Finding Great Pizza Pies, That's Amore!

Restaurant review

XX Delfino's Pizzeria, 2675 University Village. ($) Lunch and dinner ($3.50 to $20) 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; until 10 p.m. Friday, Saturday; 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Beer, wine. Major credit cards. No smoking allowed. Reservation and takeout: 522-3466. XX Neapolis Pizza and Pasta, 23631 Brier Road, Brier. ($) Greek and Italian pizzas. Dinner ($6 to $16) 4 to 10 p.m. nightly. Beer, wine. Major credit cards. Smoking permitted. Reservations and takeout: 486-0344. -------------------------------------------------------------------

Tracking uncommon pizzas.

A few weeks ago, tales of unusually fine pizzas brought me to the East Hill district of Kent and Ristorante Auguri (13018 S.E. Kent Kangley Road, reviewed May 28). I guess I hadn't fully scratched that culinary itch.

The past several nights I traveled 40 miles north in search of variations on the theme. I found some dandies. Notably, the spinach pizzas being spun at Delfino's Pizzeria in University Village and Neapolis Pizza and Pasta in Brier.

Despite their reliance on a common (uncommon) ingredient, fresh spinach, the two pizzerias could not be more different.

Taking them in sequence, Delfino's is an intentional, dedicated borrowing of Chicago-style pizzas - in three variations: deep dish, thin crust and layered or "stuffed." Of the three, I thought the stuffed (which is not a calzone) and deep dish the most successful, even though - as a pizza purist - I consider thin, single-crust pizza to be the only true pie - a gastronomic icon.

The right stove

Harris and Jean Delfino (she is originally from Chicago) started their tiny pizza shop four months ago after more than a year of researching Windy City pizzas - even going to the extent of importing a rebuilt Fauld's rotary oven from Chicago.

This was an act of historic as well as cultural reclamation; Fauld's ovens have not been built since the 1950s.

But whatever it was, it worked. And bakes beautifully.

"We went back to Chicago and ate at all of the well-known pizza places," Harris recalled, "and said to each other, `Gee' - or something like that - `there's nothing like that in Seattle.' "

The Delfinos found their own butcher to make ultralean sausages for them - from trimmed, 90-percent-lean Iowa pork butts.

They came up with six basic styles: cheese, sausage, house "combo specials," pesto, vegetarian and spinach. All are good, but the spinach pies are exceptional.

The stuffed spinach pizza combines a luxurious spinach base with a classic Italian quatro-fromaggio (four cheeses) in a deep-dish, pan-prepared pizza shell. A second, thin layer of dough is arranged over it and tucked into the sides. Finally, a tomato-and-cheese topping is spread over the top and baked in a moderate oven (375 degrees) on slowly rotating shelves.

The result is a bountiful and savory pizza. A "small," at $11.50, will feed two to three - with leftovers.

The deep-dish version, from $5 for the single-serving "baby pizza" to $15.75 for the large, is less dense. But it lacks the tomato liaison that makes the dish sing.

The house salads, incidentally, are quite good, especially with the housemade light garlic dressing. Minestrone soup is made fresh daily.

I found Delfino's crust a bit too dense, with a heavy (although tasty), crackerlike quality. I'd fine-tune it.

More traditional pizzas

Neapolis Pizza and Pasta occupies some rather humble space on the Brier Road, about halfway between Lynnwood and Kenmore. It has a more varied menu than Delfino's and its pizzas are more traditional.

There are 23 variations, but three are headlined - and worth the long drive out there from Seattle.

Dimitri's Favorite ($9.25 to $15.25) features feta and mozzarella cheeses, ground beef, spinach, olives, onions and sunflower seeds.

Anthony's Favorite ($8.25 to $13.25), a vegetarian pizza, eliminates the beef and adds mushrooms and fresh tomatoes. It's my personal choice.

George's Favorite ($9.25 to $15.25) drops the mushrooms and adds diced pepperoni.

But all of them feature fresh, deep-green leaves of spinach, which works so well with other traditional pizza flavors that one wonders why it hasn't become universal.

Neapolis was founded three years ago by brothers Dino and Bill Trapalis, Greek natives who were raised here. A full range of pasta choices - from $7 to $9 - are offered, but the featured, Greek-accented pizzas are the main attraction.

Neapolis is one of the few pizza parlors around that offers an excellent baklava for dessert ($1.25), but you won't have room for it. (Copyright, 1993, John Hinterberger. All rights reserved.) John Hinterberger, who writes the weekly restaurant review in Tempo, makes visits to restaurants anonymously and unannounced. He pays in full for all food, wines and services. When he interviews members of the restaurants' management and staff, he does so only after the meals and the services have been appraised. He does not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants.