Cork-N-Crust

The front door at 710 Fairfield Avenue isn't the entrance. Lettering on the window and a sign on the glass both send you around the side, which turns out to be a fair introduction to a place that isn't quite what its sign says either. The sign says gourmet pizza. The name leads with wine. What I found was an Italian kitchen that trusts its smoker, a bartender with ideas, and a best-selling pizza unlike any I've had.

Cork-N-Crust opened in October 2021 in a building with 1890 on the cornice. Deborah Gilboy Rudisell and Bill Hill, a Florence couple, built it near where Hill grew up in Dayton. It's one location, family owned, and the dough is made daily. That dough turns up everywhere: pizza crusts, table bread, flatbreads, the breadsticks they call Cork Screws, even a dessert.

The Vibe

The front room wears its age well. Octagonal wood coffers on the ceiling, amber glass chandeliers, fluted columns, exposed brick, granite tables. A few steps up behind a spindle railing sits the bar, with a corrugated metal face, a whiskey barrel for a host stand, and a backbar carrying more bourbon than a wine bar strictly needs. Wine signs cover most remaining surfaces, and they've got a nice wine selection to back them up. Picnic tables with umbrellas line the small sidewalk out front.

Evan was our server and bartender, and he's a good reason to sit near the bar. He told me I wouldn't be disappointed. When I raved about the Bellevue pizza, he told me the 10 inch is without a doubt their best seller, and the second best seller is the 15 inch.

I asked for a smoked old fashioned. They don't make one. Evan offered a vanilla chai old fashioned he's been working on instead, built on a Neeley single barrel honey finish bourbon out of Sparta, Kentucky, and he walked the bottle over so I could read the label. It was terrific. He nailed it. My daughter's Shirley Temple got her approval too.

The Food

The wings are smoked in house for two hours, rubbed, then flash fried, with sauce on the side. They came out juicy with just the right amount of smoke crust. They're as good as any wings in the city, and I didn't expect to write that about a pizzeria with a wine list. We had the BBQ, which is basic, and the garlic parmesan, which is very good. A lot of places botch that one. I wish there were more sauces to choose from, but the homemade ranch is fantastic, and the wings stand on their own.

The meatballs are house made, served in red sauce under a pile of cheese shaved in wide ribbons. Shaved cheese on a starter says the kitchen knows what it's doing. They could have a little more zip, but they're damn good. I should mention I am hard on cooks making meatballs. I do not have a low bar. I cleaned that dish with the bread when the meatballs were gone. The bread dragged through that sauce with that cheese is a meal by itself.

My wife loves calzones, so we had to bring a meatball calzone home for her. She had part that night and the rest for lunch the next day.

Then we ordered three pizzas for two people. That wasn't an error. It was "everything has been so good so far, let's keep going."

The Bellevue is red sauce, pepperoni, capicola, and Nueske bacon in big smoky chunks, and it's the most unique pizza I've ever had. I've always liked big smoky bacon, and here it runs the show. The crust is very thin and mandates a fold. My daughter was still telling people about it that evening, if that tells you anything. Every pizza on the menu lists a drink pairing. The Bellevue's is Miller Lite. I respect that, but still had a local amber ale with the pizza (the old fashioned came for dessert).

The Chardonnay is built on garlic infused olive oil with whole roasted garlic cloves, roasted mushrooms, rosemary, shaved parmesan, and sun dried tomatoes in big strips. I'm not a tomato guy and still ate them, as they complemented the pizza. The whole thing was tremendous, a unique blend of taste and texture. The crust had more stiffness than the Bellevue's, and that suits it.

Evan thinks the Hot Honey is underrated. We agree on bourbon. The Hot Honey was okay to me, not a sleeper, and I'd try something else before ordering it again.

The cannolis come four to an order. Nice pastry, good filling, and enough chocolate chips to do the work without taking over.

We ate part of the three pizzas and carried five boxes to the car. Everything warmed up every bit as good, and not every pizza and wing does that. Most don't.

The Bottom Line

People think Cork-N-Crust is a pizza joint. It is. It's also a kitchen that smokes wings as well as anyone in town, shaves cheese over house made meatballs, and employs a bartender who answers "we don't make that" with something better. Worth the Drive is usually out of the realm of a pizza place, but not here. It earns it, and we'll gladly make the 35 minute drive back again soon. Order the Bellevue. Either size. And make sure to try something else too.