Fresh Mozarella Whole Wheat Pizza at Wildfire Restaurant, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.
Wildfire Restaurant in Eden Prairie is the only Minnesota location of the Chicago-based chain, part of the Lettuce Entertain You group of restaurants. They’re a “1940s supper club”-style joint with large televisions over the bar showing sports and a large menu that includes whole wheat pizzas made in their wood-burning oven.
Even though there’s some strongly recommended choices on the menu, I’ve consistently tried the pizzas of course. Their “fresh mozzarella” pizza is more-or-less the same ingredients as a pizza margherita although it is tiny. One could arguably call this flatbread.
On a recent visit, we enjoyed a bottle of Bearboat Russian River Valley Pinot Noir and ordered the fresh mozzarella pizza, knowing we just wanted a small snack. It’s cut into 6 pieces and there’s more basil than there is sauce. The bread, rather, the crust is chewy and has a crisp edge to it. What stands out most is the cheese, which is presumably why they call it a fresh mozzarella pizza opposed to a pizza margherita: it is indeed very fresh, stringy, sticky and flavorful.
It is a great snack or appetizer; I’d argue they should move it to that part of the menu.
The service at Wildfire is solid and they were in no rush to kick us out even though we stayed well beyond the posted opening hours to finish up our bottle of wine, which paired quite well, by the way.
Wildfire Restaurant
3020 Eden Prairie Center
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
952-914-9100
I had a crispy orange duck there that was awesome. Like all LettuceEntertainYou restaurants the chop salad is quite good. The signature manhattan is delicous as well. Can’t say I have ever tried the pizza but it looks lackluster.
Aaron, I believe the wine you enjoyed came from down the road when my younger bro owns a small vineyard in Potter Valley, CA! Some very good varietals in that area.
Oh, how I miss Chicago and the Lettuce Entertain you on every corner!
They do have some great eateries. Too bad the establishments they have opened in MN (Big Bowl, Twin City Grill, Tucci Benucch and Magic Crepe) are kinda boring.