The reedy whine of the Vespa echoes through the air of the Via Crescenzio. The setting sun seems to paint the shadow of the Castel Sant’Angelo across the wide street. Tucked into the little basket on your handlebars is a white box. Within the white box? A warm slice of pizza. Life is good.
Well, it would be better if any of the above was actually true. Instead, I’m standing outside of Goat Mountain, at 215 W. Holly St., and the closest thing we have to the Castel Sant’Angelo is the Granary Building. The name Goat Mountain Pizza should cause some sense of deja vu for those of you who don’t spend a lot of time downtown. Brought to you by the folks behind Black Sheep, this is actually the restaurant’s second iteration, and they’ve been back for about a year now after much demand.
The space is, to be blunt, not particularly inspiring. But this isn’t necessarily an issue, as they don’t advertise themselves as being much more than a place to come and have pizza. It’s also not their original location — they used to be just across the hall, at the very small, but very vibrant space, that now houses The Foxhole. This is, however, a much larger location, one I believe to be more suited for their desired level of output.
Goat Mountain serves up a pizza reminiscent of a focaccia: thicker than a typical pizza crust, but a traditional style nonetheless, called pizza al taglio. This is often referred to as Roman style, and many small restaurants in Rome do indeed serve pizza this way. The pizzas are typically baked in large sheets and reheated immediately after the customer has ordered a slice, often cut with scissors to a weight specified by the customers.
This is in essence Roman fast food, something quick and typically quite inexpensive. Goat Mountain offers slices of all six of their regular menu pizzas, an unusual practice with most local pizzerias only offering slices of cheese or pepperoni — if they even do slices at all. If you can’t find something that tickles your fancy on their slice menu, you’re welcome to order a full-size pizza with toppings of your choice.
As part of my New Year’s resolution to eat healthier, I started with the self-titled Goat Mountain Salad. Crisp apples, deliciously candied walnuts, quinoa and tangy bites of pickled red onion were the stars of the show, proof that even the nicest of salad greens doesn’t taste like much. It’s a very tasty salad and I found myself continuing to eat it in between bites of pizza, something that should be taken as a major compliment from a guy who doesn’t really “get” salad. At $14, I still felt like it was a decent value proposition — again, very impressive coming from me.
The first slice I tried today was a pepperoni and sausage ($6). The dough was as I remembered it, pillowy with just a bit of chew as you get to the bottom. The sauce is incredibly tangy and umami, with a taste like that of fresh-made pasta sauce. The pepperoni was also quite good, but the real standout here is the sausage. Lightly spicy and fantastically crisped, you can tell this isn’t coming out of a bag but rather being fried off in-house. That Maillard reaction does not lie.
The cheese pizza ($4.50) is just that: cheese pizza! And what a cheese pizza it is. The mozzarella is bountiful and gooey in a way that hearkens to a cheese pull you might have seen on an ’80s advertisement for Pizza Hut. While this slice isn’t going to win any awards for creativity, it’s brilliance in the basics, and I always have an admiration for a kitchen that puts out the basics with the same level of care that they do the highfalutin items.
Speaking of highfalutin, the goat cheese and hummus pizza ($5) looks like they snatched a random shopper’s basket at Whole Foods. This is a texturally interesting slice due to the slightly grainy hummus and the mix of Mediterranean vegetables and sliced olives. Some might say this is a flatbread, not a pizza. Others might say that this is a level of pedantry that would earn me angry emails and curses against my bloodline. Either way, if you’re a fan of a good mezze platter, order with confidence.
And finally… the potato and bacon ($5.50). Hail to the King. Why don’t more places sell a potato and bacon pizza? With a savory mushroom white sauce and white cheddar, this slice bites back. Tender potato and toothsome, smokey bacon is a combination forged on the sundappled slopes of Mount Olympus, snatched from the gods and gifted to us unworthy mortals. But unlike fire, the price is only $5.50, not your liver. This is – and was – a claim to fame pizza in Goat Mountain new and old, and represents a style that is spectacularly well-loved but seemingly never kept on menus. Off the top of my head, Fiamma (pizza, not burger) has a potato-topped pizza, and so does Övn — but Goat Mountain provides the most bang for your buck for a savory, spud-saturated slice.
So, are they as good as I remember? Yes. Yes they are. Goat Mountain wisely did not change up the formula they had previously. Bellingham is relatively bereft of places to get a single slice of pizza. To have it be a little bit more elevated and served alongside a menu with appetizers and beer makes it an incredibly appealing lunch or light dinner spot. While Goat Mountain might be a Canadian peak, Goat Mountain Pizza has rightfully retaken their place as a staple in the Bellingham pizza scene.
Goat Mountain Pizza is open 3–9 p.m. Tuesday–Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday–Saturday and 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday at 215 W. Holly St., Ste. 103. Info: instagram.com/goatmountainbham.
Mark Saleeb is a frequent enjoyer of food. Find him at instagram.com/eats.often.
