Is There Anything Pleasant House Bakery Can't Do?
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jun 11, 2012 7:00PM
I've said here before that Pleasant House Bakery was my favorite restaurant to open in 2011 not named Next. Owners Art Jackson and Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson have turned the Bridgeport restaurant into a destination for local gourmands of the serious and casual persuasions with their simple Yorkshire-style pies and steak pasties and light pastries, all imbued with a farm-to-table commitment that walks the walk better than any restaurant in Chicago; Pleasant House grows most of the vegetables used in the restaurant from a series of urban farms two blocks down the street from their restaurant, in Pilsen and in the suburbs.
The real secret to Pleasant House's success is the Jacksons' commitment to a simple menu. Aside from regular specials like their Tuesday burger or Friday fish and chips or a rare limited pie, the menu is static. This allows them to send customers' jaws dropping to the floor from the moment they walk through the door. One such special did so well Art Jackson said he may do it on a regular basis, time commitments willing, throughout the summer.
Pleasant House Bakery enlisted in the services of a mobile wood-fired brick oven to bake simple British-inspired flatbreads that, with the exception of what Nella Grassano is doing at Pizzeria da Nella, may have been the best pizzas served in Chicago last weekend. In the case of Pleasant House's "Queen's Pie" (a more savory riff on a margherita pizza), Jackson's was the equal of Grassano. Where da Nella's margherita imbues the taste buds with sweet tomato sauce, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella, Pleasant House's pie contained more herbs and the sauce contained healthy chunks of garlic. Another distinguishing feature was the shape of the pies. Grassano—a third-generation pizziaola from Naples—could bang out a perfectly round disc of pizza dough with her eyes closed. Jackson kneaded and rolled out his dough like snowflakes: no two shaped alike.
The oven came courtesy of Patrick Barclay, who bought it last year and has worked a handful of private parties with it since. Barclay told me he uses a mix of white and red oak and ash for his wood and the oven can easily maintain a temperature of over 1,000 degrees. At the peak of Sunday afternoon's temps I could see the heat radiating off the brick in waves, while white smoke worked its way out of the chimney stack. "When I came here (Sunday) morning," Barclay said, "the temperature of the oven was still at 500 degrees, which is perfect for baking breads."
Jackson said that the success of last weekend's pizza won't be a one-off and that they will be bringing back the pizzas on a regular basis, depending on what the restaurant's schedule looks like.