The Most Unusual Food Chef's Table: Pizza's Sarah Minnick Ever Served - Exclusive
If you've managed to catch the sixth episode of the new season of Netflix's "Chef's Table," which focuses on all things pizza, you're already familiar with Portland, Oregon's chef and restaurateur Sarah Minnick's colorfully topped, seasonally focused pizzas. The show zooms in on pies covered in wildflowers and poached eggs and follows Minnick to farms and farmer's markets to retrieve some of the most unusual ingredients you'll see on a pizza. This unique flair is part of what's put Minnick's restaurant, Lovely's Fifty Fifty, on the map.
When your days are filled with topping pizzas with surprising and unexpected ingredients (a quick look at the ever-changing Lovely's Fifty Fifty menu shows pizzas topped with everything from nectarines to chanterelles), how do you push the envelope further? How do you pick a most-unique or most-unusual pizza topping? We spoke with Sarah Minnick in an exclusive Mashed interview to learn more about the most unusual foods she's ever served.
All about the seasons
Seasonality informs every pizza that Sarah Minnick creates at Lovely's Fifty Fifty. She heads to the farmer's market multiple times per week to see what's available and carefully watches what's coming from her vendors and when, so she can adjust her offerings accordingly — and, sometimes, what's seasonally available isn't always what you expect to see on a pizza.
According to Minnick, some of the most unusual and unique items that she's put on a pizza include cardoons, fenugreek greens, and foraged stinging nettles, but the restaurant is, she says, the only one in the world to top its pizzas with wildflowers.
She says, "We have a forager who goes out and he does a wildflower mix, which is beautiful. He's kind of a burly, tough forager guy, but then he goes out and picks little wood daisies and wood violets and things and assembles this gorgeous mix that we can put on top [of our pizzas] in the spring. It's so nice ... We're the only ones in the world to do that, so that might make it a little more unusual, but it's because we're lucky to have people like him."
As for the ice cream that forms the other "fifty" of Lovely's Fifty Fifty, Minnick says some of her most unusual additions have been fig leaves (not figs, but the actual leaves) and fresh chamomile flowers. If Minnick is going to eat at her own restaurant, she's not necessarily going to choose the wildflower pizza. Instead, she says, she loves the stinging nettles pizza, as well as any pizza with potatoes.
All six episodes of "Chef's Table: Pizza" are now available for streaming on Netflix.