G.A. Benton
If you discuss traditional Columbus-style pizzas — the type typically baked in Fifties-launched retailers and that function rectangular-cut skinny crusts and provolone — it’s important to point out Ange’s Pizza.
I found there are eight Ange’s Pizzas, although, and they aren’t created equal. The pizzerias are grouped below two web sites that are not created equal, both — just one has “on-line” in its area.
To resolve my “is that this a single chain or what?” befuddlement, I visited the Ange’s Pizza created longest in the past — the classic Whitehall store, which opened within the Fifties.
Lengthy story not so quick: Six Ange’s Pizzas are bunched below the “angespizzaonline” web site; the hardly completely different “angespizza” web site lists two individually owned pizzerias that embody the only topic of this assessment: Ange’s Pizza in Whitehall.
It’s run by John Angeletti, kin of “straight off the boat” Italian immigrant Strino Angeletti who, about 70 years in the past, started a household pizza enterprise that might later splinter into separate operations. (Additional exploration of this byzantine story is past this text; hopefully, somebody will write an opera about it.)
Whereas classic, the Whitehall Ange’s occupies a dinky and drab brown constructing. What I encountered inside was significantly extra colourful.
Not as a result of the inside is snazzy — it’s a humble little area with no place to dine and a ready room-like bench. Nonetheless, a cheery impression arose from overhearing many-walks-of-life prospects converse with Gordon Merritt — Ange’s supervisor — as he commandeered the counter and a busy pizza-slicing knife.
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Amongst a gradual stream of regulars who engaged Merritt, one referred to as him “child doll” whereas coming into after which praised him for slicing her pie in that particular means she likes it. A walk-up arrived quickly after and multitasking Merritt appropriately guessed her order, then divided one other pie, and began on her meals. Minutes later, a smiling man choosing up dinner mentioned, “I like pizza! However I’ll solely eat it from right here and two different locations on the town.”
Noting me jot these quotes down (from, so as: Denise, Kathy and Scottie), Merritt informed me I used to be in the one Ange’s that makes its dough and sauce day by day utilizing the unique recipes. He mentioned the sausage was house-made, too.
I may style that pleasure and old-school high quality in Ange’s pies. My scrumptious pepperoni pizza starred zesty and audibly crisp, cup-and-char pepperoni glistening with oil and generously utilized. With its yeasty skinny crust, semi-sweet, oregano-accented sauce and considerable oven-browned cheese, it was an edible definition of the beloved native type ($11.95; all pizza costs are for mediums).
Uncredited however welcome pepperoni had been a part of the successful workforce atop my aptly titled “spicy Italian” pizza ($18.20). Banana peppers and capicola introduced shocking warmth; clumps of garlicky good sausage added to the meaty heft.
With its blanket of attractively brown-spotted provolone and mozzarella, the cheese pizza ($10.95) did its identify proud. And it afforded a fuller appreciation of Ange’s easy however traditional pizza body.
I additionally tried Ange’s Italian sub ($6.95) — a effective rendition with oven-singed ample meats and a cheesy-garlic-bread-evoking bun; wings ($7.50 for six) — baked to faintly crisp solely in spots, however not oily and never dangerous, and with a cooked-on scorching sauce that wasn’t messing round; chef salad ($5.95) — with peppers, onions, ham, cheese and pepperoni, it was a strong model of what some pizzerias name antipasto salad; stromboli ($10.95) — purists may name it a calzone; I’d name this garlic-crusted folded pizza “good-tasting and handsome.”
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Mexican pizza ($16.95) wasn’t on Ange’s menu within the Fifties. Mine was lacking its marketed lettuce (arguably a blessing in disguise). However what it had — a Columbus-style crust supporting floor beef wedded to a comforting mattress of melted cheeses (provolone, mozzarella, cheddar) goosed-up by jalapenos, onions and tomatoes — may nicely have made it a cheeseburger-riffing “American Graffiti”-era favourite.
gabenton.dispatch@gmail.com
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Ange’s Pizza
The place: 139 S. Yearling Highway, Whitehall
Contact: 614-235-0898, www.angespizza.com
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. day by day
Worth vary: $5.95 to $26.70
Atmosphere: continuously busy little bare-bones neighborhood pizza store with no tables however very accommodating service
Youngsters’s menu: no
Reservations: no
Accessible: not very
Liquor license: no
Fast click on: Basic Columbus-style pizzas are nonetheless the celebrities at this beloved classic pizzeria.