It’s not often that pizza makes me think about pro wrestling, no matter how well the two go together. However, after dining at one of the hidden gems in Las Vegas’s pizza crown, I’m reminded of something “Rowdy” Roddy Piper said to “Y2J” Chris Jericho in the buildup to Jericho versus The Legends match at WrestleMania XXV. With a serious look on his face, building the tension for the upcoming battle, Piper stared Y2J down and told him, “Old school is cool.”
The words of the late, great Hot Rod ring true when it comes to Old School Pizzeria, one of the best pizza places in Las Vegas in one of the unlikeliest of locations.
Sitting in a small strip mall on Craig Road across from the Cannery Hotel, OSP serves sophisticated pies that are as scrumptious as they are smart. This is the type of food you might expect to find at a Strip Hotel, not in a strip mall.
The first sign that we weren’t in your average pizza joint was when our salad, The Gio ($3.99) arrived. It’s named after Chef Gio Mauro, the man behind OSP. The accomplished pizza maker was trained in Italy before cooking in his parents’ acclaimed Italian eatery, Nora’s. Moving from that Las Vegas spot to his own, he had to make sure that his work here lived up to the high standards his family already set.
It takes some guts to showcase fennel as the lead ingredient of a salad, and in this case the risk pays off with a delicious reward. Combined with tomato, cucumber, onion, fresh mozzarella and a nice vinaigrette, it’s herbaceous, clean, and a perfect starter.
After our good luck with the first “chef’s dish”, we continued down that path with our pizzas. Instead of going traditional, we opted for the Chef’s Pizza Creations which run anywhere from $18 for a small to $45 for a large. They are worth it.
My stance that black olives often take away from a pie instead of add to it is well-documented. The Classic Combo proves to be the exception to the rule. Caramelized onions, roasted bell peppers, roasted mushrooms, house made sausage, and pepperoni join the black olives for a familiar creation. What makes this pie so different is the quality of ingredients. Everything is top notch and the olives, which take on the roasted flavor of the other veggies work perfectly on the pie. How do you get a lot of ingredients to work harmoniously? Get the best items you can and give them space to do their thing.
The Pork Reigns is the perfect pie for people who want to be in hog heaven. House braised pork, house made sausage, ham, guanciale, applewood smoked bacon and salame Calabrese–pretty much every flavor of pig you could crave is on this thing. You’re almost left wondering why there isn’t a trotter sticking up from the middle of it.
Less in your face is the five cheese pesto which uses a basil cream as the base and builds on that with mozzarella, scamorza, parmigiano, pecorino Romano, and ricotta. Scarmorza is a cow’s milk cheese that is decidedly less subtle in flavor than mozzarella. The four stretchy cheeses meld together and dollops of quality ricotta take the whole thing home. Along with toasted pine nuts, you are again getting many ingredients working in sync to create something greater than their individual tastes.
While all these pies were delicious, the knockout pie was the Vegas Meets Italy. Smoked mozzarella, mozzarella, ricotta, pistachios, and dates are layered on a date cream sauce. Fresh arugula, prosciutto and heirloom cherry tomatoes sit on top of that. It is a sight to behold and a taste to savor. A legitimate quibble would be the desire for a little more sweetness from the date cream, but that is likely based on the seasonality of the fruit. The prosciutto is almost overkill but that could be because of all the other pork we ate. All ticky-tack nit-picking aside, this is one of the great pies in Las Vegas and worth the trip to the north side just to try it.
All the pies feature an excellent New York crust with just a little char on the bottom. The chefs use an all-natural 36 hour leavening agent and admit that sometimes the restaurant runs out of dough. Quality is king here. Now that’s old school.
For dessert, we went simple. A cannoli ($1.99) was excellent. The mascarpone was luscious with hints of vanilla and spice. It almost rendered the shell unnecessary.
In this place, old school meets new school. And the results are off the charts.
