Rural Nelson restaurant uses fresh ingredients

May 27, 2007

All we had was a tantalizing rumor: handmade pizza, wood-fired oven, weekends only.

Maybe on a farm.

Maybe in an old stone barn.

Somewhere near Durand.

Google didn't help, nor could any of our restaurant-roving friends. But when we called the helpful folks at Durand City Hall, they instantly made our quest their own. In minutes, they called us back with the restaurant's name, telephone number, Web address, opening date for this year and a first, positive, review.

It was a Friday. We were out the door.

Bad pizza is everywhere these days. More and more restaurants are heaping indifferent toppings on factory-made crusts, heating them just to melt the indifferent cheese, then hyping the results as "homemade."

The Stone Barn belongs to another, better world. Co-owner Pamela Taylor has the single-minded dedication of the true pizza artisan.

She makes her dough fresh every day and rolls out each of her signature "ultra-thin" crusts by hand, to order.

She uses only fresh herbs — except for oregano, which always is better dried — and she grows all the fresh herbs she uses. We love placing a pizza order and then watching her slip out to the herb garden with scissors in hand, gathering the flavors of summer just for us.

Taylor personally shops for and prepares her vegetables, cheeses, fish and meats. She buys pepperoni, of course, but makes her own Italian and chorizo sausages with local pork from Gunderson's Meats in Mondovi. Her lamb sausage features naturally raised meat from Hickory Hills farm in Nelson.

For tomato-based pizzas, Taylor follows the Neapolitan practice of using only crushed tomatoes, rejecting the overcooked and hyper-seasoned sauces preferred by most American pizzerias. Lightly sweet and lightly tart, crushed tomatoes complement the flavors of dough and other toppings without overwhelming them.

To do justice to these fine ingredients, Taylor and her husband, co-owner Buzz Thomas, asked Ovencrafters of Petaluma, Calif., to create a traditional wood-fired brick oven. Widely recognized as the best in the business, Ovencrafters has played a leading role in the North American artisanal baking revolution during the past 20 years.

Nick Scott, son of Ovencrafters' legendary founder Alan Scott, designed and built Stone Barn's oven in 2006 during a two-week residency at the farm.

Why such an oven? It easily hits and holds the proper temperature for pizzas — more than 650 degrees Fahrenheit. And its mix of radiant heat, convection heat and open flame bakes the pizza in two to three minutes, crisping the dough on the outside while keeping it soft and supple within and transforming the vegetables, especially bell peppers and onions, into succulent sweetness.

The Stone Barn currently offers five house pizzas. The Basic has tomatoes and basil under Taylor's blend of mozzarella and smoked young provolone. The Supreme combines mushrooms, onions, the superb Italian sausage — not spicy-hot, just tingly — and many red, yellow and orange bell pepper pieces made crisp-luscious by the oven.

We loved both, although Jeff craved more basil to scatter over the just-baked Basic. Next time we'll ask!

The Southwestern is extra cheese, tomatoes, optional zippy jalapeño slices and Taylor's delicious take on Mexican chorizo. Its 12 spices include cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.

The Greek is dough brushed with olive oil and strewn with Taylor's outstanding lamb sausage, oregano, creamy feta cheese, slivered onions, red-wine-steeped Kalamata olives and marinated artichoke hearts. Salty but wonderful.

The elegant Alaskan has smoked salmon, fresh dill, sweet onions, cream cheese and capers — the pickled flower bud of a Mediterranean shrub. The Alaskan is especially nice as an appetizer pizza with a glass of cool dry or semi-dry white wine.

Finally, customers at the Stone Barn are encouraged to BYO — Build Your Own. We did and created a favorite: dough drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and fresh garlic, then topped with a Taylor-made mix of minced fresh herbs and four cheeses — mozzarella, provolone, feta and Parmesan.

For dessert, there's hand-scooped ice cream from the Chocolate Shoppe in Madison. The Mint and the Raspberry Ice are great post-pizza refreshers; the rich Almond Joy and the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle are probably better enjoyed as stand-alone treats.

The Stone Barn is a fine place for lazy afternoons and evenings. Sit inside and watch the working of the oven, or outside under cover within the sun-warmed stone foundation walls of the 1895 barn. Visit the lovely antique shop.

There are 50 gorgeous acres to walk and play in, including fields, bluffs, woods and huge lawns. Bring lawn chairs or blankets for time in the sun, or curl up near the pond with a glass of wine and a book.

There's even a big crate of toys for kids and adults: bats and balls, mitts and footballs, Frisbees. It's easy to relax at the Stone Barn — and easy to be happy.

Rumor confirmed. Deliciously.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.

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