You wouldn’t expect Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood to have a deep resonance with Louisville, but that erroneous conclusion overlooks the importance of Harold Henry “Pee Wee” Reese.
Reese, a native of Meade County, Ky., who grew up in Louisville, played shortstop for the old, beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, who played at the storied Ebbets Field in Flatbush. Reese may be most remembered for the public and supportive hug he gave Jackie Robinson, rejecting racist jeers at Major League’s first Black player at a game in Cincinnati in 1947.
Reese was also an excellent shortstop, earning his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. And he made a generation of Kentuckians into Dodgers fans, or so my parents told me.
That was our Flatbush connection then. Now we have another, with the arrival of Hall of Fame level pizza at Wheated Louisville in the Highlands, the second and only branch of Wheated Brooklyn, a pizzeria that has risen to the top of New York City’s fabled pizza scene in just over a decade. Founded in 2013, it quickly earned critical acclaim amid comparisons to local pizza icons like Tottono’s, Grimaldi’s, and Di Farra.
Why would a popular Brooklyn pizzeria spend major bucks to do a gut rehab on an old Bardstown Road bungalow and turn it into their only other location? It’s beyond me, unless it has something to do with Pee Wee Reese … or maybe it’s our bourbon.
Wheated has been a while coming. Sharp eyes at the LouisvilleHotBytes Forum spotted its a building permit in August 2021. It took nearly two years to convert the little building that had housed a skate shop into a stylish, homey pizzeria. It finally opened at the end of June.
We dropped in on a busy Thursday night and did not have a single disappoinment in food, mood, or service. Every component was just right: Stainless silverware, sharp knives with serrated blades, even oversize and strong paper napkins, sturdy reusable takeaway containers, and of course, all of the food.
The Louisville and Brooklyn menus appear similar. Kentuckians get a condensed form with 11 pizzas seemingly identical to the Brooklyn options. Flatbush diners have 18 to choose from. They’re all generous 16-inch pies, and good news: ours are priced $2 to $5 less than our Brooklyn counterparts. They’re all named after Brooklyn neighborhoods, and range in price (in Louisville) from $21 (for the Ditmas Park, a simple tomato-and-cheese pie with basil) to $31 (for the fennel-sausage Canarsie or the meat-and-cheese lovers’ Supreme). Sides here are limited to a handful of salads and a side of meatballs.
The cocktail menu is built on a wide range of liquors and flavors, mostly riffs on standards like the Negroni, old fashioned, and horse’s neck. They’re all $14 except the $15 espresso martini.
Excellent salads just about filled us up before the pizza came. They are oversized, even the purportedly “small” Caesar ($12), and well made with quality ingredients. The Caesar filled a large white bowl with crisp, fresh, green romaine lettuce lightly coated with a tangy, garlicky dressing, topped with clouds of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and surmounted with five large, fresh salted anchovies. (Anchovy-haters may opt out, but these are the real deal.)
Watermelon salad ($12), a seasonal special, started with a structure of large, bright-red, juicy and super-sweet watermelon cubes mixed with thin-sliced English cucumbers, basil chiffonade, crumbled queso fresco, sea salt, and tangy lime juice that enhanced the salad’s refreshing vibe while highlighting the melon’s sweetness in contrast.
A pair of hefty meatballs ($12) the size of tennis balls made a side dish that was filling and complex in flavor. Light and fluffy and herby inside as New York Italian-style meatballs should be, they were coated with melted cheese and the thick tomato sauce that they had apparently been baked with. Billows of Parmigiano put a tasty snow cap on top.
I wanted all the pizzas but started with a simple option, my usual strategy for evaluating a new spot. The NY slice style pizza ($23) may not remind you of Manhattan street-corner slices, but it’s a fine representation of the work of Brooklyn’s beloved neighborhood sit-down joints.
The sourdough crust is thin across the base, swelling to puffy edges charred dark brown to charcoal and, tasted on their own, reminiscent of good, crusty Italian bread. Tangy low-moisture mozzarella, a slightly aged, drier version, is laid down first, forming a barrier to keep the crust dry and crisp. A simple, thick tomato sauce, a sweet yet tart puree, was spread lightly over the cheese, turning the pie into a Jackson Pollock work of artfully abstract yellow and red and brown. It was outstanding, and a protective sheet of textured paper beneath kept the leftovers from sticking to the cardboard box on the way home.
A memorable pizza dinner for two came to $62.54, plus a $14 tip.
Wheated Louisville
1553 Bardstown Road
Facebook: bit.ly/WheatedLou
instagram.com/wheatedlouisville
Noise Level: This popular place is usually jammed, and it's not quiet. We were able to carry on a conversation, though, with noise levels running around 78dB.
Accessibility: Multiple steps bar wheelchair access to the front of the building, but a well-built ramp provides convenient access from the large parking lot in the rear.
