Linda Falkenstein
Branch + Daughter is a toppings place, with the New Haven clam pie an unusual option among many meat-loaded creations.
It’s a beautiful early evening in mid-August and Branch + Daughter in Windsor is doing a steady takeout pizza business. Takeout is the only way to get a Branch + Daughter pizza — the artisanal meat market/specialty deli, which opened in July 2021, has no indoor seating. But there are two patios, front and back, and a slew of wooden picnic tables on a lawn adjacent to the parking lot.
Young families are sitting around drinking beers and distracting restless toddlers while waiting for their pies to come out, hot from the oven. Meanwhile late model SUVs keep pulling up to retrieve pies to take home. Inside, the market sells a few specialty foods and liquors and the butcher case features meat from area farms: Lovick Family Farms, Fischer Family Farm, Whiteside Ranch and Walk-Era Farms.
Branch + Daughter’s popularity seems to extend well beyond Windsor. One online reviewer gushed that her family had found the place while driving to Chicago (it’s a short jaunt off the interstate) and I overheard a woman at the takeout window telling the staffer that she’d read about the place online and she and her family were passing through on their way to Duluth.
It’s sometimes hard to recommend pizza, because pizza is not just one thing. Some folks prefer a cracker crust, others deep dish, and some adhere to the relative austerity of the Neapolitan approach. These pie styles are so different that we may as well be discussing different dishes, yet we call them all pizza.
Branch + Daughter is a toppings place. By that I mean the strength of the pizzas comes from the quality of the toppings and the kitchen’s inventive combos, with ingredients applied generously. The menu is a flurry of specialty pies, all 16-inch, with the option of subbing a cauliflower crust.
The regular crust is fresh and bready, best straight out of the oven. It’s a straightforward white bread flavor — a blank slate for the toppings.
My favorite is the New Haven clam, not a style often seen around here (Gates & Brovi does a version with clam and sausage). Here clams and snips of bacon arrive with onions, parmesan and mozzarella, and a white sauce. I loved the super-creamy chowder vibe. This is the only white pie; all the other pies come with crushed tomato rather than a traditional cooked tomato sauce.
The simple (compared to many of the other pies) pepperoni features plenty of Niman Ranch pepperoni (crisp, almost like bacon) and traces of honey, which helps offset the saltiness of the meat and cheese.
Other pies seem to be doing too much. I would pare down the B + D classic, which comes with spicy fennel sausage, pepperoni, olives, wild mushrooms and anchovies — this is a salt bomb. Ditto G’Ma’s Meat Pie. The Salted Pig, starring bacon, advertises its saltiness, but with marinated figs, port wine-candied onions and arugula, there are delightful contrasting flavors.
You can build your own pizza starting with the plain cheese and adding standard ($2 each) or premium ($3) toppings from a long list. And you can subtract ingredients from the designer pies, too.
The kitchen also makes “wedgies” from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; these look like calzones, with the pizza dough folded over into a half moon. The fillings here are similar to the pizza combos with the exception of a BLT wedgie. It’s an interesting concept, but there’s too much bacon (even though it is crispy and delicious), and the result is over-the-top in a way that works against the balance of a classic bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.
Branch + Daughter is located a few blocks from the Sunfish Pond trailhead to the Upper Yahara River Trail, a three-mile asphalt and boardwalk bike and pedestrian path that follows the tranquil Yahara River (a designated Dane County canoe trail along the same length). The trail is surrounded by bountiful restored prairie, thick with goldenrod, black-eyed susan, purple coneflowers and joe pye weed, occasionally weaving through woods. There are homes within sight for most of the trail, yet it feels quite bucolic. It’s one of my new favorite spots in Dane County, and a walk or ride there followed by a pizza (earned!) makes a perfect partnership.
Branch + Daughter
6601 Traveler Trail, Windsor
608-842-0139; branchanddaughter.com
11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tues.-Wed., 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sun.
$12-$22
