Exit 4’s double-baked pizza in Mount Kisco

Can you dub this double-baked pizza?

Exit 4's double-baked pizza. Amy Sowder photos.

Exit 4 owner Isi Albanese.

Exit 4's double-baked pizza, slices that don't flop.

By Amy Sowder

Everyone has an opinion about how pizza is “supposed” to be.

We have Team Wood-Fired, Team Coal Oven, Team Sicilian, Team Foldable, Team Crispy, Team Toppings and Team Simple.

Turns out, there’s a lot of ways to make and enjoy this ubiquitous savory pie.

What if you could combine two all-time favorite crust characteristics that usually can’t be paired?

That’s what Isi Albanese, owner and chef at Exit 4 restaurant, decided to do. The eatery is named after the Interstate 684 exit at Mount Kisco.

With a restaurant that’s grown and transformed on Main Street since 1991, his menu today has about 150 items from cuisines around the world. Albanese immigrated to Mount Kisco where family lived when he was 10, coming from Calabria in southern Italy — “the tip of the boot,” he said.

But never has Albanese created a pizza that’s double-baked so that it has the beloved char from the wood-fired oven, plus the cherished crispiness that only a traditional gas oven can provide.

“Ours gives both. It’s a double-cooked process, which makes it one of a kind,” said Albanese. This pizza is temporarily called the “Brooklyn Classic” but needs a new name. Exit 4 is thinking about holding a contest in which whoever comes up with the winning name for the pizza will get a free pizza every week for the year.

Like most prestigious pizzas, the greatness begins at the flour level: unbleached, unbromated Caputo 00 flour. This powder-fine flour is made only from the endosperm, not the germ or bran parts of a wheat kernel.

Dough made with Caputo 00 flour stretches easily without tearing. The flour is ideal for thin, Neapolitan-style pizza that puffs up and crisps the edges, providing those beloved leopard spots.

Albanese uses a blend of three flours that costs more than standard pizza flour, takes longer to ferment but is better digested, he said. In the morning, the dough needs four to five hours outside the fridge for ideal texture and taste. 

“So your best pizza comes out around 2 p.m.,” Albanese said.

The sauce is raw San Marzano-style tomatoes from California, which are more consistent in flavor than the original, he said. Albanese sprinkles on some dried oregano and then refrains from smothering that tomato sauce by sprinkling a moderate amount of cheese: fresh mozzarella and a Wisconsin blend of mozzarella, provolone and cheddar. This way, tomato sauce can still assert itself.

“Simplicity is a beautiful thing,” Albanese said. “With cheese, the whole thing is not to overdo it.”

Simplicity takes a break when things heat up. 

To get all melty, bubbly and crispy, this pizza has to visit two distinctly different ovens.

First, the pizza visits a wood-fired oven with a brick hearth, which uses a bit of coal too, to cook the pie at almost 800 degrees for 60 to 90 seconds. That makes the “leoparding” leap forward — those charred, bubbly bits that resemble the wildcat’s black spots.

Then the pizza peel slides the pie into the metal, more typical pizza oven that heats the pie from the top using holes on the oven walls, crisping the pizza foundation at 550 degrees for about 4 minutes.

The tantalizing fragrance wafts from the oven as the minutes tick by at an achingly slow pace. 

Albanese dips his head half into the oven to check for doneness, rears back  and grabs the pizza peel to slide the pie onto the counter. 

“You see, there’s not a lot of grease on this because it’s not cheap mozzarella,” he said.

Albanese tears fresh, sweet basil leaves on top and drizzles on extra-virgin olive oil. Brushing a hunk of Pecorino Romano against a grater, he showers the pizza with the salty snow.

His hand on the pizza cutter executes traditional triangle slices with practiced precision and speed. Picking up a slice, Albanese wags it in the air.

“It’s not floppy. It holds up,” he said, taking a bite that makes an audible crunch. “When you bite it, you get the crunch, the taste of the mozzarella, the sweetness of the basil and the not-sweet-not-bitter simplicity of the tomatoes. 

“Perfect.”

— Exit 4 is located at 153 E. Main St., Mount Kisco.