Happy International Margarita Day!
If you didn’t have this one circled on your calendar, I can’t say I blame you. There are hundreds of industry-created “days” every year, possibly more “days” than there are actual days on the calendar. There’s a day for most things you can think of, and some you can’t. National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day? April 2. National Honey Bee Awareness Day? Third Saturday in August. National Miniature Golf Day? May 14. And so on.
But hey, any excuse to drink a margarita is a good one, so if tequila producers want to declare February 22 as a Margarita Day (an international one, no less, so this thing is worldwide!), I’m happy to spread the news. Now, before we get started, let’s remember there’s a difference between margarita — the alchemy of tequila, lime juice and triple sec that’s tickled the fancy of cocktail connoisseurs and party-hearty frat boys alike for decades — and margherita, the pizza made with mozzarella cheese, fresh basil leaves and tomato sauce (and, often as not, tomato slices too). Of course, it was only a matter of time before some intrepid and/or confused soul decided to fuse the two. And with the Platinum Margarita Margherita Pizza, a $500 jaw-dropper created by Chef Michael Armstrong of NYC’s Bodega Negra, in conjunction with fancy-pants upscale tequila brand Patrón, the pizza/cocktail barrier has been breached.
The funny thing about this creation is that it’s not even really a pizza, at least not in the traditional sense, but an adaptation of Bodega Negra’s “pizza rustica,” which is basically an open-faced quesadilla on a flour tortilla. And it’s certainly nothing close to a margherita pizza, lacking as it does the requisite mozzarella and basil. To this pizza eater, it resembles a savory tart as much as a classic pie. But hey, I’m not one to quibble, especially with an undertaking of this magnitude.
At this point you may be wondering, what’s with a $500 price tag for a pizza that requires quotes around it? Well, you get lobster, for starters. And Osetra caviar. And black truffles. And you also get two of Patrón’s most high-end tequilas; as Chef Armstrong says, “We wanted to give it a boost with tequila itself, so that’s where Patrón came in, suggesting that we use the Gran Patrón line of tequilas, as the Gran Patrón Platinum pairs so nicely with our house crema and Gran Patrón Burdeos works really well as a glaze for the lobster and mango.” Also in the mix are tomato, avocado, and just for the heck of it, flakes of edible silver to “pair” with the Gran Patrón Platinum.
This is what a $500 pizza looks like.
The finished creation contains eight decent-sized slices, smaller than your typical pizzeria jobs but loaded with so much stuff that it’s much more filling, and a fork and knife are indispensable. It tasted to me like it was given a healthy shpritz of lime juice; it has bright citric notes in addition to the sweetness of the lobster and mango, offset by the saltiness of the caviar and the mild funk of the razor-thin truffle slices. The crema and avocado make it as rich for the stomach as it is for the wallet; a little goes a long way.
The good news is that the Platinum Margarita Margherita Pizza is absolutely sensational, especially when paired with a Patrón margarita (preferably on the rocks with salt). It brought the margarita influences of the pizza — the tequila glaze and crema and lime juice — more into focus. And let’s face it, most things in life go better with a marg in hand. The other good news is that it’s so different from a typical NYC slice that it won’t ruin you for the standard $2.50 corner-pizzeria fare. The only bad news is that you have to order it 48 hours in advance (Chef Armstrong says it takes three hours to prepare). And as I write this, the end of International Margarita Day is less than 48 hours away. But fear not, big spenders, you haven’t blown your chance! The pizza will endure as an off-the-menu, by-request item for the next several months. And really, you wouldn’t want to order this thing as an impulse buy anyway. It’ll satisfy your tequila-induced drunchies, no doubt, but the hole it leaves in your wallet would hurt more than the hangover the next morning.
Which leads to the inevitable million-dollar question, or really the five hundred-dollar question: Is this thing worth that kind of bank? Well, I can tell you that I ate half the pie and was so full several hours later that I skipped dinner, which means, if we do the math, that a full pie could be amortized over four meals, which would work out to a much more reasonable $125 per. And really, if you have $500 to spend on a pizza, you might as well go for this one — which, shockingly, is far from the most expensive in New York. If Patron wants to upgrade, the mind boggles at what they’ll try for International Margarita Day next year. Unless a Tequila/Pizza Day is created before then. (Full disclosure: I did not pay for the pizza, but nobody put a gun to my head or otherwise coerced me to say nice things about it. My opinions are solely my own, and dammit, it was delicious. My six year old daughter, on the other hand, is a pizza traditionalist, and though she accompanied me to the tasting, she made do with her Mexican Coke and refused to take so much as a bite.)