Zza Legner

I interrupt this feed of unqualified restaurant reviews to highlight one of my most favorite personal private chefs: Ryan Legner!

Ryan with his hand-tossed special zza.

Ryan’s passion for creating homemade pizzas began when we lived in Indianapolis. He started making his own dough for fun one day and began a years-long process toward what I’m so happy to say is practical perfection now. Our house in Indy was equipped with a convection oven (an oven-sized air fryer, in lay-terms), and our favorite pizza place there was a chain called Jet’s, which specialized in Detroit style pizza. (If you love bready crust like we do, I strongly encourage you to check this place out if you are ever near one. Just thinking of their BBQ Chicken is making me drool). Anyway, I can’t remember the specifics but I think it was the combo of the convection oven + our love of Detroit style that initially sparked his interest in pizzery. 

His zza zest deteriorated a bit when we moved back to Des Moines. Our oven here is just not quite the same, and a few attempts at making the same crust style he’d gotten used to with the old oven turned out… interestingly. I think he lost his luster for a little while. He’d try it out every few months but never with as much enthusiasm. It was disappizzing (ugh, sorry). 

Everything changed last summer (thanks COVID) when he obtained recipe book Flour Water Salt Yeast, James Beard award winning chef and author Ken Forkish’s guide to the fundamentals of artisan dough & crust. 

Game. Changer. Legner was BACK baby! 

Enough boring back story: let’s cut to the good good. Ryan bonded with Ken and got acquainted with his methodical and well-timed dough strategies. Over the past 6 months he’s been fine-tuning his dough, figuring out what our moody oven needs (basically a helluva long time to preheat properly), and has perfected two different crust styles:

1. A pan style baked in the cast iron skillet. End result is outer-edge crunchy cheesy crust and inner pillowy doughy goodness. Yummo.
2. A hand tossed, thinner crust dough that he bakes on a standard issue pizza baking pan. Drool. 

That yummy pan pizza. 

Now let’s talk toppings. After several frustrating and disappointing homemade sauce attempts, I strongly urged him to give up on making sauce. Ryan’s a go big or go home guy. He really wanted his whole pizza to be homemade. But eventually we figured out that stressing over homemade sauce took a lot of magic out of pizza night. It takes tons of time (which he already spends on the dough), makes a huge mess, and is a big bummer if we can’t get it right. Plus, we can buy jars of Gino’s sauce at most local grocers, it’s delicious and way easier. Cut your losses and you’ll win, that’s what I always say (I have never said this before in my life). 

Usually we top the pan pizza with Gino's sauce, green peppers, onions, and a meat. The hand tossed we've been doing a bit more bougie, with an olive oil crust, usually some wilted spinach, goat cheese, and sundried tomatoes. 

YOU GUYS. It’s sooooooo freakin’ good. Like, so good that I am sometimes overwhelmed on pizza night. Should we get takeout and continue the Zza Moines tour? Or should we have chef Ryan cook for us? It's so stressful.

At this point I’m eating pizza once a week && honestly, I’m not worthy. 

If COVID ever ends and we can socialize with you again, please make plans at our house for pizza night. That way we don’t have to get a sitter AND you can enjoy the pies of his labor like I get to. 

Family pizza night feat: Ryan's homemades!

Paesano's Pizzeria

"mmm..." declared Jack, as he took the first bite of Paesano's tonight. This, of course, was before he discovered we had asked them to hide peppers and onions underneath the cheese. 

Walking in to pick-up our pizza and wings from Paesano's tonight (they're rightfully only open for carry-out or delivery) made me desperately miss going out to eat. It couldn't have felt more classic Southside Italian in there, but modernized from some of the older spots around Des Moines. Red leather booths, checkered tablecloths, a counter on the back wall piled high with empty constructed pizza boxes. But, the lights were dimmed over the dining room, which unfortunately is not common enough around here these days. The host taking orders and ringing people up called me "hon" no fewer than six times between my order and pick up. A delightful experience. 

After reviewing the antipasti menu we quickly agreed wings sounded delicious tonight. Keeping it simple, which I appreciate, they only offer BBQ or hot sauce. We got BBQ and as Ryan said "these are the best wings I've had from a pizza place around here!" They were fat wings, and even though homeboy ate more than his fair share of drummies, I still enjoyed the flats. 

As y'all know by now, super thin crust is not our preferred but this was about the best it could get. If anyone reading this knows what kind of roller or tool is used to make crust like this, please hit me up. I'm curious, but too lazy to research it myself. 

I wanted red meat on my pie tonight but wasn't excited about pepperoni or sausage, so we got a hamburger, onion, and green pepper pizza.  The sauce was delectable, the right blend of sweet with a hint of spice.  The crust light and crackery thin with a good amount of chew. A perfect ratio of toppings, sauce, and cheese delighted us for this pizza evening. 

Ryan rating: 4/5 (but "great for this style of pizza")

Chelsea rating: 4.5/5