Cox: Pizza is king

Mussels at Pizzando in Healdsburg. (Jeff Kan Lee/ The Press Democrat)

Any place that calls itself Pizzando and has a wood-fired oven must turn out some fabulous pizzas, right?

Right. And if you go to Pizzando in Healdsburg, you’ll find two familiar pizzas — a simple margherita of tomato, basil, and mozzarella, and a more elaborate pie with fennel sausage, tomato, roasted scallions, crushed red pepper flakes and pecorino sheep’s-milk cheese.

You will also find three other pizzas, more creative if not more delicious. The first is topped with kale, ricotta, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and garlic. A second is made with bottarga, shaved fennel, Aleppo peppers and garlic oil. Bottarga is the roe pouch of the grey mullet, soaked in brine and dried, then sliced or grated as an anchovy-like condiment. The Aleppo pepper, named for the currently war-torn city in Syria, is fragrant, with a relatively mild heat, and is usually found as dried flakes with a warm, raisin-y flavor.

The third innovative pizza is a combination of soft and cheesy burrata, peppery arugula and tangy-sweet roasted lemon marmalade: savory, spicy and sweet in each slice.

Pizzando has been open since September, so chef Louis Maldonado, who also runs the kitchen at Spoonbar a block south on Healdsburg Avenue, surely is keeping an eye on how these five versions of pizza are selling, and will eventually replace the least favorite with something new. I’m looking forward to it, because the inventive pizzas at Pizzando are fun and plenty good enough to warrant a try.