Dish 2011

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INSIDEROCHESTER’S CRAFT-BREW SCENE PAGE 4

CONSIDERING EDIBLE ACCOUNTABILITY PAGE 8

CHICKEN-WING ROUND-UP PAGE 12

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Confession: I don’t eat chicken wings. They always seemed like too much effort for fairly little reward. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to lick the cover of this edition of Dish. Photographer Matt DeTurck and Production Manager Max Seifert outdid themselves, making those saucy, greasy bits of meat and bone look like the most delectable creations in the world. If you want to get more intimately acquainted with some of Rochester’s more interesting chicken wings, check out Emily Faith’s round-up on page 12. We knew when we started working on this article that it would prove to be somewhat controversial — we could not include every wing in Rochester. If we missed your favorite, please let us know by commenting on the article at rochestercitynewspaper.com. Nothing goes better with wings than beer, and James Leach has put together a fascinating look at some of the newest players on the local craft-beer scene. Turn to page 4 and find out about several ambitious brew lovers who decided to take their passion for beer and turn into buzz-worthy businesses. But man cannot live on beer and wings alone. To round out this issue of Dish Heather Charlton appeals to our healthier side with a piece on edible accountability. You know, eating locally sourced ingredients, being picky about what you put into your body, etc. The good news is if you have some of those locally brewed beers, and you can find some organic chicken wings, you’ll still be eating conscientiously! Kind of.

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A quiet revolution is happening in Rochester. Last September at Foodlink’s Savor Rochester: A Festival of Food fundraiser, every table had a bottle of beer on it — and they all bore the label of the Honeoye Falls craft brewery Custom BrewCrafters. Custom brews a lot of beer, producing specialized varieties for bars and restaurants in Western New York, and three beers under its own label. This was something different: a saison, a French-style farmhouse ale that is enjoying a growing popularity among craft brewers (among the first successful saisons in the market was Cooperstown-based Brewery Ommegang’s Hennepin saison ale). The Savor Rochester saison, called Pierre, was one of the first of a series of “signature” ales produced under the Custom BrewCrafters label since 2009, when Bruce Lish became head brewer at the 13-year-old brewery. Shortly after Savor Rochester, rumors circulated about a new craft brewery in Canandaigua, Naked Dove, owned and operated by a brewmaster who had worked at all three of the biggest players in the Rochester brewing scene over the course of his career: Rohrbach Brewing Company, Custom BrewCrafters, and High Falls Brewing. In early December, three guys from Brighton, who styled themselves as Three Heads Brewing, surged into the market with four beers: an English pale ale, two India pale ales (referred to as IPAs by beer snobs), and a coffee porter. And then, just as 2010 was coming to a close, two young RIT grads started renovating the former VFW hall on Union Street, intending to open a brewery and tasting room. In what seemed like little

more than a month, the number of breweries in our area nearly doubled. Beer is big business in New York. In 2010, according to the Beer Institute of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, there were 73 breweries in the state with more than 2000 employees, generating $1.5 billion in income. Closer to home, the aggregate impact of the beer industry on the economy of Western New York — including production and distribution, not just breweries — was $370 million, accounting for nearly 2000 jobs in the region. Looked at from this perspective, the entrance of a couple small-scale brewers into the local market and the rebranding of a local standby could be seen as small potatoes. But in the

space of a few months their impact has been disproportionate to the size of their respective businesses.

It’s an unusually warm Saturday night in early April, and the patio in back of the Tap & Mallet on Gregory Street is packed with people attending a roll-out party for Three Heads Brewing’s Java Sutra porter. Near the center of the crowd is Geoff Dale, the gregarious public face of Three Heads. Described by one local bartender as a “big hippy guy who rolls into the place and starts buying people beers,” he looks and sounds like the St. Nicholas of beer, or perhaps a modern Falstaff. But he’s only one aspect of Three Heads.

New players emerge in the local craft-beer scene

Brews in the news

[ FEATURE ] BY JAMES LEACH | PHOTOS BY MATT DETURCK

Todd Dirrigl, Dan Nothnagle, and Geoff Dale (pictured, left to right) are the founders of Three Heads Brewing. Three Heads product can be found at Wegmans, Beers of the World, The Owl House, and Tap & Mallet.

ROCHESTERCITYNEWSPAPER.COM 5

As with all of the most recent beer innovators in our area, Three Heads started in someone’s house, in this case in partner Todd Dirrigl’s kitchen where he, Dan Nothnagle, and Dale started home brewing a little more than two years ago. Beer snobs all, the trio spent many pleasant hours hunting for the perfect beer, but at some point they had a light-bulb moment which, as Dale tells it, amounted to “screw tryin’ to find it, we should make it.” For two years, Dirrigl, Nothnagle, and Dale tinkered with recipes. Some, like their Skunk IPA, Nothnagle thought they got “right from the giddyup.” But others, like the Blimey English Pale Ale — which recently received an A+ rating from the Beer Advocate, the Consumer Reports of the beer world — took time; almost one and a half years, according to Dale. Finally, Nothnagle says, the trio reached a point “where we would reach for the homebrew first,” and decided to enter the market. But starting a brewery from scratch was out of the question. “We aren’t 22 years old,” Nothnagle says, and the prospect of “raising $1.5 million, going broke, and ending up at ground zero at age 40” was neither appealing nor feasible for these three family guys (both Dale and Dirrigl are stay-at-home dads). Instead, Dirrigl visited the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago (think of it as Craftbrewing University), took a course in the logistics of contract brewing, and enlisted Custom BrewCrafters to brew their beer. Three Heads is available at Wegmans, and at beer stores like Beers of the World. Local restaurants like The Owl House on Marshall Street and the Tap & Mallet have dedicated taps for their offerings. At the Tap & Mallet, Three Heads beer is wildly popular: when the Kind IPA is on draft the restaurant easily goes through a keg of it in a day, according to owner Joe McBane.

Like the Three Heads guys, Chris Spinelli and Jonathan Mervine — the founders of Roc Brewing Co., slated to roll into the market in May 2011 — started out as home brewers. Roc Brewing will eventually produce beer that is, in the buzz of the trade, sessionable — beer that “you can actually drink a couple, or more than a couple…and not feel like you’ve scraped off your taste buds,” Spinelli says. Spinelli says that Roc Brewing will produce beers that aren’t “crazy,” but that are “well balanced with great malty aromas and the sweetness of hops.” Unlike Three Heads, the founders of Roc Brewing weren’t risk averse, but cash poor: at 25 years old neither of them had the resources to start a brewery, but both Spinelli and Mervine radiate optimism tempered with a certain devil-may-care attitude. As Spinelli put it, “we are 25 years old, we don’t have anything to lose.” But they definitely have a plan. Spinelli, at least, has a singular ambition. “I want to spend the rest of my life brewing beer,” he says. Young, and with “enough flexibility and room to experiment,” the pair decided to go all-in, seeking investors in their venture and acquiring a former VFW Hall on Union Street that they are nearly finished converting into a tasting room (they plan for it to serve their beer along with an assortment of “really good grilled cheese sandwiches,” Spinelli says) and a single-barrel microbrewery scheduled to open in June 2011. The decision to open a brewery downtown struck them as logical. As Mervine says, Union Street is close to the center of a vibrant “beer culture downtown, and we wanted to put the product where the people are, and increasingly the people are in the city.” In many ways, the pair couldn’t have picked a more perfect spot: a short walk from both the weekend action on East and

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Alexander and the bars and restaurants on Lower Monroe, Roc Brewing is right on the glide path from one neighborhood to the other, or a nice break from either of them. Spinelli and Mervine have location, but what they lack at this point is beer in quantities large enough to sell. They have contracted with Rohrbach to brew their golden ale for distribution to restaurants and bars in the area. And they are already brewing Irish red ale, stout, IPA, and what Mervine described as an English dark and mild ale — a beer with a nice, malty profile that weighs in at only 3 percent alcohol by volume — at their Union Street Brewery. But very few people have had a chance to sample the goods. Roc Brewing has sponsored a handful of beer events in the area since at least last November, most recently acting as the hosts for a beer-pairing dinner featuring all five of their brews at Donnelly’s Public House in Fairport in April. But it remains to be seen when and where you’ll be able to find Roc Brewing beer on a regular basis.

Not all of the new names in the local beer scene are starting from scratch. A few learned the trade from inside the industry and are just now starting to strike out on their own, or taking old companies in new directions. Dave Schlosser, founder of Naked Dove Brewery in Canandaigua, is a good example. He started working for Rohrbach in 1993. In 1997, he attended the Seibel Institute. Returning to Rochester as a certified brewmaster, Schlosser was head brewer at Custom BrewCrafters until 2000, when he became the brewmaster at High Falls Brewing Company. But he always wanted to go out on his own, he says. In April 2009, Schlosser acquired a former truck-repair garage on the outskirts of Canandaigua and converted it into a brewery. Schlosser is already producing beer, turning out three varieties, an IPA, an amber ale (which he describes as a “beer and pretzel” beer), and a dark, creamy porter, all of which he describes as sessionable. Like the beers that Roc Brewing aspires to produce, Schlosser says his ales and

porters tend to be lower in alcohol and less aggressive than some of the other craft beers on the market. Naked Dove beers debuted quietly late last year, selling to bars and restaurants and drawing off growlers for customers who stopped by the brewery in Canandaigua. But Schlosser emphasizes that he’s done almost no advertising: Naked Dove has grown by word of mouth. “It’s usually people who are calling us these days,” he told me when I visited him at his brewery and tasting room in early April. The company’s website is spartan to say the least, and until I ran into Naked Dove beer at Tap & Mallet, I’d never heard of it. Naked Dove’s 45 Fathoms Porter and its rather hop-forward Starker’s IPA are regularly featured at local beer bars, and Schlosser anticipates that his summer beer — a raspberry-infused ale dubbed Berry Naked — will help build brand recognition and expand his market in the coming months. He already has a bottling line in place at his brewery, and there are two gigantic 30-barrel fermentation tanks lying on their sides on the production floor, all of which seem to point to a vastly expanded production and marketing effort in the near future. But Schlosser’s in no hurry to move in that direction. Unlike Three Heads, which seems to be riding a publicity rocket, Schlosser takes a more strategic approach to his business, expanding slowly but steadily so that he doesn’t overreach his capacity to produce quality beer. While he aspires to produce 5000 barrels within five years, he wants to do so without compromising

quality, creating “a regional brand with a solid reputation for quality” one customer — almost one pint — at a time.

Dave Schlosser’s Naked Dove is producing beers that have wide appeal, beers that a beer snob can enjoy, but that he can also hand to “Uncle Bob when he comes over to watch the game without having to explain what it is he’s drinking,” Schlosser says. Producing beers and ales that have such appeal has been a successful business model for Custom BrewCrafters since 1995, but subtle changes are happening at the brewery where Schlosser once served as head brewer. In 2009, Custom hired Bruce Lish, who served as brewmaster at Rohrbach from 2007 through early 2009, to brew beer for them. Lish learned the brewing trade from the inside. In 1998, as he tells it, Lish “pestered” Rohrbach’s owner John Urlaub until he hired him to work at the Buffalo Road brewery, where he worked until 2002. He took a brief hiatus to go to music school, and returned to Rohrbach in 2007. Lish says that he and Rohrbach amicably parted ways in 2009, and he was scooped up by Custom, where he was tasked with helping the company to develop Custom BrewCrafters’ brand beers distinct from the ales and lagers which the company currently brews for bars and restaurants throughout Western New York. The new beers that Lish is producing are a novelty for breweries in our area: the first beer produced under the CB Signature label was a witbeir, a white ale flavored with juniper berries

Brews in the news continues from page 5

Left: Bruce Lish of Custom BrewCrafters. Right: the brew kettle at Custom, located in Honeoye Falls.


that was appropriately called Barry. Others in the series so far have included an Imperial rye IPA (Imperial in beer circles is shorthand for a brew that is bigger or richer than its parent-style), the Pierre saison that was offered at Savor Rochester, and most recently a Baltic porter. Other New York breweries, including Brooklyn Brewery, Ommegang, and Southern Tier, have been producing small batch one-off beers like these for years. Breweries distribute these beers, often described as “seasonal” or “special,” to a select few bars and restaurants in order to build brand loyalty and test the waters for new products. Over the past five years, an ever-increasing number of these same beers and ales are showing up on the shelves at beer distributors and grocery stores in 22 oz. bottles (commonly known as “big beers”) or 25 oz. bottles complete with champagne-style corks that attest to their “craft” status. This growth in the craft-beer market — the wave that companies like Three Heads, Roc Brewing, and Naked Dove are trying to ride — made it possible to do innovative and interesting things at Custom. “The emergence of a lot of people making big beers,” Lish says, presented Custom with the opportunity to expand the number and variety of beers marketed under its own name. In Lish’s opinion, the craft-brewing revolution “opened up doors for us to do what we wanted to do.” He is quick to point out, though, that these CB Signature beers are not his work alone — “the ability was there before I got there,” he says, “but the idea wasn’t yet viable.” Looking to the future, Lish is optimistic about the prospects for craft beer in Rochester, and in the region as a whole. Lish suggests that expansion in the number and variety of craft beers available on the market is good for the trade as a whole, and that competition only leads to better product and value for consumers. When asked about the possibility that Three Heads, currently Custom’s largest contract account, could eventually outgrow Custom’s capacity, Lish didn’t seem at all concerned. Such growth, he said with a smile, “benefits both of us. Because they are growing, we are growing.” 1382 CULVER ROAD

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There are all sorts of people who love food. There are those of us who want to consume the most radically outrageous combinations, there are those of us who just want as much of it as possible, and then there are those of us who dig more deeply into the world of food as a whole. We look beyond what sits in front of us on the plate into the origin of it; the who, what, where, and why of the culinary world. For decades this was generally considered irrelevant. For the average person, food came from the store, and we all bought what was cheapest. This was rational consumerism, and it created a kind of alienation between the production of food and the reality of the delicious steak on our grill. “Let the manufacturers deal with it,” we cried as a society. “That’s not our problem!” However, in the past 20 years or so, we have started to see a shift in food

consciousness in this country. After entrusting those manufacturers for so many years, suddenly the foods we were given became more and more processed and less and less appealing or nutritious. Let’s just admit it: as a society, a lot of us got really fat, and some of us started to develop serious health problems. Too many potato chips can do that. Do we now sit on our respective couches, breathing heavily, and ignore these things? No; we stand up as a society and begin to take responsibility for what we put in our mouths, educating others as we learn more and more about the production system we have taken for granted for so long. This has developed into an entirely new system of thinking about food itself — let’s call it edible accountability. This means not only holding food producers accountable for the ways in which they produce, grow,

slaughter, and distribute our food, but also holding ourselves responsible for our own food choices and where we put our money. In the year 2011, food trends reflect this dedication to food mindfulness as a nation and a world. We want wholesome, homemade, homegrown. We want to leave a positive example for future generations to follow, and we want to put real food in our mouths, and in our children’s mouths. This awareness is becoming a full-scale revolution, and there are many ways to take part on a local level.

Culinary cocktailsAfter pumping your fist in the air with gleeful healthy-eating determination, you could probably use a drink. We are tired, and after all, what bolsters a revolutionary more than a little libation? Syrupy sweet, commercially

Tips on being a more conscientious food consumer

[ FOOD TRENDS ] BY HEATHER CHARLTON | PHOTOS BY MATT DETURCK

Edible accountability

A duck breast entree from Lento. The Village Gate restaurant often uses locally sourced and organic ingredients in its dishes.


produced, soda-filled cocktails are out, and so are cheaply made, less-than-savory bottom-shelf liquors. Put down that plastic bottle of vodka and head over to the bar at Lento (inside Village Gate, 274 N. Goodman St., 271-3470, lentorestaurant.com) for some of the best culinary cocktails in town. What differentiates a “culinary” cocktail from a regular one are the ingredients, and the skill with which it is made. At Lento, all of the juices used are fresh squeezed, and piles of fresh herbs line the bar. Seneca Drums gin and a large variety of bitters made by Fee Brothers (a Rochester fixture since 1863) are always on the menu. The drink menu changes monthly, and the bartenders frequently come up with new ideas that never fail to impress. After a few drinks at Lento, head around the corner to Good Luck (50 Anderson Avenue, 340-6161, restaurantgoodluck.com), and try to get a seat at the often-crammed bar. This restaurant’s take on culinary cocktails is slightly different, a back-to-basics style that revamps some of the most classic drinks of all time. Try a whipped-egg-white cocktail, if you never have; Good Luck’s pisco sour is my favorite by far. Follow it up with a gilded ricky. This ricky doesn’t mess around with tedious old limes, but instead uses sweet Meyer lemons and a dash of exotic kava kava syrup.

Mindful meatAfter those delicious drinks you’re going to need some protein. We are a hungry band of revolutionaries, but scorn the average drive-through’s processed-meat mess. We need something we can feel good about eating that is also delicious. Local hormone-free and organic meat has become widely available within the past few years, including in local restaurants and grocery stores. It’s hard to ignore the issues of antibiotic and hormone use in animals, the quality of the feed they are given, how they are treated and slaughtered, and how far the meat travels to ultimately arrive on your plate. Supporting local meat is good for the

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community, good for the farmers, and better for the animals themselves. It’s just science. To find some quality meat head to Mise en Place (683 South Ave., 325-4160, miseenplacemarket.com) or Abundance Cooperative Market (62 Marshall St., 454-2667, abundance.coop) and pick up some amazing beef or pork from Seven Bridges Farm in Lima, or, if you love the busy market scene, head over to the Rochester Public Market (280 N. Union St., 428-6907, cityofrochester.gov/publicmarket/) and check out the selection from Joe’s Market. The employees butcher all of their own beef, pork, goat, rabbit, and lamb on their farm and bring it straight to you. If you’re looking for some sustainable seafood, download the Seafood Watch app or print the pocket guide (montereybayaquarium.org) and check your menu against their list of endangered or overfished species, learning the story behind your seafood.

Differing dietsMeat and seafood have become a large focus of the edible-accountability movement because of the ways they affect our bodies and our environment. The amount of resources used to produce meat for the normal American family is staggering, and this has led some people to take a new view of the American meal. Flexitarianism has become a buzzword lately, but it is part of an overarching trend of alternative diets. Food allergies have become overwhelmingly common, and plant-based diets are lower in saturated fats and cholesterol and higher in vitamins and minerals. Unsustainable meat practices have been stripping the world of its resources, and the animal-rights scene is as active as it’s ever been. Enter flexitarianism and veganism. The thought of eating less or no meat at all may conjure up images of PETA lines and paint-throwing extremists, but it’s really about eating consciously and being accountable for your choices. Eating meat every day strains the environment and strains the body, according to followers of flexitarian and

vegan diets, and even just eating less of it can create a massive amount of change. Put your money where your mouth is, literally, and test out some vegan or mostly vegan dishes out before you tackle them at home. John’s Tex-Mex Eatery (489 South Ave., 232-5830) is a cozy, friendly joint, and you can order anything on the menu with vegetarian or vegan replacements. If you’re not in the mood for Mexican, but you’re still feeling adventurous, head up the road to the Ethiopian buffet at Natural Oasis Café (288 Monroe Ave., 325-1831, naturaloasisny.com/café.htm). The menu is always changing, but the food is always vegan, and you will hardly even notice because you’re too busy deciding what to try next. If going vegan is too much for you, The Owl House (75 Marshall St., 360-2920, owlhouserochester.com) has your back. The menu is a fusion of sustainable meat dishes and vegan mainstays, so you can be adventurous (or not) and check out some of that vegan cuisine from a distance so you know what to try next time. Flex those flexitarian brain muscles and think about that meat you eat.

Edible accountability continues from page 9

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1� CITY • DISH 2011

As natives of the Western New York region, we celebrate our blue-collar, working-class surroundings with such culinary delights as the garbage plate, the white hot, and that darling neighboring-city treat, the Buffalo wing. As a child I was shuffled between Rochester and Buffalo, and raised not far from the original spot where the original Anchor Bar first served Buffalo’s claim to culinary fame. It remains the fan favorite, the party favor, a colloquial currency shared between friends who pretend not to notice the sauce on your cheeks and are happy to hand you a we t-nap and a bowl for the bones. While I am proud of my regional heritage, at this point I have a certain ennui for the same-old wing preparations. It could be compared to the same malaise I experience when someone mentions their recent trip to Niagara Falls. It’s the been-there, done-that scenario. So I ventured out in our fair Flower City in search of the great white Buffalo wing, something that would reenergize even my jaded palate. My parameters were simple: all local mom-and-pop spots that have a different take on the classic. (In

other words, no chain restaurants.) In an effort to work off the wing fat I was about to consume, I chose all city neighborhoods that were either bike-able or walkable, depending on where you reside.

I started out in the Neighborhood of the Arts. Village Gate is home to two places where I would find satisfaction on my wing wanderings. I love a hot wing — in grade school I was the kid who was dared to drink the cafeteria’s cayenne-pepper-spiked hot sauce, and did it — and I have never lost my taste for the fire. Needless to say, I can take a break from the heat once in a while, especially for the sake of my quest. The Italian-style wood-fired chicken wings at The Gate House (274 N. Goodman St., 473-2090, thegatehousecafe.com) were certainly of the milder variety. Baked and breaded with buttery Italian crumbs, these wings ($9 for nine) tasted of garlic and parmesan and paired perfectly with my personal favorite at the restaurant, the Auditorium pizza, a brick-oven-toasted, thin-crust pie with pesto base, mix of goat cheese and mozzarella, finished with bits of chicken. I know: chicken wings and chicken pizza?

[ ROUND-UP ] BY EMILY FAITH | PHOTOS BY MATT DETURCK

A WING

A sampling of Rochester’s unconventional chicken wings

and a prayerNEW MINgRESTAURANT

SALENA’S

THE gATEHOUSE

JEREMIAH’S TAvERN

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The bird is the word, my friends. These wings made for a much more savory than saucy experience. The greatest discovery of my journey was up next. Salena’s Mexican Restaurant (302 N. Goodman St., 256-5980, salenas.com) serves Dos Equis-braised chicken wings coated in a sweet and spicy chipotle glaze, with just a touch of heat and complemented with salsa-ranch dressing ($9.50 for 10). I was raving about these wings while eating them, and even two days afterward, when some other random locals overheard my adulations, they chimed in that they too believed these to be the best-kept wing secret in the area. No one expects the Spanish wing-quistion, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Most locals would argue that I’d be shorting myself if I didn’t visit Jeremiah’s Tavern (1104 Monroe Ave., 461-1313, jeremiahstavern.com) for some of its signature sauces. After all, the restaurant regularly wins for Best Wings in City Newspaper’s annual Best of Rochester Readers’ Poll. So glad I listened to the masses. The wide variety of wing dressings — ranging from the obvious mild, medium, and hot to more interesting designations like “catatonic,” “wise guy,” and “holy habanero” — were tantalizing and creative. I settled on sampling the “bee-sting” wings ($8.75 for 1 lb.), a sweet and spicy honey-barbecue slathering with a peppery twist. The unique sauce is certainly worth the investment, but do not miss the tavern’s signature barbecue wings. And Jeremiah’s makes dang good hot wings, too. But I digress. Right next door in the heart of the Upper Monroe district is New Ming Restaurant (1132 Monroe Ave., 271-7267, newming.net). Just about every continues on page 14

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small Asian joint offers some kind of breaded, sauce-less wing as a part of its appetizer menu, but Ming’s takes it to another level. Its crispy salt-and-pepper chicken wings ($4.95 for eight) are nice and mild, and not as heavy as you might expect. Not so much saucy, but more on the savory side of the map, the Eastern influence is apparent through the hot peppers and the bed of shredded veggie slaw they are presented on. For the mixologists out there, I recommend the cosmic “dragon wing” concoctions offered at Dragonfly Tavern (725 Park Ave., 563-6333, dragonflytavern.com). I’m not talking about cocktails here, just fusion. Fusion style is the melding of distinct flavors — like sweet & sour or killer hot — into one saucy extravaganza. With the dragon wings ($9 for 10) there’s heat and tang and even a smack of sweetness, and even the peppery kiss of hot mustard. Pure perfection on a plate — technically a basket — but nobody’s nitpicking when the sauce is so good, so unique that you’ll be dipping your celery,

carrots, and even a few fingers in the bottom of the basket to make sure you’ve had every delectable drop.

They aren’t technically wings, but the grilled drumsticks ($2.95 for two)

at Sticky Lips (625 Culver Road., 288-1910, stickylipsbbq.com) are the perfect addition to any platter of ribs, brisket, or whatever meat you choose to validate eating copious amounts of the barbecue restaurant’s delicious corn bread. The drumsticks are mammoth — think of them as the middle cousins of giant turkey legs from a Renaissance Fair, or the big brawny sisters of the wee chicken wing. One could certainly make a meal out of two of these and a side. You can dress them up with the delectable sauces used on any of the smoked meats at Sticky Lips. The Betty’s Burning Lips BBQ Sauce was spicy,

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A WING and a prayer continues from page 13

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smoky, and smooth, and the Cherry Bomb sauce weighs in with just enough fruity expression through the sticky-sweet hickory-smoked glaze to warrant straying from the pulled pork for a spell. Mild and mellow wing lovers’ prayers are answered at Napa Wood Fired Pizzeria (573 S. Clinton Ave., 232-8558, napawoodfired.com). An outdoor oven cooks the fire-roasted chicken wings ($7 for eight). The light, crispy, buttery and breaded wings have just a touch of Italian herbs and are baked to perfection, then paired with a creamy parmesan-pepper drizzle. Diners can then dip the wings in either golden or smoky barbeque sauces. These can be coupled flawlessly with one of Napa’s scrumptious vegetarian pizzas. My new favorite is the Medusa, a thin-crust coated with basil pesto, figs, pineapple, goat cheese, and finished with the signature Napa cheese blend. To close out the wing expedition I took a trip to the South Wedge and the Tap & Mallet (381 Gregory St., 473-0503, tapandmallet.com) to sample its version of Country Sweet wings ($8.25 for eight). The jumbo-style wings, with their mild, sticky, candy-apple-like coating of Country Sweet-style sauce, should please anyone who prefers the milder variety, but doesn’t mind a little kick. Pair them with a selection from the pub’s wide array of craft brews. Of course, the original version can be taste tested at Country Sweet (1691 Mt Hope Ave., 244 3200), but this Wedge version was a sweet treat on its own, mellow, rich, and golden.

Did we miss your favorite wings or wing spots? Share your comments on this article at rochestercitynewspaper.com.

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