So what happens when a
culinary school graduate with an entrepreneurial spirit decides to open up a
pizza place? You get a selection of menu items that doesn’t cut corners with
inferior ingredients. You find locally-purchased meats and other products used
for not only a 2 Daddy’s pizza, but for entrées such as lasagna, classic
grinder sandwiches and more. And you also get a wealth of knowledge derived
from owner Andrew Klipsch’s time at not only one of the top culinary schools in
the nation, but at over 30 different restaurants Klipsch has had a hand in
opening throughout his career.
Klipsch is an Evansville
native, but his relationship with food has taken him to locations as far-flung
as Massachusetts, Detroit,
Las Vegas, Indianapolis,
Chicago and
various points in between. All that traveling, working and learning helped lead
him to develop the starting point for what would become 2 Daddy’s Pizza.
“I noticed when I was living in Las Vegas,” Klipsch says, “is that there were
no good pizza places. It was all chains. One of the places that had decent
pizza was the New York Casino; they had a decent pizza styled after the pizza
that’s popular in New York.
But it paled in comparison to whenever I would fly to New
York and have pizza there; I could get better pizza on the street
[in New York]
than what they had in the casino.”
That experience lingered, and reemerged when it was time
for Klipsch to come home. He and his wife and kids came back to Evansville after many
years of traveling. A partner of his suggested that Klipsch open a pizza place
in Evansville as part of a successful small
chain of Chicago
pizzerias that both enjoyed. “But the supply chain wasn’t here,” Klipsch says
of that plan. “We couldn’t get the products [to use in the restaurant] down
here”
Undeterred, Klipsch decided to make his own pizza and do
things independently. He experimented with some recipes – making a point of
using locally-sourced ingredients – and the result was a pizza that was better
than the product coming from the small chain Klipsch was thinking of operating.
And I can personally attest that that – better pizza – is
a near-understatement. After eating (okay, eating is the wrong word… devouring would be more apt) several
kinds of 2 Daddy’s pizzas, and most recently the “Kitchen Sink,” I can safely
say that I’ve had the best pizza in Evansville
I’ve enjoyed in years. The handmade crust, the freshness and quality of the
toppings, the savory/sweet sauce, and the combination of flavors all add up to
flat-out delicious stuff.
The notion of combining flavors is something I think is
one of the more interesting aspects of Andrew Klipsch’s and 2 Daddy’s Pizza’s
story. Being a culinary school graduate, Klipsch is trained in the ways flavors
play with and against each other. Taking the basics of sweet, savory, salty and
bitter, addressing the notion of an ingredient’s texture into the mix and
giving thought to the proportions used, Klipsch’s masterwork, the Kitchen Sink,
is the best example of a calculated flavor profile that’s just perfect. I had the Kitchen Sink most
recently on Daddy’s crust, the Chicago-style crust that I must recommend you
try (they also do hand-tossed). And the ingredients aren’t what I would
normally consider putting together: Sausage; mushrooms, ham, onions, green
peppers, pepperoni (okay so far…); black olives, banana peppers and pineapple.
Here’s where Klipsch’s knack for exploiting the best of
each ingredient comes in. The proportions of each item are on the pizza in such
a way as to achieve a sort of Yin/Yang harmony of sweet and savory, crunchy and
soft, chunky and smooth. The Kitchen Sink represents the best a pizza can be: A
flavor explosion, full of complexity and somehow, simplicity at the same time.
My experience with 2 Daddy’s lasagna was similarly
impressive. There’s nothing particularly fancy about it – it’s your standard
lasagna, at least in terms of the way it’s put together. But again, Klipsch’s
culinary training shows in the way the meats and cheeses work with the pasta
and all the myriad seasonings to create yet another example of how a person who
knows the way flavors play nice with each other – if they’re combined a certain
way.
2 Daddy’s Pizza has been open for nearly a year, and is
the exclusive restaurant for Little Cheers. Both share the underground space in
the HilliardLyonsBuilding at the corner of 4th
and Main in downtown Evansville.
They also do something else unique – offer delivery to any place in VanderburghCounty. Their 2 Daddy’s thick crust
pizzas will stay hot more matter where you may be in the county (Klipsch has
tested this), so whether you’re calling from the east side of County Line Road
or from Lost Creek Drive off Petersburg Road, an awesome 2 Daddy’s Pizza is a
quick phone call away.
Klipsch also offers a chance for people to dine on other
fare he’s perfected through Chef’s Table Catering, a service handy for
meetings, themed parties, receptions of any kind or just about any other event
that has a number of hungry people in attendance. The catering menu offers a
vast array of choices, from pizza to sushi, steaks and upscale Hors-D’ouvres.
Give 2 Daddy’s Pizza a call at
812-455-9052 or 812-454-1097 for delivery or more information.
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