Linda Falkenstein
Picking ingredients is fun, but avoid the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.
Initially, the idea of the new design-your-own pizza chains puzzled me. Hasn’t ordering a pizza always been a create-it-yourself endeavor? “We’d like an extra-large, thin-crust pepperoni, green olive and mushroom.” There, I just designed my own pizza.
Earlier this fall, I ended up with a group of people at the Pizza Lab in Wisconsin Dells, and suddenly the key differences between this and a traditional pizza parlor clicked. Vegetarians don’t have to share a half pie with a meat lover, the guy who doesn’t like green peppers doesn’t have to pick them off his slice. Most appealing for the kid in us all, on your 11-inch personal pizza you may order as many toppings as you want — as many as they have, even — for one set price. No extra $1 for banana peppers or $3 to add chicken.
That’s how it is at Mod Pizza, too. With more than 200 locations, it’s not exactly a boutique chain, but it positions itself as a maker of “individual artisan-style pizzas and salads.” There are two area locations: in Fitchburg at the Cahill Main shopping complex, and in the parking lot of the East Towne Shopko (it’s flanked by a Five Guys and a Potbelly).
The menu outlines nine “classic” pizzas (pre-designed); options for building your own are listed with calorie counts for each ingredient. Your, we’ll say, pizzaiolo grabs a Frisbee-like disk of dough and paints it with your choice of sauce — barbecue, pesto, garlic rub, white sauce or classic red. From there it’s on to the meats (nine to choose from, including anchovies), veggies and herbs, and finally a drizzle of finishing sauce over the top. $7.87 for an 11-inch pizza, period. A 6-inch costs $4.87 and gluten-free crust costs $2 extra.
On my first visit to Mod, I created a pretty pizza, with white sauce, Canadian and regular bacon; cilantro; green, banana and roasted red peppers and roasted broccoli; finished with a drizzle of balsamic fig glaze. Meanwhile my partner in research ordered the “Mad Dog” off the classic menu — the usual “meat lover’s” pizza with pepperoni, sausage and ground beef. This one was a mistake in at least two ways: there’s just too much meat, and half the fun (two-thirds of the fun?) of a place like Mod Pizza is creating your own extravagant dream pie.
Despite its prefabricated disk appearance as raw dough, the crust here is pretty good. It rises a bit and has a bit of a chew, almost a little cornicione; in looks, it’s closest to a Neapolitan pizza. The beautiful bready flavor of a Neapolitan is missing, though if you really try, you can discern a faint breadiness. This is far better than a frozen crust and even many delivery pizzas, but it is too tentative to be truly good.
Neither the white sauce nor the red sauce bases have much flavor. (If you like red sauce, ask for it also as a finish, where four “dollops” augment the taste.) Also timid are the meat offerings. Neither the Canadian bacon nor the bacon made much impact; the “spicy Italian sausage” wasn’t spicy at all. Not even the pepperoni was spicy… and if you like your meats on the crisp side, beware. The fast trip through the oven just warms up the meats. Pepperoni is limp and greasy.
The normally powerful flavor of basil doesn’t come through; cilantro is a better choice. Arugula also doesn’t bring much to the table. Among vegetables, the roasted broccoli has some real roasted flavor. My favorite ingredient ended up being the balsamic fig glaze finish, a touch of sweet that sets off the mostly salty pie.
On another visit with three more pizza partners, we added to our Mod Pizza knowledge database: the garlic rub and the fresh garlic really do make a pie taste garlicky, and finishing the pie with the hot buffalo sauce drizzle overwhelms all other flavors. Salads, with all the same ingredients to choose from, are okay; they could benefit from fresher mixed greens.
Overall our verdict was “salty” and “Better than Papa Murphy’s.” With many visits, you could curate a pie for your own maximum flavor enjoyment — but certain flavors are never going to pop. At a place like Pizza Brutta, a simple margherita with basil and fresh mozzarella relies on the flavors of its minimal elements. Mod Pizza relies on a mass pileup of ingredients, and that doesn’t satisfy for long.
Mod Pizza
2249 Zeier Road; 608-240-9650
2960 Cahill main, Fitchburg; 608-416-5224
10:30 am-9 pm Sun.-Thurs., 10:30 am-10 pm Fri.-Sat.; Modpizza.com; $5-$11
