Signs from a recent road trip through some mountain U.S. states
Who needs Arches National Park when you have the world’s largest elkhorn arch?
Signs of the Times: Things You See on a Road Trip
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Category Archives: Wyoming
You Don’t Have to be a Billionaire to Enjoy Jackson Hole
There’s undoubtedly a few billion dollars worth of properties in this view of Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Jackson Hole, Wyoming is my kind of resort community. Just kidding. It’s the first place where I heard the expression “the billionaires are pushing out the millionaires.” A glance at a glossy real-estate magazine reveals a number of $2-million-plus properties for sale and a 6,900-square-foot five bedroom mansion for a mere $4.99 million; heck, it’s on a 1.7-acre site. As JH Weekly notes: “Buying a home is prohibitively expensive for most of the non-trustafarian working class.” Needless to say, rents are sufficiently high that at least one wage slave recently spend a frigid winter camped in his car. Note: Jackson Hole refers to the whole community; Jackson is its principle town.
So where does this leave the budget-minded road tripper? Downhill skiing and golf are expensive, lodgings exorbitant in peak season. (Tip: Check the no-frills national forest campgrounds a bit of a drive from Jackson for reasonable rates.) Fortunately, it’s free to hike, bike or run the hundreds of miles of fine trails. While the dining’s definitely more fine than rustic, Jackson does have a number of first-rate, affordable eateries and drinkeries. Oddly, none of them appear in the resort dining guide.
Best Pizza in the Mountain West
Can I get this entire pizza, from Pizzeria Prima Strada in Victoria B.C., in my gut? You bet
Over time, I’ve become a sucker for thin-crust pizzas. Preferably, the dough has some sour sourdough starter and has been rested/proofed a while. The decorated pizza should then be cooked in a smoking-hot brick oven for scant minutes, emerging slightly blackened on the bottom and puffy and leopard spotted along the edges. The true test of a great, chewy-but-still-soft-in-the-middle crust is I could eat it all by its lonesome.
I’ve also learned to love simplicity—a few outstanding, house-made ingredients that complement and don’t overwhelm that fine crust. So, no more three kinds of oily meat, blankets of greasy cheese or hearty ladlings of indifferent tomato sauce; heck, increasingly, I don’t want any sauce. As for ham and pineapple, just banish it to Hawaii, please. Instead, I’m all over freshly-made mozza and sausage and maybe something I’ve never tried before: dried cherries, yes, peanut butter, not so much.
I’ve organized these by best pizza in each mountain state and province, extending the latter to include British Columbia. The list is by no means exhaustive, a starter in pizza parlance. For instance, I’ve yet to try two Arizona standouts: Pizzicletta in Flagstaff or Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. By all means, let me know about your favourites.
Mountain States
Utah
At Pizzeria Seven Twelve, in Orem, the focus is on fresh, creative ingredients like hand-pulled mozzarella, house-made sausage and roasted fennel and cauliflower, all riding atop a thin, bubbly crust with a nice tangy flavour from the sourdough starter. The servers wear t-shirts hammering home that point with single words on the front—simple, local, inspired. Check, check, check. Definitely check it out.
This pie from Pizzeria Seven Twelve has it all: hand-pulled mozza, house-made sausage and sourdough crust
Pizzeria Seven Twelve
320 South State Street, Orem, Utah
Lunch Monday to Friday 11:30 am-2:30 pm, dinner Monday to Thursday 5 pm-10 pm and Friday-Saturday 5 pm-11 pm. Closed Sunday
Arizona
It’s a tossup (sorry, bad joke), with entertainment winning the day at Screaming Banshee Pizza in Bisbee and The Parlor Pizzeria taking the flavour crown in Phoenix.
I’ve always thought if you’re going for wood-fired pizza, you might as well get a front-row seat and enjoy the show. Sure enough, as soon as I sit down at Screaming Banshee Pizza and start sipping a hearty Kiltlifter Scottish ale, the pizza maker starts rolling out discs of dough and tossing them ceiling-ward three or four times. I’m so entranced, I don’t notice my own Screaming Banshee pizza ($15) getting lifted from the 760-F. oven with a long-handled wooden paddle. It has a lovely, lightly charred crust strewn with creamy fresh mozzarella, strips of fennel sausage and caramelized onion. After a game effort, I’m still left with half to go.
Enjoy the show at Screaming Banshee Pizza
Screaming Banshee Pizza
200 Tombstone Canyon Road, Bisbee
Tuesday-Wednesday 4 pm-9pm, Thursday to Saturday 11 am-10 pm, Sunday 11 am-9 pm. Closed Monday
At Parlor Pizzeria, it only takes five minutes in a 460 F. oven for my eight-inch Forager pizza to emerge, with, no surprise, a bubbly char on the thin crust. The topping is a compelling, rich mix of wild boar meatball, rabbit sausage and finocchiona. Add some radicchio, thinly sliced fennel and rosemary, and I’ve got a first-rate, six-slice pie for only $10, knocked down to $6 during happy hour (3-6 pm).
Boar meatball and rabbit sausage highlight this gem at Parlor Pizzeria
The Parlor Pizzeria
1916 East Camelback Road, Phoenix
Monday to Thursday 11 am-10 pm, Friday-Saturday 11 am-11 pm. Closed Sunday
New Mexico
Any surprise that Santa Fe takes the pie here? At Rooftop Pizzeria, you can dine in-house or, even better, head down the elevated hallway to Marble Brewery’s Taproom and enjoy a pint with your pizza from a patio seat overlooking the historic downtown plaza. I pick a New Mexican theme for my plentiful 12-incher—green chile with a fair kick, toasted piñon nuts and a blue-corn crust—alongside tender chunks of chicken, cotija and asadero cheese and alfredo sauce ($13.50). I must say, it goes down nicely with a 21.5-ounce tumbler of Irish Red.
This Rooftop pizza has a New Mexico twist with a blue-corn crust, pinon nuts and green chile
Rooftop Pizzeria
60 East San Francisco Street, Santa Fe
Sunday to Thursday 11 am-10 pm, Friday-Saturday 11 am-11 pm, with slightly reduced winter hours
Montana
There’s no contest here. As previously mentioned in my Best of 2012 road food post, the guy sitting next to me at Bob Marshall’s Biga Pizza, in Missoula, says it’s the best pizza he’s ever tasted. Here, they use a sourdough starter, known as biga (bee-ga), add fresh, ingenious ingredients like fig paste and toasted hazelnuts and slide it all into a 650 F. brick oven for about eight minutes. I get a half and half—one side their award-winning sausage, cherry chutney and smoked gouda (my favourite of the two), the other a medley of local squash and pumpkin. I wash it down with a pungent, Missoula-produced Kettlehouse Cold Smoke Scotch ale.
This half cherry chutney standout at Bob Marshall’s Biga Pizza is in my top three favourite pizzas
Bob Marshall’s Biga Pizza
241 West Main Street, Missoula
Lunch weekdays 11 am-3 pm, dinner Monday to Thursday 5 pm-9:30 pm, Friday-Saturday 5 pm-10 pm. Closed Sunday
Colorado
I can’t say I’ve tried enough pizza in this great culinary state to yet declare a winner. Here are some places chosen as much for character as fine pizza. One is The Sink, a graffiti-laced rabbit’s warren on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder (try the Buddah, featuring tofu, spinach and artichoke hearts). Moonlight Pizza & Brewpub and Amica’s Pizza are two good reasons for making the pilgrimage to Salida, my favourite Colorado town. Oh, they also both make their own beer.
The atmosphere rivals the Buddah pizza at The Sink in Boulder
Wyoming. Okay, I’ve only eaten pizza at one place, Lander Bar in downtown Lander. But it gets high marks for character, largely because of the boisterous, young crowd and my seatmates: three local women with a ranching heritage and a penchant for chewing tobacco. As for the pizza, it was a fine chicken and artichoke medley thrown down with a Five Pound brown lager from Lander Brewing next door. If you’ve noticed a theme here, it’s that pizza goes down well with a good craft beer. Sorry, wine just doesn’t cut it for me.
Again, the liveliness of the Lander Bar kept pace with the pizza
Lander Bar
126 Main Street, Lander
Monday to Saturday 11 am-2 am, Sunday noon-10 pm. Note: The Gannett Grill is open daily 11 am-9 pm
Canadian West
Alberta
As the name suggests, Una Pizza + Wine obviously breaks my beer-and-pizza rule. It’s also somewhat expensive ($15-20 per pizza) and often has a lineup (though it does Tweet about how long the wait is). But it’s worth bending some rules for one of the top-rated restaurants in Calgary, somewhat unusual for a place largely dedicated to pizzas. Creativity, first-class ingredients and execution are the reasons for its popularity, plus it’s a fun, noisy place to hang out. Our pizza choice is a puffy crust covered with roasted cremini mushrooms, smoked mozzarella, fresh arugula and the trump card, splashes of fragrant truffle oil. Una has also transformed the predictable Caesar salad into a mountain of kale topped with crisp Serrano ham, garlic panko, an organic egg and shaved pecorino Romano.
Una Pizza + Wine
618 17 Avenue S.W., Calgary
Daily 11:30 am-1 am
Coco Brooks also breaks some of my rules. It’s not thin crust, it’s a little heavier on the cheese and its toppings are by no means leading edge. Indeed, it pumps out the little cardboard boxes of pizza with industrial efficiency. But the Egg n Bacon is a guilty pleasure, with the soft, puffy filling offset by just a slight crunch of smoked bacon and melted mozza and aged cheddar. And at $6.29, it’s maybe the best value on this list for an individual-sized pizza.
Egg n bacon works spectacularly well at Coco Brooks
Coco Brooks
640 42 Avenue SE, #80 (two other Calgary locations)
Monday to Thursday 8 am-8 pm, Friday 8 am-9 pm, Saturday 9 am-8 pm
British Columbia
Getting the pizzas ready for the 850 F. oven at Pizzeria Prima Strada
Here’s how Pizzeria Prima Strada, in Victoria, earns its Italian certification for thin-crust Neapolitan pizza. It begins with a well-aged sourdough starter, mixed with fine-ground Caputo flour from Italy and left to rest for two days. After it’s stretched out and loaded with toppings, it goes into a 650 F. wood-fired oven for a minute, is turned and then finished for another minute in the 850 F. section. “The cook’s eyes are on the oven at all times,” the waitress tells me. My Salsiccia Piccante pizza ($15 for six substantial slices) features house-made fennel sausage, roasted peppers and mozzarella. But it’s that deliciously chewy, leopard-spotted crust that makes it a home run for me.
The blistered sourdough crust at Pizzeria Prima Strada is among the best I’ve tasted
Pizzeria Prima Strada
230 Cook Street (one other Victoria location)Sunday to Thursday 11:30 am-9 pm, Friday-Saturday 11:30 am-10 pm
Cheyenne, Wyoming: Big Boots and Character Diners
One of many artistic cowboy boots scattered around Cheyenne
It’s less than an hour’s drive east on the I-80 to reach Cheyenne from Laramie. But after climbing steeply out of Laramie to the Lincoln Monument (at 8,640 feet the highest point on this interstate), it’s well worth taking the quiet, parallel Highway 210 (Happy Jack Road). It traverses high rangeland dotted with fantastic red Sherman granite boulders, an area known as Vedauwoo (vi-de-vu) and frequented by climbers. Just beyond are a couple of high-plains lakes in Curt Gowdy State Park, named after the famous sportscaster.
Cheyenne is by far the biggest city in Wyoming (the Air Force base helps), it’s the state capital and it boasts a major rodeo during its Frontier Days. So, to the victor goes the spoils, at least architecturally speaking. The wide downtown streets are nicer, the historic buildings better maintained and the surrounding residential streets more prosperous than, say, nearby Laramie. It’s worth getting a brochure at the downtown visitor centre and tracking down some or all of the 19 eight-foot-high cowboy boots, creatively painted by local artists and scattered around town. The city’s culinary choices may not be quite as inspired, but there are a few places definitely worth seeking out.
Rawlins and Laramie, Wyoming
Hanging out at Coal Creek Coffee, Laramie Wyoming
About halfway between Lander and Laramie, Rawlins is the site of the Wyoming Frontier Prison, under lock and key since 1901. As it advertises, “come hang with us” on a tour of this often brutal prison’s history.
Thermopolis and Lander, Wyoming: Where the Women Chew Tobacco
Spectacular Wind River Canyon, south of Thermopolis, Wyoming
Thermopolis boasts the world’s largest mineral hot springs (you can visit it in nearby Hot Springs State Park). It’s also just north of where Highway 20 winds through the spectacular Wind River Canyon, the high Precambrian granite walls carved by a river dotted with huge boulders and fly fishermen. Downtown Thermopolis has wide streets, old buildings and at least one good eating spot.
Marathon Mouth 