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Last week a co-worker gave me a tip about a new New York-style pizza place here in Salt Lake. Since he is a New York native and shares views similar to mine on the quality of mass-produced pizza here in Utah, I'm was very much looking forward to a visit.

For lunch yesterday we headed south down 7th East and made it to Este Pizza for lunch.

Just stumbled across a new pizza place in Draper. Haven't been there in person yet but it is on our list for upcoming evaluation.

Their menu incluldes thin-crust chicago style pizza, stuffed crust pizza, Chicago dogs, salads, and sandwiches.

Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria
1442 E. Draper Parkway
Draper, UT 84020
801-545-0455
www.sweethomechicagopizzeria.com

Anyone that regularly reads this site can tell that there are some key themes that are continually repeated -- food, London. Maybe that is it. Just food and London. Not necessarily in that order and definitely not food in London or London food. I'd be quite hungry all the time and have little to write if it was all about food in London. But if you ever do find yourself in London make sure that you stop at Pret A Manger to eat. They are hard to miss and definitely worth a visit, I'll add a separate entry for that later.

But today, the focus is pizza. A while back my brother and I went to a place here in Salt Lake called ESTE pizza and were impressed with its offering in the universe of Utah pizza.

We visited this the week of November 5. Check out the full report here:

Rusted Sun Pizzeria

Rusted Sun Pizzeria
2010 S State St
Salt Lake City, UT 84115

Z Pizzeria
3295 S 2000 E
Salt Lake City, UT
www.zpizzeria.com

My brother and I had a double whammy lunch last week. Tuesdays is new release day for DVDs and whenever there is a movie I want to own I head to Wal-Mart (which always has great prices on main stream new releases). Due to the upcoming Christmas season I won't divulge what I was after, but fortunately there is a Wal-Mart between my office and the Rusted Sun Pizzeria so we could hit both during a single lunch break.

Just heard about this one. I always like to support local business.

Rock Creek Pizza Co.
10255 South 1300 East
Sandy, UT
801-572-1717
www.rockcreekpizzaco.com

I caught the smell of wood smoke half a block away as I was walking to this new little pizza place in downtown Salt Lake. My visit this week was the result of another walk I had taken on a week or two earlier.

Most afternoons I need some time to get out of my office and stretch my legs out and breath some fresh air. I am usually surprised at how much ground I can cover walking around downtown Salt Lake on a 15 minute break from work. A week or so ago as I was heading home from work, driving past one of my favorite downtown restaurants, Red Rock Brewery, and I noticed a very unassuming new sign painted along the top edge of the brick building immediately south of Red Rock. At the time, being in the car, I couldn't really figure out what it was, but you could see the chairs and tables through the windows.

Several days later, that chance sighting turned my feet in that direction while I was out for a quick walk one afternoon. Walking past, I had one more piece to the puzzle. The name on the sign -- Settebello. Back in my office I did a quick search for Settebello online and could only find a web site for a pizza restaurant outside of Las Vegas in Henderson. No mention of another location, not even a coming soon teaser.

That same evening as my brother drove out of town on our way home, I drove past the place again to show it to him and this time there was a big white banner strung across the trees in front of the restaurant. It was simple and to the point, black letters on a white background proclaiming "Wood-fired Pizza, Now Open." The was all I needed. Wood, fire and pizza all in the same context and I'm sold. That was last week.

Last fall I wrote my impressions of Big City Soup. It was good then. I have been back several times since then. It is still good. They have figured out how to make soup. But I write today with both trepidation and excitement.

Several months ago my brother and I went to Emigration Market. It is a neighborhood grocery store in Salt Lake City on the corner of 1700 S and 1300 S. It has obviously been there for quite awhile. It is a pretty typical market, but you can tell they have started to take up the trend of local and artisan made products. Along with all their typical grocery items they feature a lot of Utah produced products. And their bakery seemed to be a step above a typical grocery bakery. The thing that piqued my interest was some signs they had up advertising a restaurant that they were building in front of the store. It had claims of wood-fired pizza and other things. And then I kind of forgot about it.