Pizza Nite at Scratch

When: Wednesday nights, 5 - 8 PM
Where: Scratch Baking, 111 W Orange St, Durham, NC 27701
http://www.piefantasy.com/
@scratchbake

If you're familiar with Scratch Baking in Durham, it's probably because of their awesome pies. Sweet pies. The kind of pies that reward you for finishing all of your vegetables at the dinner table.

But recently I discovered that Scratch is expanding their pie repertoire into the savory realm. Pies topped with delicious sauce, melty cheese and an assortment of meats and veggies. 

I'm talking, of course, about the pizza pie.

While normally only open for breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch, on Wednesday's Scratch keeps the oven hot into the dinner hour with a rotating menu of various pizza.

Pizza Nite Menu 04/16/14

I've had an eye on Scratch's Twitter feed for insights into how this magical pizza night works and learned these things:

• There is usually a tweet Wednesday afternoon previewing what the pizza choices will be for that night
• An almost unfairly tempting post follows, with photo evidence of one of the pizza specials hot from the oven
• Scratch makes the night BYOB. You can bring in a bottle of wine to share, or a beer to sip on free, of charge. No corkage or bottle fee. 

Armed with this specific knowledge, I ventured down Orange Street with my sister, unopened beer in hand, ready to try out Scratch's take on pizza.

The menu featured four speciality pies: one with just cheese, two meat options and one meat-free.

We opted for the Polpette: a pie with red sauce, mozzarella cheese, pork meatballs, roasted green peppers, olives and provolone.

This is really great pizza. The toppings combination was well thought out and executed, with meatballs, olives and cheese all working together in tasty harmony. The crust was crisp and featured some awesome air pockets (which my sister claimed for herself) and was slightly charred in spots, really elevating the flavor.

Durham can claim its fair share of top notch pizza, and the pies from Scratch can be added to that list. The changing menu options, small bakery atmosphere and once a week frequency added an exciting feeling of exclusivity to the whole experience. Hopefully Scratch keeps the Wednesday pizza tradition alive, and other Trianglers can discover it for themselves.

The Polpette