Review: Charlestown Pizza Company

A pizza with onion, garlic and tomato at Charlestown Pizza Company. (Credit: Michael Clevenger)

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As the voices of John Prine and Iris Dement tangled in the background, I sipped a glass of HopSlam Ale, looked at a Phish poster hanging from a bright, cream colored wall and thought about Vinnie, the pizzeria owner in the quirky 1986 movie “Echo Park.”

Vinnie was a philosophical sort who viewed pizza as the hub around which civilization revolved. When sending a reluctant delivery man into a sketchy neighborhood, he was given to pronouncements like, “We can't desert these people, kid. We can't leave them stranded in the 20th century without a pizza.”

Vinnie would have adored the Charlestown Pizza Company, an unpretentiously hip spot perched on the edge of Charlestown, Ind.'s town square. It's the sort of place that turns any small town into a destination – a restaurant with an independent, enterprising spirit, friendly, helpful staff, and a pleasant, comfortable environment. In fact, it's the sort of restaurant that, from a Louisvillian's point of view cries out for the immediate construction of an east end bridge (though I note that it's an easy 23 mile drive from my home in Old Louisville).

The beer list – reflecting that owners Shawn Vest and Tajana Johann count stints at Roger Baylor's New Albanian Brewing Company on their resumes -- includes a nice assortment of Belgian ales, German wheat beers and a great collection of American craft beers, including a good sample of brews from Indiana brewers like the Brugge Brasserie in Indianapolis, Three Floyds in Munster, and Upland in Bloomington. And though the list includes a few mass market options, Vest is always eager to offer a taste to someone interested in experimenting with something new.

And though the menu – pizzas, salads, sandwiches, and a few pasta entrees – lacks novelty, execution is excellent. The cheese on a fourteen inch pizza was attractively freckled with dark spots and puffy bubbles that testified to exactly the right amount of time in the oven. The crust – cut into squares, St. Louis-style – was thin, sturdy and pliable. Piquant sauce and mellow cheese were nicely balanced against one another, and the layer of cheese was a perfectly judged platform for chunks of garlic, onion and diced tomatoes. That's a combination that can turn a pizza into a watery mess, but here the ingredients were embedded perfectly in a sensuous, creamy layer of flavor. ($11, plus $1.30 per topping; the topping list includes all the usual suspects).

Appetizers were likewise nicely done. For folks who prefer to limit their cheese intake, slices of crisp, baked flatbread generously coated in Italian herbs and spices make a great starter ($3.25), as do puffy, chewy little bread bites – bite-sized, globe-shaped breadsticks – served with spicy melted beer cheese, chunks of fragrant garlic swimming in a bowl of warm butter, or a marinara that was intense and spicy, eschewed even a hint of sweetness and was thick enough to cling to an upside-down spoon ($1.75/$3.50).

Salads ($3-$6) were crisp, fresh, and plentiful (and can be split upon request) – though it's a mystery to me why a pizzeria with such an idiosyncratic bent doesn't whip up a house-made vinaigrette.

Speaking of idiosyncrasies, a hot ham and cheese sandwich, dressed “Shawn's Way,” with pineapple, banana peppers, and house-made barbecue sauce, was sublime – thick, sturdy, piping hot and addictive enough that it alone might justify paying a toll to cross the Ohio.

The menu rounds out with a handful of other sandwiches, baked pastas (spaghetti, $5; lasagna, $6.50), and an imaginative dessert menu that caters to childlike appetites with options like a big, chewy brownie with Reese's Peanut Butter cups melting into the top, or Rice Krispie Treats enhanced with Butterfinger Candy bars.

In short, from start to finish, the Charlestown Pizza Company seems to embody one of Vinnie's guiding principles: “All that's demanded of a philosophy,” he said, “is consistency. And consistency is demanded of a good pizza, too.” And when a consistently good pizza is at the end of the road, 23 miles seems a short drive indeed.

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