In crust, we trust! 🍕 There are times you just want to sink your jaws into a hefty slice of pizza and lucky for you Bellingham is full of great pizza options including gluten-free and vegan pizza! We ❤️ pizza!
Recently our community came together to support locally owned Whatcom County businesses with the Whatcom Think Local First Gift Card, and the Local Gift Guide.
The Whatcom Think Local First Gift Card is a community-based digital gift card that makes it fun and easy to spending locally! It can be purchased at thinklocalfirst.org and used at local restaurants throughout Whatcom County like Fat Pie Pizza, North Fork Brewery, Pizza'zza, and Storia Cucina!
One thing you can always agree on for dinner is pizza – meat lovers, vegetarian, omnivore. But being vegan or having other reasons not to eat cheese makes pizza a little less adaptable. Luckily, La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza offers a plant-based cheese substitute that solves that conundrum along with a gluten-free crust being available as well.
Another option is Mod Pizza. Mod’s build-your-own model is ultimately customizable, and it, too, offers a plant-based cheese.
You know the feeling you get after a long workday, when you come home, put on some flannels and pour yourself a fine craft brew? It’s called “completely relaxed,” which is how you’ll feel when you walk through the door at McKay’s Taphouse and Pizzeria.
McKay’s is what I would describe as total comfort food. With about a half-dozen cheeses on top of the soft and chewy crust, and will pair well with almost any local Bellingham beer.
For anyone interested in a scenic drive and views with their meal, head up the Mount Baker Scenic Highway to North Fork Brewery.
Their crusts are made daily with specialty flour, olive oil, and beer! The house marinara is prepared fresh with hand-tossed crusts including gluten-free options and vegan cheese.
Matt Brawner’s wood-fired oven from Naples, Italy was forklifted into the new building long before the windows were put in at OvN, the Neapolitan-style pizzeria in Bellingham’s Fairhaven district. The restaurant opened in August 2015 and Brawner and his pizza team have elevated pizza-making into an art form. “I’m a serious pizza maker,” the 32-year-old admits earnestly. “But I’m not doing everything 100 percent Neapolitan so to be honest, I say we’re Neapolitan inspired. We’re also the only ones doing this particular kind of pizza.”
What is Neapolitan style pizza, you ask? It’s simple pizza full of flavor, innovative toppings and hearty ingredients.
In the kitchen, Brawner is just as meticulous about attention-to-detail. “Everything we’re dealing with is living, organic processes,” he explained as he made a Margherita pizza. “For example, we keep a yeast culture alive for our natural unleavened dough, and we’re making it nine-to-ten hours a day. We get the potential for really good texture and flavor from this dough.” Mozarella curd is brought in from Wisconsin, flour all the way from Naples and tomato sauce? None at OvN. “We use whole crushed tomatoes instead – but most of our pizzas have a non-tomato base.”
If you're looking for more pizza options in Downtown Bellingham, check out Storia Cucina! Storia sources their flour from Cairn Springs Flour in Skagit Valley and uses it as the base for their pizzas and pastas. Mozzarella comes from Ferndale Farms, meat from Carne Meats, fresh greens from Mama Bird Farms on San Juan Island and seafood from Taylor Bay Shellfish.
Owner Jonathan Sutton is especially proud of his sourdough, which dates back to 1971 in San Francisco and has been kept alive ever since. The yeast-free dough, made a day ahead so it can rise slowly, makes a fantastic thin-crust pizza.
In case you need some inspiration to eat pizza, Pizza'zza in Historic Fairhaven believes in using locally sourced ingredients in all their pizzas from their woodstone-fired New York-style thin. They also have specialty pies & gluten-free pizza.
