Editor’s note: This is part of Hidden Gems, a monthly series in which we take a look at those restaurants you should know about but may not. They are either tucked away in strip malls or otherwise off the beaten path. Try them out, and if you like what you eat, pass the word.
It’s easy for those of us who don’t live in Longmont to miss some of the Front Range’s best pizza. (Some East Coast transplants might try to tell you that it’s the best, but pizza is far too important of a subject to have a single slice bear the burden of such a heavy crown.)
Longmont is outside the busy Denver-Boulder corridor, and Rosalee’s Pizzeria is pretty small, so yeah, there are reasons we may not have tried this New York-style-but-crispier pie.
But that shouldn’t matter when we’re talking thin, cheesy, just-greasy-enough slices and house-made Italian sausage that’s the star of sausage rolls, your 18-inch pizza and, unless you’re getting engaged or meeting your first grandchild, probably your night.
The menu is simple, which some online reviewers have complained about, but if you’re looking for chicken marsala why are you at a tiny pizza spot in Longmont? Go to the Olive Garden, Kathy, and let the rest of us have a 10-minute-shorter wait. You get a round pie or a square one, and that’s just about the only decision you have to make. Toppings and whether or not you get sausage in your knots is secondary.
The golf ball-sized knots are more sausage than bread, which is a commendable ratio, and they’re topped with aged parmesan and a heavy hand of olive oil. The sausage is cut, seasoned and ground there each day, with toasted fennel, crushed chiles and lots of garlic.
You can get it on the pizza, too, along with a dozen or so other options that stay very much in the traditional pizza lane. (Read: no buffalo chicken or pineapple here.) The round pies are dimpled with tangy plum tomato sauce, mozzarella and freshly grated pecorino romano cheese.
I was confused at first about why the staff, who’d been so diligent about filling our waters and clearing plates, left our sausage knot appetizer vessel on the table after we devoured it, but I realized that was intentional: It was there because there was still oily, garlicky dip left to dip our pizza crusts into. This is crust you want to eat every bite of: too crisp to be that New York level of foldable, but a good bite and texture from its long cold fermentation and four to five minutes in the 625-degree electric oven.
The plethora of Dead & Co. and RockyGrass festival posters on the walls definitely give hippie vibes, but in a way that’s still appealing to decidedly non-hippie people like myself. Apparently hippies know good pizza, so bring on the tie-dye.
Rosalee’s Pizzeria may be out of the way for many, but little worth having comes easy, amiright? And when it comes to the pursuit of good pizza, at least at Rosalee’s, our effort is rewarded.
Rosalee’s Pizzeria: 461 Main St., Longmont, 303-485-5020; rosaleespizzeria.com; Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-8 p.m. (or until they’re out of dough, so maybe plan for lunch)
