Traverse City Record-Eagle, Oct. 24, 2003
Park Place Hotel for pizza at its top
We each had our first pizza in 1952 in New England, a few years before pizza fully penetrated the heartland. We can still taste its savory tomato sauce and mozzarella, the fresh mushrooms and pepperoni and salty anchovies. We particularly remember the crisp, yeasty crust, so thin it bubbled.

"Pizza pie," as it was called then, has mutated in the last 50 years, and most of what we find today has crust so thick and spongy you could sleep on it. Folks must like it, as there are more pizzerias than any other kind of restaurant--so many they have their own section in the Yellow Pages.

But we still yearn for that crispy, thin crust of yore, and every once in a while we find it. It was still rare (in the Midwest, at least) when we found some a decade ago at a family-pizzeria in Columbus called Iacono's. Now we find thin flatbread pizza crusts at Latitude, in Bay Harbor, and Crema in downtown TC. Could it be that thin is coming back?

We are particularly fond of the crisp and savory pizzas at the Park Place Hotel, of all places, and we go there often to take it home from the bar at Minerva's or to enjoy up in the Beacon Lounge, especially on nights when Tom Kaufman's piano adds sound to the breathtaking view. And so we found ourselves there recently with some fellow thin-crust fanciers who wanted to see for themselves if our opinion was sound. Our companions were Andy and Beth Buelow (Andy being executive director of the Traverse Symphony) and Cindy and Jay Ruzak, who own the Grey Hare Inn and vineyards on The Peninsula. The Ruzaks had not only just finished harvesting their grapes, but were also celebrating the homecoming of a beloved cat who'd been three weeks MIA. We were all in such a party mood that Andy, no slouch as a lounge pianist himself, even took a few licks alongside Kaufman.

The Beacon Lounge serves an appetizer menu as well as pizzas, so we could have tried fried calamari or nachos or quesadillas or something. But we were pizza-minded, and after some preliminary wine we ordered three from the seven on the menu. One was a "Margherita" with tomato, basil and cheese; one had sausage, pepperoni, portabellas, tomato and three cheeses, and the third sported three types of sausage--Italian, chorizo and andouille.

It was sort of like ordering out, since food for the lounge is prepared in Chef Mike Pritchard's ground-floor kitchen and delivered upstairs by runner. Mike's assistant, Nick Berden, tells us they make all their own sauces and devise their own topping variations. The dough, he said, is from a bread company they work with to produce just the right thin, crispy, old-fashioned crust. This puts the focus right where it belongs, on the flavors of tomato, basil, oregano, garlic, sausage, portabellas, pepperoni, mozzarella, Parmesan, and provolone. The crust is so light, even an average pizza-eater can handle a 10-incher and still want another slice. If a fair test of any dish is whether you'd order it again, these pizzas scored big. As the last of them was disappearing, Andy declared the crust on his three-sausage version "a thing of beauty," and we swiftly ordered two more.

By then, the lounge was in jam mode, alive with late-blooming tourists, trolling singles, a few strays from a wedding in the old Top of the Park next door, and folks like us who were just celebrating life Up North. By the time we got the bill -- which included $43 for those five pizzas -- it was nearly 11 p.m. and Kaufman was into a duet with bartender Leigh McKolay, who was tapping out a happy rendition of "I've got Rhythm" on bottles on the back bar with what look like swizzle sticks. Kaufman, who tunes her bottles regularly, cemented her musical credentials when he told us she uses nothing but single-malt Scotch bottles. "The glass is heavier," he said, "and gives a truer sound." Besides, he added, "They're less likely to break."

We doubt you'll ever hear talk like that in a place that serves thick, spongy pizza.

DATA: Beacon Lounge, Minerva's at the Park Place Hotel, 300 E. State St., Traverse City; 231-933-4027 or www.Park-Place-Hotel.com.