stage along with providing some warmth on those cold Seattle nights.
We ordered three pies in total for four people - two buffalo mozzarella with san marzano tomato pies and one chanterelle mushrooms with truffle cheese pie. Meant to be shared, they came out of the oven on wooden pizza peels piping hot with golden brown/charred crust. As expected, the mozzarella was amazingly fresh and mild flavor. The tomatoes were on the sweet side, but were perfectly offset by the sea salt sprinkled over the top. My one complaint was that the salt was overpowering when only tasting the crust. As for the mushroom and truffle cheese, it tasted like an above average herb-infused flat bread more suited for an afternoon snack at a bakery then Saturday night dinner. That night, their veggies pies on the menu and we opted to not try the potato one for fear it would be too heavy.
To end the meal, we shared the tiramisu. It was rich in flavor with a hint of bitter from the dark chocolate and balance by the rum infused fingerlings - probably one of best and I've had 40 - 50 tiramisu in my lifetime. I wish it was about twice as big though, especially since we shared it amongst four. To recap, Tom Douglas does make some serious pies. However when we go back to Seattle, I'll be hitting up the other two venerable pizza joints - Via Tribunali or Tutta Bella - in order to proclaim the best in the Pacific Northwest.
