Local Produce, Local Boys
contributor | Sep 11, 2008 | Comments 0
Pizzeria 712 serves the best pizzas in Utah at the base of Midtown Village
I love to visit new food places, and I rarely go to the same restaurant more than once, but Pizzeria Seven Twelve has me hooked.
I’ve been there three times, and everyone I have taken there has also returned with new friends, and so on, and so on. It’s why Pizzeria Seven Twelve is fast becoming a household name synonymous with amazing food, where people in the “know” are dining.
Owners Colton Soelberg, former executive chef at Sundance, and Joseph McRae, former executive pastry chef at Sundance, have struck out on their own to create Utah County’s premier “sustainably farmed” restaurant featuring local produce and the finest ingredients. When I asked Joseph what made their place different from the rest, he said, “It’s just the ingredients. When you start with the freshest tomatoes, our homemade mozzarella, local artisan meats … good food is what happens!”
On my last visit, the chefs had just finished husking some local corn, roasting it lightly, and serving it on a pizza with a little homemade ricotta and slab bacon … total yummm! I also sampled the braised beef and sweet onion panini on their homemade ciabatta bread … another total yummm!
These chefs are not food snobs, they are real guys who will talk food across the counter and who love to share their vision of what real food should be. For example, ask them why they offer both fountain Coke and Coke in a bottle to start off a whole discussion on what they have learned about the food markets of today.
One of the distinctive features of the restaurant is the Italian wood-fired pizza oven where you’ll find them pulling out truly the best pizzas in Utah. In the evening, don’t miss the braised beef short rib with Anson Mills polenta. Please save room for my personal favorite — pizzeria dessert: Winder Farms buttermilk panna cotta with roasted cherries. I wanted to lick the plate!
Even though the prices are very reasonable ($7.50 to $14), this is not a real family place as most of the flavors tend to be for a more experienced palette, and there isn’t a “children’s menu.”
I love to visit the Pizzeria for lunch with the girls or dinner with friends, and I’m thinking about adding a new meal called the “Mid-afternoon pizzeria break”!
On the wall of this quaint little place is a quote by one of my favorite restaurateurs and cookbook authors: Alice Waters — “When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.”
And so it is at Pizzeria Seven Twelve — the start of a revolution in the food world of Utah. Pizzeria Seven Twelve has my highest recommendation, and chances are you’ll see me there!
Mary and Ron Crafts own Culinary Crafts, an award-winning catering company in Orem. Mary also hosts “Culinary Creations,” which airs Saturday mornings on KBYU.
Filed Under: Eating Out
