Bob Hemauer
Greenbush pepperoni pizza: reliably executed classic
There are a lot of pizza places in town, but none is better than Anna Alberici and Gretchen Hils’ Greenbush Bar on Regent Street. Greenbush Bar opened in November of 1993 and has been quietly serving remarkable pizza in the low-ceilinged basement of the Italian Workmen’s Club ever since.
Dave Miller, the late owner of the long-closed and much-missed Pavlov’s Pizza on Williamson Street, once told me that the mark of a good pizza joint is how well it makes a simple pie. By this standard, Greenbush is undeniably great. More often than not, I take Dave’s advice and return to pizza’s Platonic form: pepperoni, cheese, sauce and nothing more. Greenbush reliably executes this classic to near perfection: the sauce has just enough spice and the crust just enough crispy char. Alberici and Hils demonstrate that a great pizza doesn’t have to be laden with seven toppings to be satisfying.
The unassuming Greenbush Bar dining room is one of the most pleasant spaces in Madison, although indoor dining there is a temporary (I hope) victim of COVID-19. For now this pizza remains a takeout-only experience. For me, I’ll know that the pandemic is over when I’m able to sit in that basement again, order a bottle of delicious and shockingly reasonably-priced wine, run into some people I have not seen in a while, and feel the warmth of one of the restaurants that makes Madison a great place to live and eat.
