Harpoon Willie’s Pizza Review

When you’re reviewing pizza in an area of rural Wisconsin that is populated, be it seasonally or annually, by people from Chicago, it’s only natural that you hear the admonitions. Why eat pizza in Lake Geneva when it’s so much better in Chicago? If I want pizza I go to Chicago. Chicago’s pizza is so much better, I can’t even stomach the local stuff. This is what they say.

With those statements swimming in my mind I looked up Steve Dolinsky’s (The Hungry Hound) top pizzas in Chicago. Number one was south of my comfort zone. Number two was in Lakeview, Pat’s on Lincoln. So I did what any Wisconsinite would do, and I drove to Pat’s to taste what a pizza should taste like. I won’t dwell on this review. I ordered pizza. I ate pizza. The crust was super thin. The toppings, fine. The cheese wasn’t right. The sauce was decent. As I sat there eating the number two pizza in that second city I couldn’t help but think that Pino’s in Walworth was better.

On the heels of that Chicago trip, my desire to eat bread slathered with sauce and meats and cheese had yet to be tamped, so I tucked in to a raised booth at Harpoon Willie’s Tuesday night and ordered a pizza. Harpoon’s is a favorite of mine, mostly due to their delicious brisket sandwich and waffle fries, but also due to the proximity to my office and to the lake. It’s a great bar, and nothing will change that. Not even a very disappointing fish fry last year could shake my commitment. But I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t think about that poor review that I gave their fish, and worry that I might have to deliver another blow to one of my favorite places.

It was 5:04 when we ordered. A large 16″ pizza. They have a Meat Lovers but not a supreme, so I eschewed the meatballs in favor of some green peppers and mushrooms. The remaining meat should suffice. The waitress was kind and polite, and refilled our water glasses two or more times while we waited for our pie. The restaurant was reasonably busy, but when the clock struck 5:35 I was beginning to think our pizza might not ever come. Then again, the wait at Pat’s in Chicago approached 50 minutes even though the restaurant was almost entirely empty. At 5:36, the waitress brought out our meatball-less pizza. Advantage Harpoons.

This was a beautiful pizza, and since no one else said it first, I had to mumble it under my breath. The cheese was dotted with battle scars from the heat of the oven. The crust was thin, crispy, ideal. Not as thin as Pat’s, mind you, but what, at this point, does that matter? The green peppers were a bit raw, which was a bit upsetting, and the sausage was relatively heavy on the fennel seed. I like my fennel seed right next to my olives, burning in fiery hell. The sauce was good, not too sweet, not at all bitter. The underside of the pizza was a bit too chalked with flour, which is a rookie pizza maker’s sin that I’ve committed many times. It didn’t bother the pizza, but I did think it to be an area that needed some improvement. The cheese was ample but not overwhelming, and it’s the cheese on our local pizzas that sets them apart from Pat’s. I’m sure the cheese all comes out of the back of a Sysco truck, but the cheese here is just better. Saltier, denser, better.

In spite of these few complaints, the pizza was superlative. It easily beats Pat’s. Easily beats every other pizza on this tour, excepting perhaps Pino’s. My son and I debated this on our drive home. On one hand, the crust here is thinner, crispier. The flop test featured not a single degree of flop. The scene here is better. The view, the style, all better. And I think on this night, the pizza was, too. And just like that, we have a new leader.

Harpoon Willie’s

8 East Geneva Street, Williams Bay

8.0/10

$22 for a 16″ Meat Lovers, sans meatballs, plus peppers and mushrooms