Pizza Geeks: A Very Nerdy Slice
Two local Edinburgh business partners have tried their hand at opening their own pizzeria following a very successful time working in the street food industry. Pizza Geeks have been making pizzas for five months and their nerd mecca pizza shop is making waves on Dalry Road.
Across from Haymarket train station, Pizza Geeks is a very unassuming spot. The storefront is small, but as you get closer the personality of the owners begins to shine through. The logo incorporates a stormtrooper helmet and there is a lightsabre built into the wall next to the front door. Inside the pizzeria is awash with even more sci-fi objects such as posters, figures and a Space Invaders table that you can actually play on.
My Pizza
I have a confession: I had two pizzas. There were so many toppings that I had never tried on a pizza before that I simply had to go for two. I chose the Braveheart and The Incredible Hulk.
The Braveheart consisted of Stornoway black pudding, haggis and salami. The Black pudding being my favourite topping, it almost acted like Italian sausage as it had notes of pepper and crumbled in the mouth. The haggis gave a spicy oat note, not dissimilar to the pizza at Cold Town House. I felt like the salami kept the balance of a Neapolitan pizza by providing a familiarity without taking away from the Scottish toppings.
The Incredible Hulk had pulled chicken which melted in the mouth; it was strange to have such a soft texture from a protein on a pizza, but it was well balanced by the crunch from the red onion. The pesto was light and aromatic but still had a hint of sharpness from the parmesan.
The dough on this pizza was my favourite of the series so far. The char from the bottom of the pizza and the crust gives the pizza something extra. The owner said it best when I mentioned it to him, “it’s like the dog, the crust is chewy with a crispy exterior.”
There is a very special character that you likely will meet, the owner’s Lhasa Apso puppy, Chewy. A very calm dog, he enjoys nothing more than cuddling up to the feet of customers.
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The Pizzas are named after geeky characters from films and videogames, such as Hulk, Mario and Luigi. The owner’s personalities ooze out of Pizza Geeks from the décor to the pizzas.
The dough is a classic Neapolitan style. Pizza Geeks use the standard 00 flour so often used in Naples. They use a Gozney gas fire oven, built on site, which makes the pizza dough cook evenly but does not allow the pizza to puff up as much as a traditional Neapolitan woodfire or coal oven. The underside of the pizza gets a nice amount of charring which from a gas oven typically means a lot of work either brushing or hoovering the excess flour from the floor of the oven must be done regularly. The crust has a great deal of leopard print char that is so synonymous with Naples.
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The sauce is on the neutral side with not a great deal of natural acidity. It veers slightly from a classic Neapolitan sauce because they use tomatoes that are not as sweet as ones like San Marzano for example.
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The cheese is creamy and doesn’t burn however it is used sparingly because of the amount of toppings that is put on the pizza. It is clear that Pizza Geeks have taken a classic style and turned it into their own.
There are some really unusual toppings used on the pizzas, for example, pulled chicken and Stornoway black pudding. Yet there are some nods to classic toppings such as potato, mushroom and salami.