On December 17th, I decided to try the Keto diet. The timing was complicated, so close to Christmas, a holiday revered in my family for its significance, yes, but also for the candies, the breads, the pies. In spite of the temptations, I adhered closely to this diet. No sugar, no bread, no starch. Fruits aren’t even safe on this diet, and so I steered clear. I was proud of myself for enduring the way I did, steadfastly from that day in December right up until a day during the last week of January when I realized that I am nothing if I not a bread eater. If I can’t eat bread, what’s the point of this so called life?
I like pizza. Quite a lot, but maybe not more than the average American, or European. I find it to be a comforting old friend, a safe menu choice, a small pie making for a simple appetizer, or a large pie feeding a family of four for $20 or so. Even when my wife and I traveled through France last spring, we often found our meal of choice in the shape of a circle. It wasn’t only difficult for me to avoid pizza during the six weeks I toiled under the meaty thumb of Keto, it felt wrong.
My mother made pizza on Saturdays. A homemade crust, thick and doughy, sauce, and toppings that generally steered clear of anything exotic. Sausage and pepperoni ruled. Later in my life, I had a wood fired pizza oven built at my house so I could experiment with my own pizza making, the results of which varied wildly from pizza to pizza. Later, I built a fly fishing cabin, and added a wood fired oven to that home as well. My pizza making skills evolved, but consistency still haunts me, even to this day.
Earlier this week, I posted a picture of a floppy slice of pizza on my Facebook page. It was a woeful slice, indeed. I announced the beginnings of a pizza review series, and the response was enthusiastic. In fact, when my wife logs into my account to tell the world that I’ve died, fewer comments will be left. Some warned me against local pizza. Go to New York or Chicago for pizza, they said. This place is the best, some wrote. Try this place, order the pizza well done, someone suggested. Pizza, while not a particular strong suite of the Lake Geneva area, is something that matters.
In preparation of my review series, I decided on the process. I will order one large pizza, half cheese and half supreme (or whatever the establishment calls their pizza with some vegetables and sausage). There’s a popular website where the founder travels from town to town reviewing pizza. “One bite, everybody knows the rules”. This is what the man says before taking his bite. I know this concept to be preposterous. One bite does not tell the tale of a pizza. What if I’m exceptionally hungry that day, and that first bite is amazing not because of the pizza, but because of my near starvation? What if the first bite is good, but the next thirty-four are mediocre? This will not be a one bite review, this will be a pizza review. I’m not a coward, so I’ll eat the whole stinkin’ pizza. How else can a dish be judged?
That brings us to my first google search. “Best Pizza in Lake Geneva”. This is what I typed into my browser. Tripadviser, Yelp and others told me there was a consistent opinion in our market. The Next Door Pub received top placement on many sites, often followed or proceeded by Oak Fire. With the reviews of the people considered, I made my first decision. It was a snow day, and I was hungry, so at 5 pm sharp my son and I walked into The Next Door Pub.
This establishment on the north side of Lake Geneva is one that I know well. I’ve eaten the pizza perhaps a dozen times before, which doesn’t make me a regular by any stretch. The space is quite basic, nothing fancy. A couple of dining rooms and a bar. It’s modest. But at 5 pm on Tuesday night the place was hopping. The clientele was diverse: construction workers, families, retirees and at least one young couple on a date at the corner table, awkwardly sharing an order of wings. My son and I were seated at a four top near the front door, and then we waited.
And waited. And waited. Ten minutes later, a waitress made her way to the table and took our order. One large pizza, half cheese, the other half being their “famous garbage pizza”, that of onions, sausage, green pepper and mushrooms. We sat and listened to the conversations of the surrounding tables. No one had anything interesting to say.
Ten minutes later, the pizza arrived. It felt like it came out a bit too soon. We had waited more than ten minutes for our waters, and expected to wait another 15 or more for the pizza. But ten minutes later, there it was. A large pizza, half cheese and half garbage, cut tavern style. That style, by the way, is the common style for pizza in the Lake Geneva market. It’s a reasonably thin crust pizza with ample toppings, cut in squares, not slices. This pizza looked fine, but the cheese on top was quite white. There was no evidence of browning, no bits of char. The speed at which the pizza was brought to the table and the lack of browning on the cheese was worrisome, but I’ve had this pizza before and figured it would still be tasty, even if it didn’t look tasty.
But it wasn’t. The crust was limp, as evidenced in that damning photo above. It was soft, soggy, undercooked. When I mentioned this initially on Facebook someone said that I have to order the pizza “well done”. This is silly, and akin to ordering a Coke and asking the waiter to make sure it’s fizzy. The crust was soft and too thick to be considered proper tavern style, the sauce was a touch sweet, which I actually prefer. The cheese overwhelmed the pie, which is a condition that used to plague my mother’s pizza as well, though she never opened a restaurant. The sausage was fine, not too loaded with fennel seed, which is a vile seed that should never again be planted. The vegetables were adequate, not too crunchy, but here they are placed under the cheese and stacked high, which means great care must be made to pull a square of pizza from the plate and not have all of the toppings slide onto the table. Making matters worse, the crust couldn’t even support itself, so this pizza was less a pizza and more a soft, messy casserole.
I recognize people love The Next Door Pub. It’s a fine pub, and I’m sure many people count it as their favorite. But I’m not many people, and I have no allegiance to this, or any other restaurant in the area. I’m just hoping to eat some good pizza, and on this night, I struck out.
The Next Door Pub
411 Interchange North (Highway 120), Lake Geneva, WI
2.9/10
$19.70 for a large half cheese/ half garbage pizza