Like my opinion matters... Pizzeria Seven Twelve (restaurant review)

Ever crave a sophisticated pizza place that serves more than your typical pizza flavors?  Pizzeria Seven Twelve is an upscale and unique pizza restaurant located at 320 S. State Street in Orem (in that Midtown complex that never seems to get built and never seems to go bankrupt either...).  Surprisingly, we almost didn't get in because we didn't have reservations.  Who knew that you would need reservations at a pizza restaurant?  At first we were told that it might be a twenty minute wait and then the hostess rearranged things and we got in right away.  Great customer service!

If you've never been there, the types of pizza on the menu look a little weird and the first time I was there I wasn't at all sure that they sounded good... I was wrong though.  Each one I've tried has been really flavorful and good, made from sustainably produced produce, meat, and cheese whenever possible.  Three of us went tonight to celebrate Christy's birthday and  we split 2 pizzas  which turned out to be the perfect amount of pizza. 

But, before we got to the pizza there was the appetizer-  a flatbread type bread (seemed like a cross between a pizza crust and a pita bread) with hummus. The bread was fresh and soft and the hummus had a nice garlic-y flavor.  Set a great tone for the upcoming meal.

After much discussion about the relative merits of smoked provolone cheese, serrano chile, and ricotta cheese, we finally settled on 2 pizzas to order.  The Roasted Corn pizza was my favorite with toppings of roasted baby corn kernels, roberts mushrooms, leeks, and house smoked provolone cheese.  The mushrooms were awesome!  Since we had never heard of roberts mushrooms, we asked our server about them.  Luckily for my blog, there was a good story behind them.  There is a cook/chef at a restaurant in SLC who has a mushroom business on the side.  The really astute can probably guess what his name is... Robert, of course, which is where roberts mushrooms get their name.  Our server was able to look at the mushrooms and give us some ideas about what the mushrooms were so the combination of roberts mushrooms must not always be the same.  The baby corn kernels were roasted to a perfect level of sweetness and the other flavors all complemented both the corn and the mushrooms.

The second pizza had speck, soppressata, garlic, tomato sauce, and mozzarella on it.  If you are like me, you probably don't have a clue what speck and soppressata even are... so we asked.  Speck is a juniper flavored ham coming originally from Tyrol, a historical region that lies partly in Austria and partly in Italy.  Soppressata is an Italian dry-cured salami, a specialty of Southern Italy.  See, you probably learned something-- aren't you glad you read my blog today?  Christy describes the pizza as being very flavorful without the greasiness of more typical pizzas.  The crust has a rolled outside crust that looks thick, but is very much a thin crusted pizza.  Extremely thin actually and I'm a little puzzled that they can get it that thin while still being able to hold up the pizza toppings.  Good thing the crust is thin because you can eat more that way and my prediction is that you will want to. 

Since it was Christy's birthday (and of course for no other reason.. like maybe having a sweet tooth), all three of us ordered Plum Cobbler for dessert.  Kim describes the Cobbler as being a dessert that you will crave for long after you have finished dinner.  It was so good!  The crust could be addicting and it was hard to describe the flavor in a way that sounds sophisticated enough.  The closest we could come was that it was a bisquick-y type flavor but 100 times better (and in all of our books a bisquick-y flavor is a very good thing).  Crusty on top but slightly undercooked underneath so that the crust mixed in well with the fruity plum filling.  And if that wasn't good enough, it was served with REAL whipped cream.  So good...

Happy birthday, Christy.  It was awesome celebrating your birthday with you.  As for a restaurant rating-  Pizzeria Seven Twelve gets a Five-star rating!