Review: Pizzeria Salvy serves great pizza in an unlikely location

The gravitational pull of great pizza can be as strong as a full moon shifting the planet’s tides. I’ve seen ridiculous lines of pie-obsessed people over the years, waiting hours for the chance to pay cash for some crust topped with pepperoni, sauce, and cheese. And sometimes, yes, it is very worth it.

But will they descend into the basement of an office building in a business district that’s remained eerily quiet since the pandemic? There is no supermoon — or hardly even natural light — deep in the bowels of the Comcast Technology Center. And that is where the roaring hearth of Marc Vetri’s Pizzeria Salvy is wedged into the low-ceilinged corner of a long, often empty basement corridor that has all the charm of a forgotten airline terminal. It can be lonesome down there at one of the rustic wooden country tables during the in-between moments when Comcast’s recently returned employees are not swooping in for a lunch break slice or speeding past into an adjacent concourse tunnel for the SEPTA commute home.

But when I first bit into a fresh slice of Salvy pizza? My eyes popped open. The dough was flavorful and complex. And its micro-thin crust held straight with only the slightest gentle bend, despite cradling a fennel-scented mix of sausage, peppers, and onions that whisked me right back to an iconic bowl of South Philly rigatoni. This was the coveted sausage ragù from Vetri’s Fiorella pasta bar, whose hearty savor has been reimagined here for the two-dimensional elegance of a pizza pie. The “South Philly” margherita had its own eyebrow-raising twist, a subtle twang, hiding beneath the sunny sweetness of ripe tomatoes and milky mozz, of piquant provolone.

Hold up there, commuters. You might just want to pull up a seat and stay. Is this the single most obscure restaurant location worth paying attention to in Center City? Yes, I think it is — especially if pizza is your passion.

That is definitely the case for Marc Vetri, who launched his run as one of Philly’s most impactful restaurateurs 25 years ago this month at Vetri Cucina. His eponymous alta cucina gem at 1312 Spruce St. remains, based on a meal earlier this year, one of the city’s most seamlessly elegant and gracious fine-dining experiences. (I’m still dreaming of that morel fettuccine).

He’s since grown his empire twice, the first time selling five of his original restaurants to Urban Outfitters in 2015 (including Osteria and Pizzeria Vetri, though not Vetri Cucina), then once again, opening as many restaurants now from Philly to Vegas and Tokyo as he had before the Urban sale. That’s even true despite his recent departure from Fiore Rosso, the Main Line steak house that was a management deal that never quite lived up to my lofty expectations of a Vetri project.

But there’s a more personal stake in Pizzeria Salvy. It’s named after his dad, Sal Vetri, whose signature thick-rimmed glasses are the logo branded on its walls, plates, and menu. The location is undeniably a weird choice, but Vetri and partner Jeff Benjamin have a long history of counterintuitive real estate choices, from successes (pioneering North Broad’s revival with Osteria) to some forgettable stops (remember Osteria at the Moorestown Mall?)

I doubt the pleasantly polished food court vibe of this basement space will draw many destination diners on its own. Vetri’s best asset — his continued passion to keep evolving in the kitchen — should be all the magnet it needs. And the notion that Vetri has chosen the actual middle of nowhere to reinvent his pizza game yet again, five years after publishing a well-regarded book on the subject, Mastering Pizza (Ten Speed Press, 2018), is as delicious as it is a fascinating commentary on evolving food trends and storied chef careers.

“It’s like Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” he says, evoking the documentary featuring chef Jiro Ono’s Michelin-starred sushi restaurant in a Tokyo subway station. “You have to know about it.”

Is Pizzeria Salvy destined for Michelin stars? LOL, no. But it’s nonetheless a notable addition to our thriving scene. And the first thing you need to know about Salvy is that its style is quite different from the puffy, light-crusted pies that helped Pizzeria Vetri set the early standard for the city’s Neapolitan pizza craze 10 years ago.

Philly has since moved on to embrace a variety of other pizza styles, from the peerless seasonal rounds of Pizzeria Beddia to thicker Detroit-style pan pies (Pizza Jawn, Circles and Squares, Down North), paper-thin tavern pies (Darling Jack’s), cheese-on-the-bottom Trenton-style pies (CJ & D’s), samosa pizzas (Carbon Copy), al pastor stromboli (Chiquita’s), and even innovative frozen pies from Pizza Freak.

Salvy’s pizzas may look Neapolitan-ish from above, with their well-developed, heat-spotted crusts. But they’re significantly more crispy and complex, thanks to a lower, slower bake, the blend of flours, the right thinness on the cut of mozzarella, and evolved techniques with both fermentation and even mixing.

“It reflects everything I think is wonderful about pizza that I have eaten and seen over my lifetime. And I’ve eaten a lot of pizza.”

In particular, there’s much more flavor in the dough due to Vetri’s embrace of freshly milled local flour, which lends a dynamic depth of flavor, but also the ability to roll those crusts thin for a toasty bottom snap that, despite its thinness, is not brittle. It’s more like a micro-layered springboard for Salvy’s well-conceived flavors, which, under the watch of chef de cuisine Marco Gagliardi, are consistently executed.

I’m charmed by the various nods to flavor combinations made famous in some of Vetri’s other projects, aside from that sausage ragù. Vetri Cucina’s famous sweet onion crêpe makes a cameo at the suggestion of Papa Sal himself, its creamy truffled onion fonduta tweaked with some Gruyère to complete its sly riff on French onion soup. One pizza that didn’t impress me much was the clam pie, a nod to the New Haven classic that was underpowered in the flavor department when it should be a two-fisted gusto dose of garlicky, briny, zesty savor.

But my favorites here, aside from the sausage, were Salvy’s elegant seasonal veggie pies, including a summery zucchini pizza covered with emerald green shreds of squash lit with mint and enriched with milky puddles of stracciatella. As cooler fall weather settled in, Salvy’s maitake pie earned favored-mushroom-pizza status, the fungi’s roasted frills adding a textural crunch to the white pie laced with scallion oil and fontina for earthy harmony.

Salvy does slices from large pies and tagliata squares for the convenience of the lunch crowd, but I prefer the crust-to-filling proportion of the standard single-serving rounds, which hover in the low-$20s.

Pizzeria Salvy also does a little bit more than just pies, if you choose to stay. There are some excellent fresh salads, like the anchovy-draped “Ranchovy.” An appetizer of Sal’s veal-beef-pork meatballs, first made famous at the original Amis (RIP), has a combination of tenderness and well-rounded flavors that make them an easy contender for city’s best. There are also some simple but satisfying desserts — silky butterscotch budino, vivid gelati, boozy rum cake. Speaking of booze, there is a tight but excellent drink list of smart cocktails (spritzes, Negronis, Calabrian margaritas), local beers, and wines to accompany the meal (try the tasty Scarpetta range on draft for a reasonable $13 a glass, especially the lightly chilled “rosso pizzeria locale.”)

With experienced and friendly service (I later spotted one of our lunch servers serving dinner at Zahav), Pizzeria Salvy has brought a full-package pizzeria experience to this unlikely subterranean nook in Center City. But will people come for dinner who don’t already work inside the building?

I can’t help but wonder if this is just a test run for a Pizzeria Salvy expansion into some more prime locations. Another crack at pizza chain supremacy? Vetri insists not. At least, for now: “I’m not looking at any more chains — unless they’re around my neck.”

Comcast Technology Center, 1800 Arch St., 267-324-5764; pizzeriasalvy.com

Menu served Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; 4-9 p.m.

Wheelchair accessible.

Pizzas, $19-$23.

All major cards accepted.