Photo: instagram.com/stfrancisapizza
Saint Francis Apizza's raclette pie
Over-the-Rhine shop The Rhined is renowned for its cultured take on cheese. And each winter, it and its sister wine bar Oakley Wines celebrate the stinky stuff with a weekly raclette night.
The cold-weather tradition involves the melting and scraping of the titular raclette cheese (a type of Swiss) onto a pile of potatoes, veggies and charcuterie. It's hot, it's delicious, it's slightly smelly, and Hyde Park's Saint Francis Apizza wants to see what it tastes like on pizza.
To celebrate the pizza shop's one-year anniversary — which is this weekend — it is offering raclette pizza for a limited time.
The pie comes topped with The Rhined's raclette cheese, cream, ham from Indianapolis' Smoking Goose Meatery, pickled red onion and roasted fingerling potato, with a side of dressed baby arugula, according to a post on social media. It can be made vegetarian, but not vegan.
Saint Francis Apizza says it's only available in limited quantities.
And while it sounds delicious, it's also an homage to pizza shop owner Alex Plattner's relationship with Oakley Wines.
Plattner, a Cincinnati native, started making pizza under the moniker Parlor Pizza Project when he lived in Minneapolis and kept it up after he moved back to Cincinnati in June 2020. Parlor Pizza Project did a series of Sunday night dinner pop-ups at Oakley Wines from August 2020 to January 2021 before opening a brick-and-mortar shop in Hyde Park.
After receiving a trademark infringement notice less than a month into owning his brick-and-mortar, Plattner decided to rebrand Parlor Pizza Project to Saint Francis Apizza.
The name “Saint Francis Apizza” comes from Plattner’s uncle, Francis “Frank” Hattemer, who Plattner says is “one of the best and most generous cooks” he knows. Plattner’s middle name and the middle name of his late cousin, George Hattemer, is also Francis. “Apizza” comes from a pizzeria in Portland, Oregon: Apizza Scholls. Plattner says Apizza Scholls is his “favorita pizzeria in the world.”
St. Francis Apizza is located at 3392 Erie Ave., East Hyde Park. Learn more and order at saintfrancisapizza.com.
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