One of Tacoma’s favorite restaurants has created a pizza unlike anything else in town
One of the best things about Tacoma’s pizza scene is that there is no definitive style. Every pizzeria has carved its own little slice of cheese and pepperoni.
The new pies at E9 Firehouse & Gastropub (the original Engine House restaurant off Sixth Avenue and Pine Street) fulfill that one-of-a-kind sensibility with gusto.
At their heart they are a thin-crust pie, crisped by a layer of tomato oil lathered onto the bottom of the sheet pan before the dough is pulled into each of the four corners. They are also, due to their cooking vehicle, a pan pie. They are weighed down by neither cheese nor sauce. They are appropriately chewy, offering that satisfying tear — but here it hits post-crunch.
E9 describes it as a sort of marriage between New Haven and tavern-style. The home of Yale University is also home to some of America’s most storied pizzerias, baking “apizza” in high-heat ovens — traditionally coal, which some still use — and topping them simply with tomato sauce and a dusting of parm and romano, for instance, or olive oil and clams.
Tavern-style extends from everyday Chicago pies, round and cut into squares, or the myriad pies, cut traditionally into triangular slices, churned from busy ovens along the northern half of the East Coast.
X Group founder John Xitco embarked on a pizza reconnaissance to New Haven last year with his son and a couple of friends.
“We knew we couldn’t do a true New Haven, but that was a pizza we really liked,” he said in March.
They contemplated a Detroit or Sicilian pie, with its focaccia-esque billow, but in an effort to differentiate from the great wood-fired pies at E9 Taproom & Pizza Works, they landed on this unique “Firehouse-style.”
It is reminiscent of a style that originated near Stamford, Connecticut: an uber-thin pizza about 10 inches in diameter, small enough to fit on a bar top and sturdy enough to hold in one hand with a pint in the other.
At home in Tacoma, Xitco and his son worked with E9 taproom chef Erica Dunham over several months to develop the dough, running practice bakes in a standard kitchen oven and outside in a Woodstone oven, which provides radiant heat more akin to commercial equipment. At the Sixth Avenue restaurant, head chef Jake Thacker has taken the reigns of execution into the 625-degree Baker’s Pride oven.
“It’s chewy and crusty at the same time,” said Xitco. “Every bite should have something exciting.”
MAKING FIREHOUSE-STYLE PIZZA
It all starts with a poolish dough — a wet mass of water, flour and yeast that acts as a pre-fermentation period, ultimately proffering flavor and aromatics to breads. The next day, explained Thacker, he and his kitchen crew add more flour, salt, sugar, yeast and water, plus a little olive oil.
They give it a little love throughout that second day before setting it in the fridge to rest and rise; it’s then portioned on Day 3 and served on Day 4.
Pulled into a blue steel sheet pan, they also perforate it with a spiked roller “to reduce the chance of bubbles,” said Thacker, a classic cracker-crust technique.
To order, each pie is hand-dressed in a fine veil of sauce, rubbed as close to the rim as possible, and sprinkled with a blend of Grande and low-moisture mozzarella with just a hint of Tillamook cheddar.
“It bites a little different,” said Thacker, and adds a little color contrast.
Every element indeed shines in the finished pie.
Expectedly red but noticeably complex, the sauce involves a lengthy reduction with olive oil and herbs, which is then separated into a tomato-tinged oil and a thick base. The latter is mixed into more whole peeled tomatoes to create the base sauce; it also gets dolloped on top of the pies after exiting the oven. The final touch: a couple of passes with that oil and, like in New Haven, a dusting of Parmigiano-Reggiano or Romano.
Similar to the taproom’s curated pies, no build-your-own here. There are four choices, including The Ladder with pepperoni, The Haven with Mama Lil’s Peppers and sausage, and the vegetarian Cheat Day with cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and mint.
The ultra-thin crust attunes with The Quickie, a vegan pie topped with Dunham’s own E9 “parm.” Thacker wouldn’t reveal all of its secrets but said it contained lots of cashews and nutritional yeast. It tastes shockingly similar to that salty cheese, and texturally resembles the finely grated crystals of grocery store tubs. I would still opt for the real thing but would happily add this pie to the mix for a vegan pal.
Though the decor and atmosphere at E9 Firehouse remains true to its historic self, the menu has slimmed down and re-focused on “a combination of retro and modern” favorites, said Xitco.
A salad of cold peas tossed with candied bacon, cubes of cheddar, water chestnuts and fresh snap peas is a handsome complement to a Firehouse-style pizza.
E9 FIREHOUSE & GASTROPUB
▪ 611 N. Pine St., Tacoma, 253-272-3435, ehouse9.com
▪ Monday-Thursday 4-10 p.m., Friday 4-11 p.m., Saturday noon to 11 p.m., Sunday noon to 10 p.m.
▪ Details: Firehouse-style pizza, $19.99; best enjoyed on-site but stands up to takeout and reheats nicely
This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 12:05 PM.