Chefs at Dream Factory in Tokyo prepare pizzas for baking in a high-heat oven imported from Milan, Italy. (Photos by Erik Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
Searching for the perfect pizza is more about the journey than about fulfilling the impossible dream.
It is a path that more often leads to frozen dough and processed cheese than to the Promised Land, where high heat fuses fresh ingredients into something my Italian grandmother would praise, if I had one.
Tokyo’s Italian food usually isn’t bad, but I find that something I can’t quite identify is often missing. Much of it seems too neat, as if someone took the rule-bound techniques of a full-course Japanese meal and applied them to spaghetti and meatballs.
Amid the artful mediocrity, I found Dream Factory after a recommendation from a Japanese man who spent three years in Italy.
Dream Factory gets the basics right; according to the menu, owner Yasumasa Yoshikawa imports his mozzarella cheese and prosciutto ham daily from Italy.
The marinara sauce is probably the first I’ve had during the past year that made an impression. Too often, tomato sauce is either canned or made from the sour, artificially ripened tomatoes that we unfortunately find at most supermarkets.
Dream Factory offers a very wide variety of pizzas; one has a raw egg cracked over it, while others are topped with seafood and vegetables rarely found on pies throughout the world.
While it may be an acquired taste for some, at least three people in our group of nine found the anchovy and caper pizza to be the best of the four we sampled.
Another notable dish was the "bomba," which was a hollow crust blown up like a beach ball, topped with prosciutto and served with marinara dipping sauce. It’s not much of an individual meal but isn’t bad to share if you’d like a stylish take on crispy bread.
Once you get past the many toppings, you may find the humble margherita, a bargain at less than 1,000 yen, to be among the best examples of what a pizza should taste like.
Dream Factory offers pasta and other dishes as well, but they are somewhat anticlimactic after walking past the brick oven and counter on the first floor.
The restaurant also sells dessert versions of its pizzas and gelato-style ice cream.
Dream Factory sets the bar respectably higher for Japanese pizzerias. It won’t end my journey on the path to the perfect pizza, but it’s certainly a pleasant detour.
Location: Tokyo
Hours: Lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., last order at 1:30 p.m.; dinner from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., last order at 10 p.m.; Sunday nights, open until 10 p.m.
Prices: Most dishes range from 990 to 2,000 yen; drinks are 600-1,000 yen, with bottled wine also available.
Specialties: Brick-oven pizza
English menu: Yes
Dress: Smart casual
Clientele: Mostly Japanese
Directions: Five minutes from either Daimon or JR Hamamatsucho station. Look for an unusual Wendy’s at the main intersection. Turn on the block behind the Wendy’s and walk until you see the "Forno" sign. For a map, see the Web site and click on "Access" (fourth tab at the top, written in katakana).
Web site:www.pizza-df.com
Phone: 03-3431-6830; dinner reservations recommended