Customers are often seeking comfort food during cold winters, and Ohio-based Catch-a-Fire Pizza is delivering with two new pizza styles that boast a thicker crust. The 11-year-old company has two standalone and one in-brewery location serving up artisan wood-fired pizza, but now it will add both Sicilian and grandma-style pies to the menu.
The team at Catch-a-Fire Pizza’s Blue Ash location started experimenting with Sicilian-style pizza a few years ago, affectionately calling it the “Towne Square” pizza as a nod to its square shape and to Towne Square Avenue, where the restaurant is located in downtown Blue Ash, Ohio. Catch-a-Fire Pizza’s Sicilian features a thick crust as well as a crispy base and edges baked with cheese. It’s available in five varieties, including Pepperoni, Veggie, Cheese, Meatball, and Prosciutto and Arugula. The pizza starts off with the brand’s unique sourdough focaccia for a light and airy base, then is topped with sauces made from scratch.
“Our Sicilian pizza is delicious, because it’s got a thicker crust, but it’s still very light, with a nice crumb,” said chef and owner Jeff Ledford. “It’s everything you want in pizza, with a crunchy bottom and edges. We tend to add plenty of toppings, so it’s packed with more sauce, cheese and toppings than a traditional Sicilian. It’s been fun to add a new pizza that is so different from our wood-fired pizzas.”
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Meanwhile, at Catch-a-Fire Pizza’s other location in Lebanon, Ohio, customers can order the new grandma-style pizza. This rectangular pizza is tray-baked, not wood-fired, with a medium-thick crunchy crust, cheese on the bottom and sauce on the top. The grandma style (named for the Italian grandmothers who would make this style of pizza at home in their own kitchens) at Catch-a-Fire Pizza offers three flavor combinations: the Original, with traditional tomato sauce and cheese; the Drunken, with vodka sauce and basil; and the Pesto, with ricotta and roasted tomatoes. Customers can also create their own topping combinations.
“Our specialty has been our wood-fired pizza, but our team of culinarians have so much passion for the food we create, so it made sense to begin perfecting other pizza styles,” says co-owner Melissa Ledford. “We’re always pushing ourselves and finding better ways to do things, whether it’s sourcing the perfect ingredient or expanding our pizza repertoire.”
While the Sicilian-style pizza is currently only available at the Blue Ash location, and the grandma style is available at its Lebanon location, Catch-a-Fire Pizza has plans to offer all three of its pizza styles at all locations in the future. “The Sicilian and grandma pizzas have been really popular, so we want to make sure we have it available for all of our guests at as many locations as possible,” Ledford said. To promote these new pizza styles, Catch-a-Fire Pizza is offering $2 off all Sicilian and grandma pizzas during the month of January, a deal that’s available for dine-in or carryout.