Ice Cream! At the Pizzeria!

"Ask any peewee team, any fourth grade class, any 8-year-old "planning" a birthday: When it comes to the social event of the season, it's the pizza party, that hazy fantasia of tomato sauce-caked mouths and melted sundaes. We all know the pizza party-not the sad office-break-room smattering of congealing cheese and shriveling pepperoni, but the true, soda fountain Sprite-fueled happening. It couldn't just be pizza. It had to be pizza and ice cream."

"That pizza parlor nostalgia was the main thrust behind Pizza Jerk, one of the first Portland pizzerias to draw the gaze of food writers on the national stage. Founder Tommy Habetz-former Bobby Flay disciple, Gotham Tavern alum-knew he had to keep a soft serve machine churning to actualize his East Coast pizzeria fantasy. These days, curlicues of white and green (lime), yellow (banana), and, eerily enough, gray (black raspberry) punctuate dinners of pepperoni-and-pineapple slices and vegan margheritas."

"But this is Portland, so even when embracing the iconic duo, things get a little avant-garde. Yes, the ice cream counter at the front of Lovely's Fifty Fifty always has some sentimental hits like malted milk ball and salted caramel or the fancier-sounding mint stracciatella (read: mint chip). But no Baskin-Robbins I know scoops orange agrumato (a type of citrus-infused olive oil), buckwheat honey with nut toffee, or fig leaf."

Pizza parties merge pizza and ice cream into a quintessential social ritual rooted in childhood nostalgia. Portland pizzerias revive that pairing by keeping soft-serve machines active and offering inventive frozen flavors alongside traditional and vegan pies. Pizza Jerk recreates an East Coast pizzeria fantasy with soft serve accompanying pepperoni-and-pineapple and vegan margheritas. Lovely's Fifty Fifty mixes sentimental flavors with experimental options like orange agrumato and buckwheat honey with nut toffee. Gracie's Apizza features spruce tip, burnt honey, bay leaf, and grown-up maple bacon variations. Both pizza and ice cream demand precision in ratios, ingredients, and timing.

Read at Portland Monthly