Red House Pizza & Boutique
4615 Park Blvd. (University Heights)
619-546-7430
Prices: appetizers and salads, $5.95 to $10.95; sandwiches, entrees and pizzas, $6.50 to $21.25

By Frank Sabatini Jr. | Restaurant

Forget adjectives like Neapolitan, New York-style and deep-dish. The pies served at Red House Pizza & Boutique defy them all, yet they contain characteristics of each after cooking rapidly in ovens that combine convection, steam, microwave and infrared technologies.

In a further departure from most pizzerias, the menu delves adeptly into vegetarian and gluten-free territories while offering several international dishes like Asian-inspired kale wraps, flavor-of-the-day hummus and baked brie with honey and rosemary. On Wednesdays, New Zealand-style ribs appear, catching off guard those who assume that this charming, converted house is only about pizza.

The restaurant was launched a few years ago by New Zealand native Shanan Spearing and his girlfriend, Cindi Hoang. They took over the space after Pizza Gourmet Express came and went. Both work the front lines enthusiastically, although it is Hoang who largely oversees the menu with her lifelong osmosis of cooking.

“I grew up in the food industry and have a very diverse palate. My parents owned a restaurant in Seattle and I later owned coffee and smoothie shops in San Diego,” she said while revealing a few secrets about the pizza dough used here.

The “regular” dough is made with a blend of all-purpose and unbleached wheat flours. It contains extra oil and less water for achieving puffy, pastry-like crusts that seemingly melt in your mouth. The gluten-free pizzas offer denser, biscuit-y shells. Rice and tapioca flours are used in lieu of wheat, resulting in a noticeably different texture but without losing that familiar, homey flavor in the translation. There are also whole-wheat and thin-herb options.

Pizzas cook in four minutes or less in the kitchen’s super-powered, energy-saving TurboChef ovens. The pies are available in 10, 12 and 14-inch sizes, with the gluten-free pizzas ringing in as the most expensive. Not surprising, considering that purveyors of gluten-free ingredients maintain a profitable stronghold on restaurants subscribing to this ever-growing market trend.

Toppings span a wide, adventurous gamut. In addition to classic tomato and pesto sauces, you’ll find (and love) a garlicky mayo-based white sauce containing egg, white wine vinegar and Parmesan cheese on both the vegetarian “La Blanca” and sausage-arugula “Seattle.” Our trio tried the latter with a gluten-free crust, reveling in the fennel-spiked meat on top, as well as turbo-roasted tomatoes, fresh basil, mushrooms and red onions.

The white sauce also binds the must-try artichoke dip served with pastry-like flatbread — not your oily Tupperware-party recipe. Without complaint, we encountered it yet again on a daily-special pizza made with the airy “regular” crust. Though hectic in appearance, the mingling of kale, Granny Smith apples, sausage and sweet pickled onions made perfect sense on the tongue.

And then there’s the “Lincoln” pizza with sweetish red sauce served by Lincoln, the waiter with red-hot charisma. The edible version is topped with pepperoni, sausage, roasted garlic, onions and fennel seeds. Kale is also included, but a friend in our party who doesn’t like leafy substance on his pizzas put the kibosh on it. We chose the thin herb crust, which paired deliciously to the big flavor scheme.

In man form, Lincoln is the restaurant’s showman server, a tall, handsome guy whose quick wit can turn the place into a veritable party. He’s fast, on the ball and unforgettable by the time he delivers your first plate of food.

Among our starters, the kale wraps contained in rice paper and served with peanut-hoisin sauce were ultra-fresh. A side of gluten-free beef meatballs proved that rice flour works just as well as breadcrumbs for keeping the meat moist and soft.

From the sandwich category, the “Red House melt” capturing three types of cheese on fat slices of toasted, homemade bread was both spicy and sweet due to the addicting interplay of fresh jalapenos and caramelized onions inside the sandwich. As for those New Zealand-style pork ribs served on Wednesdays, they’re at least twice cooked and doused in craft beer and pineapple along the way. Not the sauciest ribs in town, but tender and primo right down to their bones.

Sharing the menu with pizzas of every flavor stripe are sprightly salads, gluten-free pasta dishes and roasted chicken with garlic and fresh herbs. Desserts include root beer floats, gluten-free berry cobbler and house-made chocolate chip cookies that are sinfully gooier than most.

Craft beers, wine and gluten-free hard ciders are also available, adding further merriment to this cozy pizzeria that feels as through you’re hanging out at the home of a good friend.