A while back I complained about the lousy pizza in Central Texas (see Potpourri entry on Home Run Inn Pizza) yet I did make a plug for Mangia. Recently a branch closer to my house opened and they’re building one near Somara’s job at HEB. The delays in endorsing them were getting a picture and reading the place’s history on the menu to make sure they qualify for Austintatious, meaning Mangia is something exclusive to Austin (Waterloo Records, Book People) or it started in Austin before spreading out to other cities, states or nations (Whole Foods).
The story of how Mangia began is pretty cool. The founder, Jeff Sayers, worked for OSHA and years ago he was sent to Chicago for some training. While he was there, he discovered the deep-dish pizzas of places like Gino’s East (that’s the place my former roommate Paul Silder recommends and you can trust his opinion because he’s from the Southside). Sayers was so impressed with this style of pizza that he quit his job to work at one of the Chicago places to learn the technique (and probably how to run a pizza joint). After a few years in Chicago, Jeff and his family chose Austin in 1988 as the birth place of Mangia. The going appeared to be rough over the years as locations have opened and closed (moved according to their web site) but they often won the Austin Chronicle award for Best Pizza in Austin. Lately, they’ve been expanding again, thus the location near my house, the one near Somara’s job and another at the airport. Things are looking up for them I’d say and now I don’t have to drive across half of Austin to eat it.
How’s the pizza? Mangia is the closest thing to the Chicago-style of deep-dish in the region. I think it’s also the only place too because I’ve never seen anyone else trying. It’s a solid surrogate yet it has those Austinite touches, namely non-traditional ingredients like steak, chicken and jalapenos (blech!). Thankfully they don’t do chicken-fried steak pies. Cheese is hard enough on one’s arteries. I would like to get Paul’s opinion of it but if I ever got him to visit Austin, we’d be too busy feeding him the regular delicacies of the area (Rudy’s, Chuy’s, etc).