Ken’s Artisan Pizza Alum Declares Opening Date for New Pizzeria

Vancouver, Washington is slated to get at least three exciting new restaurants this fall, including B. J. Smith’s third Smokehouse and Hopworks Urban Brewery’s second full-on brewery and pub, and according to press release, the first will open next week: Rally Pizza will fire up the pizza ovens in The Mill, a former shopping center near Vancouver’s center at 8070 E. Mill Plain Blvd., this Monday, September 26.

Rally Pizza will serve Neapolitan-style pizzas given in-house touches, such as smoked meats and mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, along with a smattering of small plates, salads, frozen custard concoctions, and a kids’ menu. According to The O, Rally Pizza will cook its pizzas using a gas oven.

Besides the fact some solid new restaurants are opening in Vancouver, the reason to get excited for this is Alan Maniscalco. Locally, Maniscalco has ten years of experience cooking beneath Ken Forkish, the chef-owner of Ken's Artisan Pizza and Trifecta Tavern and Bakery and James Beard awarded author. Maniscalco helped to open Ken’s Artisan Pizza, one of the city’s top pizzerias, in 2006, and he’s earned a reputation for cooking with simplicity and seasonality.

At Rally Pizza, the results are minimalist pizzas like Little Gina, a pizza featuring only tomato sauce, hand-pulled mozzarella, and oil infused with fennel, chile, and garlic ($15). The Piggy Back is more decadent, with house-smoked Canadian bacon and belly bacon, pickled smoked jalapenos, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and Vella Dry Monterey Jack ($18). You can always add a fried duck egg or Prosciutto San Daniele to any pizza, and the Italian-influenced salads and small plates show inventive twists, like prosciutto cracklings atop crispy potatoes ($7).

Maniscalco isn’t the only chef in the kitchen, and his wife Shan Wickham is making frozen yogurt sundaes and concretes (frozen yogurts blended with house-made ingredients like ginger snaps and lemon curd or Columbia Gorge cherries, pie crust, and streusel). Maniscalco and Wickham have been cooking together for years, having opened Stone House Bread South in Michigan in 1998.

Starting Monday, September 26, Rally Pizza will be open daily from 4:30 p.m. to close. Takeout pizza is also available.

• Rally Pizza [Official Site]
• First look: Vancouver's Rally Pizza looks ready to race [Oregonian]
• All Previous Rally Pizza Coverage [EPDX]