Review: At Hydraulic Hearth, enjoying a sit-down pizza parlor with a built-in tiki bar

Brick-oven pies are at the core of Larkin Square menu, but Thursdays are for Mai Tai mavens

Funghi hazelnut pizza, a special at Hydraulic Hearth

The sit-down pizza parlor once roamed in great herds across America before being driven to the brink of extinction by the expansion of delivery systems and takeout spots.

At Hydraulic Hearth, opened 11 years ago in the redeveloped Larkin Square neighborhood, hungry people can still gather around a table for a square meal cut into triangles. Depending on availability, customers can choose their perch: long tables for larger parties, four-tops, high-tops, barstools, and a loungelike couch cluster at the front of the room.

At the back, stools at a counter facing the brick oven offer a ringside view of Chef Maxwell Smith and other pizzaiolos stretching dough and firing pies on the oven’s rotating deck.

As is becoming increasingly normal in today’s casual restaurants, customers line up at the bar to place their own food and drink orders. Issued a number on a stand, they pick up their own silverware and napkins, pour their own waters, and find a spot to dine.

Servers deliver empty pizza racks first. The foreshadowing of hot pies on the way may trigger a mild Pizza Hut flashback. But the pies that land on those racks are light-years better.

While they wait for their pie’s turn in the blistering heat, customers can enjoy Hydraulic Hearth’s drinks wheelhouse, rum-centered tiki cocktails and craft beer. Bar manager Danny Dispo has amassed the broadest rum collection in Western New York, with 87 varieties. The rum fixation is expressed tiki style – spirit, sugar, citrus, spice – in drinks like Mai Tais and Suffering Bastards.

If you’re lucky, they’re served in one of Hydraulic’s Star Wars character drinkware for the full effect. Tiki Thursdays is the highlight of the bar week. March 6 is the peak of the tiki year, Hydraulic’s fourth Star Wars Tiki night, with Star-Wars-inspired tiki drinks, costumes, and a live cantina band.

C-3PO drinkware abounds at Hydraulic Hearth

Cider is another bar specialty, offering vintages from Normandy, Basque and Finger Lakes producers.

Hydraulic Hearth’s pizza credentials start with ingredients: Caputo Sacorosso flour for the dough, imported buffalo-milk mozzarella on the margherita. There’s imported cured meats, Flat 12 mushrooms, Plato Dale greens, vegetables, apples, and heirloom tomatoes in season, while Groundworks provides herbs and more vegetables.

The result is pies with crispy, generously bronzed corniciones, covered in toppings applied with a practiced eye.

Mushroom gorgonzola ($19) doubled down on forest fungi flavors with funky gorgonzola cream sauce. Flat 12 chestnut mushrooms were joined on mozzarella-covered slate by pistachios, parsley, and a dusting of parmesan.

Hot honey ($19) was the top crowd-pleaser at our table. Red sauce, pepperoni, fontina cheese, poblano pepper, ricotta, and hot honey combined for a sweet-spicy rollercoaster that had folks reaching for a second slice.

Margherita ($18), was properly restrained and aromatic, just tomato sauce, buffalo milk mozzarella, and fresh basil. A vegan pizza ($18) featured a red pepper/ eggplant base, roasted carrot, sweet potato, and herbs over vegan cheese.

My pick of the night was a hazelnut funghi pizza (special, $18). With fresh Flat 12 chestnut and shiitake mushrooms, fennel, basil, scallion, stracciatella, mozzarella, and parmigiano, punctuated with toasted hazelnuts, it was a preternaturally satisfying vegetarian combination. Then again, I’ve always had a soft spot for hazelnuts.

Wings (7/$13) come in bourbon BBQ, medium, garlic pecorino, or spicy garlic pecorino sauces, served with blue cheese.

Other dishes worth considering include the crispy cauliflower ($14), tossed in vegan sriracha lime aioli and punctuated with crunchy toasted pumpkinseeds. This was one vegetable that didn’t have to worry about experiencing the pain of rejection.

Hydraulic’s wedge salad ($16) spiffed up the usual iceberg wedge with crispy coppa, tomato, crouton crumble, shallots, chives, and housemade ranch dressing.

After pizza, a blue-collar dessert like a warm cookie right out of the oven hits the spot. Hydraulic’s bake-to-order cookies ($8) are delivered in a pint-sized cast iron skillet with a dollop of ice cream. Banoffee, a combination of banana and toffee cribbed from a famous British pie, was on special, along with chocolate chip. Since we were six at table, the choice was obvious: get both.

No one likes waiting in a line, but the service setup didn’t bother me, for a casual place. I’d rather wait in line to order food I want than not have that restaurant as an option. Servers checked back with us to see if there were any issues that needed curing, after we got a chance to tuck in.

Hydraulic Hearth was named for its geography and its purpose. “Hydraulic” after the area, bounded by water power channels, and “hearth” for the neighborhood gathering place it was meant to be.

In a pizza-mad town, Hydraulic Hearth deserves our thanks for bringing people together to absorb three life-staining forces: pizza, rum, and community.