Crunch time

Fresh salads and creative pizzas get star billing at Bricks

By Andy Badeker

Tribune Staff Writer

Bricks sells salads and pizzas. That’s it, if you don’t count drinks and garlic bread. The pizzas, their decent ingredients inventively combined, are tasty, but the salads are terrific.

The walnuts in the “tout le monde” ($5) are toasted as billed. The endive is freshly cut and thoroughly tossed with radicchio and arugula in a mustardy blue cheese vinaigrette. Warm, crisp bacon tops it off.

The house Salad (($3.50) puts a lot of distance between itself and the pizzeria standby of wet iceberg and pale tomato wedges. The greens are those cute baby greens, again well-coated, this time in a vinaigrette that tastes of olive oil balanced by a judicious bite of balsamic vinegar. Kalamata olives and crumbled Maytag blue cheese give pungent support.

Stellar starters awake high expectations for the main course, whose only shortcoming might be the crust. Neither chewy nor cracker thin, the crust, made with 35 percent whole-wheat flour, achieves a crisp bottom but a tender interior that soaks up the sauce to readily.

Toppings make up for that. The Brickhouse (all pizzas are $6.50 for an 8-inch, $12.50 for 12-inch) puts pureed artichoke in place of the usual tomato sauce and sets it off with red peppers, garlic and a mix of mozzarella and asiago.

A pizza special, “pizza di Parma,” layered prosciutto and fontina under asparagus spears precisely arrayed in a spoke pattern. Saltiness interfered with appreciating any subtly flavoring the tomato sauce may have contributed.

Also on the roster of eight pizzas are the “Painful,” a concoction of spicy pepperoni jalapenos, garlic and onions; and the BBQ chicken, topped with smoked gouda and cilantro. Owner Bill Brandt plans to open for lunch and to add sandwiches sometime in the future.

This dim, garden-level restaurant, more intimate nightclub that pizzeria, is just fancy enough for it Lincoln Park address. The floor is terrazzo; the tablecloths are starched and free of that butcher paper that makes patrons feel more like puppies. Holes artfully punched through a brick wall let diners keep track of activity on the bar side. Spotlights bathe artwork and flower arrangements.

Service is top-notch. The waiter, reserved but welcoming, kept an eagle eye from his post by the bar, and the touring busboy was ever-ready with the water pitcher.

Beer options abound. Six microbrews are on tap, including Sierra Nevada barleywine ($5 a pint) and Goose Island red ale ($3.75), and bottles come from as far away as Belgium (Du Pont saison) and Detroit (Schlitz).

Wine choices are more limited but include a pizza-friendly Montepulciano at $4 a glass and a 1988 Dom Perignon for $99 a bottle. All you’d be lacking would be a dinner jacket and a three-piece combo.