You know who’s the fairest of them all? The spaghetti & meatball pizza on your fluffy-yet-crispy, hand tossed dough.  The perfect marriage of cheese, moist meat & chewy noodles all sitting atop a thin, round plate of crust.

I almost made the mistake of switching out my pizza order for the pulled duck & caramelized onion pie.

Then I (wisely) asked my sugar sweet & knowledgeable bartendress if I should make the last-minute substitution. She cocked her head to the side, gave me the eagle eye and said, “Absolutely not.”

And the dudette abides.

Heaven’s made of meat & cheese.

I chopped up my $6 house salad with red wine vinaigrette & delicately placed a fork-full on each bite of munchable pie.

At first, I stupidly thought, “You know what this needs? Ranch dressing.” Boy was I wrong. It was perfection personified as it was and it can be found right in my very own neighborhood of East Passyunk Avenue.

And the icing on the meaty cake?

The baked ice cream dessert.  $8 buys you a dessert for 5 people: flash-frozen, vanilla sweet-cream wrapped in almond paste (marzipan) and baked inside flakey pizza dough.  The delicious dish is then bathed in strawberry sauce & decorated with fresh black berries.

A bio dome of dessert, and a slamming party in your mouth:

Folks, Birra offers an early & a late happy hour with cheap drinks and cheaper pies. Sprint, don’t walk to this new, local pizza joint at your earliest convenience. Or f*ck convenience, go as soon as doors open. Today.

Birra

We started off with a familiar dish I tried and loved during my first visit, the corn risotto, and also gave the tuna crudo a whirl.  The corn risotto was just as I remembered it: warm and creamy with a bacon crunch that exploded like salty pop rocks in your mouth. I could have eaten a giant bowl of this stuff.  But sadly, for the sake of artistic beauty, the portion is offered in tablespoons and not buckets. The tuna crudo also came adorned with crispy bacon bits. The raw fish was pink, fresh and melted in your mouth–though it lacked one dimension (acid perhaps?).

Corn risotto, avocado cream, Pancetta

For the main course, I chose the monkfish special. Seared and sliced, it swam in a veal jus next to a crispy polenta cake and exotic sautéed mushrooms. I found the mushrooms to be a bit too earthy for the plate.  Monkfish is meaty, but it not enough to be treated so much like, well, meat. However, the fish was perfectly cooked and the crispy outer dress of the polenta cake was well-balanced by it’s pudding-like insides.

Monkfish, polenta, veal jus

My guest expertly chose the standout of the evening: octopus tossed in a lemony aioli on a bed of warm kale. My date described the flesh and it’s sauce as “forged of fairy wings.”  There is absolutely no better comparison. The bitterness of the kale was the perfect counterforce to the protein.  It is a luxe, warm fish salad fit for royalty and it would have made a mean po’ boy.

Octopus, warm kale

Fond deserves more attention than it has garnered thus far in the culinary world.  Then again, with its beautiful plates and killer hospitality, let’s keep it our little secret.

The Score: ****

Delectable, seasonal and great for a first date.