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As more pizzerias adapt to healthy and exotic food tastes, a variety of nuts have found their way onto menus as a complement to more traditional toppings. One website sponsored a recent survey asking readers about their favorite toppings, and at No. 9—just below the usual onions, mushrooms and fresh mozzarella—was the unexpected: almond. Accordingly, operators across the country are reporting that nuts are a must-have option.
Nuts are rolling into this former railroad town, and Black Rock Pizza (www. blackrockpizza.com) is the depot. A celebrated pizzeria known for its wide-ranging menu and numerous awards, Black Rock has offered nuts as toppings since opening in 2003. Owner David Winchester says he uses “almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pine nuts and even pumpkin seeds. We put all of them out, even for build-your-own pizzas.”
Winchester admits he faced some resistance to these unusual toppings when he first opened. “Sometimes, people’s reactions to nuts on pizza aren’t very positive,” he admits. “It doesn’t really fit with your normal New York or Chicago style; it’s more a California-style cuisine.”
Winchester expanded his toppings over the years as his menu evolved. “I think people appreciate a restaurant that has a bent or a niche,” he declares. “We started with several combinations of nuts when we first opened, and we’ve added pizzas with different nuts over the years. The Mount Rose, with walnuts, was one of our original pizzas. The Chicken Springs, with pumpkin seeds, we added a couple of years ago; it was originally supposed to be our Thanksgiving pizza, and now it’s one of our top 10 sellers.”
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While experimentation enriches the menu, serving nuts can also pose problems. Nuts can be dangerous—even, in extreme cases, lethal for those with allergies. Winchester says he is vigilant about not exposing allergic customers to nuts. “We have to be very careful,” he says. “If someone tells us they’re allergic, we take precautions and put the pie on a separate sheet. We have a deck oven, so it’s not impossible to think that nuts could roll over into somebody else’s pizza. We haven’t had any problems yet, but we’re always on the lookout.”
With wheat and fuel prices eating into profits across the pizza landscape, you might consider nuts a premium product to be avoided in these belt-tightening times. Not so, says Winchester. “I haven’t seen any big increase in the price of nuts,” he reports. “They’ve always been a little pricey. We don’t overdo it. But pine nuts add quite a bit to a pizza. Our Paleface is a white pizza, with Gorgonzola cheese; the pine nuts are a major ingredient, but usually they’re kind of an add-on—if you took them off, you wouldn’t significantly alter the taste.”
Winchester says he’d like to do his Hawaiian pizza with macadamia nuts, but they’re too expensive. Instead, he substitutes almonds. “I look at the ingredients we have on hand. Almonds give the Hawaiian a little crunch. We have peanuts and Thai sauce on a pizza, and the peanuts
really highlight the peanut sauce. It adds that little plus, as well as a wow factor.”
Now in its 15th year, Lilly’s Pizza (www. lillyspizza.com) has grown right along with this vibrant community of 500,000 and the 1 million residents in and around the greater Raleigh area. Nuts have been on the menu at Lilly’s since the business’ first day in 1993.
“It was an option back then,” recalls owner Jon Garrison. “It was a novel thing. Our previous owner was messing around in the kitchen; he loved pistachios, so he came up with a pizza with pesto, Gorgonzola, pistachio and roasted peppers, and people loved it. It has turned into our No. 5 seller.” This pistachio pie is now a signature dish at Lilly’s.
Garrison says his customers have embraced pistachios, and he now goes through about eight pounds every week. As a premium item, Garrison has no qualms about paying a little extra for the luxury of offering nut toppings. “It’s slightly more expensive, but I look at it as an investment,” he says. “I think it adds so much to the pizzas that it brings people back, and they bring friends with them.”
Lilly’s opened with pistachio as the only nut offering, but Garrison soon added toasted almonds and honey-roasted pecans. Garrison says the restaurant goes through 25 pounds of pecans per week (they’re also used on salads), and the pecans are roasted daily with a honey drizzle.
“It’s very expensive, but the price of nuts hasn’t hurt us as much as the increase in the prices of organic flour, virgin olive oil and, of course, gas,” says Garrison. “We reprice and print a new menu once a year, but the nuts aren’t in danger of being cut from the menu. Their price isn’t hurting us.” Just another reason for Lilly’s customers to go absolutely nuts!
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