Penrose Pizzeria & Pub puts out staggering connoisseur pizzas for a small town

As indicated in the buddy Apple Valley Cider review, Penrose Pizzeria and Pub is simply nearby, serving its own lounge area in addition to takeout orders into the cidery, which gives a few juices also to PP&P's taps. The spot peruses like a side of the road bistro and bar wrapped into one: less games bar (regardless of a monster TV over the bar) and all the more family-accommodating, humble community diner with no assumption except for an unobtrusive art vibe.

We're told the pizza joint's a little more than a year old, opened by a nearby family and culinary specialist who gathered high end food experience working in California wine country. Our tasting host over at the cidery firmly suggests that we attempt one of her beloved things off PP&P's menu, the connoisseur mushroom pizza, and since she said everything's genuine great, we choose for ourselves on requesting the bar-b-que chicken sandwich.

It’s worth noting that even without her talk-up of the fare, the menu reads quite alluring with some interesting epicurean touches I certainly wouldn’t expect from little old Penrose, Colorado; it’s clear something’s different here. A note online highlights house-smoked and -ground meats and all sauces and dips made in-house. 

To the pies first, our bartender, who takes our to-go order, says the pizza dough gets cold fermented for three days, which explains the phenomenal crust we’re about to encounter, all puffy and airy and crisp on the outside but soft and chewy on the interior, with a perfect, subtle salt kick. The pie holds a roasted garlic purée for its sauce, a bounty of chewy, poppin’ shroom slivers,  and gets finished with truffle oil and a tangly array of arugula leaves that have been tossed in a lemon vinaigrette with honey.

If you’re paying attention, that’s your earthy umami, garlic sharpness, truffle funk, arugula pepperiness, citrus and vinegar acidity and a sweet honey note: a lot of smart flavor building and layering. This is holy shit-good pizza, worth a drive. Check out the “chalkboard” menu section of customer-conceived ’zas from the build-your-own section; it says “if the pizza you create is awesome, we’ll add it here.”

With regards to that sandwich, the made-in-house bread advanced on all the sandwiches is really a similar pizza batter cut and molded in an unexpected way. It rankles in minimal cooked pockets and bites as wonderfully as it does on the pies; don't think about a calzone, it's more similar to sandwich bread.

It's likewise sufficiently durable to contain a store of fixings: tart pulled, cooked grill chicken, sweet caramelized onions, greasy little bacon bits and fresh seared chicken skins, tart, crunchy, cured cabbage and sharp green onion bits, in addition to shaved Parmesan and a smooth, zingy garlic aioli. Again with the careful taste layering: kick-ass. This initial testing makes them need to return for additional without a doubt.