Bar Poet
Bar Poet boasts a menu of $10 pizzas accompanied by a wine on tap and cocktails, priced just as competitively.
Formerly home to Church Aperitivo Bar, the space with a capacity of about 100 has been totally transformed into an indoor patio escape of sorts.
Fireproofed real trees sprout fake leaves intertwined with twinkly lights that mimic stars, and a large striped awning looms over the entire bar.
Start off a meal or snack on a Li’l Banger ($4.50), a crushable slider with a beef patty, shredded lettuce, secret sauce, American cheese and juicy roasted cherry tomatoes that take things over the top, all on a squishy mini potato bun.
A Peaches & Cream salad is $18 for a shareable family size, a base of creamy, salty stracciatella topped with caramelized roasted peaches, a mountain of fresh arugula, a chardonnay dressing, almonds, black pepper and parm.
The pizza here is a little crispier than Neapolitan, stretchy with a subtle sourdough tang, the dough made here using stone-ground 00 flour and fermented for three days.
The Hot Rod ($9) is essentially your basic pepperoni pizza, topped with traditional red sauce made using a blend of California and San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella, perfectly curled little cups of pepperoni, and a hot honey to finish that adds a little sweetness, spiciness and flair to this staple.
The Life is Gucci ($9.95) is a white pizza topped with sweetly caramelized mortadella, crunchy pistachios, taleggio, ricotta, hot honey and chives.
An unusual green pizza called the Green Machine ($9.95) has a base of green pea sauce topped with parmesan, stracciatella, lemon, rapini, herbs and green goddess for a trifecta of dairy-citrus-herb perfection.
The Smoked Whitefish ($9.95) is my personal fave, a white pie topped with smoked whitefish, fried capers, pickled mustard seeds, fresh herbs, chipotle sauce and wedges of lemon. A great substitute for those craving New England clam pizza.
A single meatball seems a little pricey at $8.95, almost as much as a pizza, but it’s huge, dense and meaty, accompanied by red sauce, cream, pistachio pesto, olive oil, mozzarella, parmesan and chervil.
For dessert, a cookie butter budino ($8) blends cookie butter into a budino topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and Oreo and Lotus cookie crumbs.
The Spaghett ($8) cheekily but refreshingly tops off a Miller High Life with Aperol and lemon.
Wines range from a chilled white and red on tap, starting at $9 a glass, to a pet-nat Groszer Wien for $97 a bottle.
What’s poetic about this place isn’t so much a strict literary theme, more a whimsical philosophy of offering “something for everyone,” whether that be high-end champagne or a game of Skee-Ball.
Hector Vasquez