Kaos Pizza, wow.
I nearly had to go lunchless while in Denver the other day, it was scary but it all worked out. I got to eat at Kaos Pizzeria.
A friend had recommended Sushi Den on South Pearl in Denver. Unfortunately, because my deposition went through lunch, I was too late for lunch but too early for dinner at Sushi Den which was closed in between the two. Luckily, just down the street, was a unique looking place called Kaos.
The locale is pretty damned charming. It reminds me of parts of Flagstaff, Arizona. An old residential area that is converting by bits to commercial properties, but retaining its old neighborhood feel.
I don't know if the picture does it justice, but this place is SMALL. It is a kitchen with a small two person bench and a small two person table. I was chatting with the owner, who told me they are getting more space in the next month.
So, what's so great about Kaos? Well, its size is one factor. It feels like you are eating at a friend's house, who happens to make great pizza. They have real ingredients and great dough. I watched them make my pizza and it was hand tossed. I also was impressed by how they put it together. They didn't load the toppings on haphazardly nor did they waste them. When I ate the pizza, the flavors were well balanced. To put it in a zen-ish terms, it is a "mindful" pizza. To put it in TV terms, it is made like a Simpson's episode is written - no words are accidents or wasted in a good Simpson's episode. There was nothing extraneous on this pizza.
I had a really hard time picking my pizza. They had a daily special with tiger shrimp and jalepenos (fresh, not pickled), some good sausage varieties and they had a "sorpressata." This was a pizza with a pesto sauce, provolone cheese, sorpressata (kind of like salami), potato and an egg. I'd never heard of such a thing, so I ordered it.
"The sorpressata is actually an authentic pizza from Naples" the guy told me. I thought it was a quirky and original creation. Wrong.
Kaos has a wood fired pizza oven. The guys told me it can be temperamental. My pizza was cooking too fast on the bottom (i was told) and they were concerned about the raw egg that was on the top not getting cooked. I suggested a creme brulee torch. They said it would burn everything, but when I turned around, they were using a torch to finish my pizza.
Here is the finished product, on that really small table:
The pizza was delicious. Really delicious. Like so many things I love, it was a combination of flavors, but not too many flavors. The crust was excellent, the pesto was just right and the flavors came together like they were meant to. The potato slices were not entirely cooked, but it wasn't a real distraction and still tasted good.
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