Hearth Artisan Pizza — Restaurant in Alaska

I'm surprised by the wealth of positive reviews here, based on my one experience at Hearth. The atmosphere is decent, although it's in a bit of a seedy strip mall, and yes there is a lot of variety on tap. I also had a pretty good beet salad to start. That is the complete list of positives. It seems dining there exposes you to a variety of wait staff, from the person pouring water to whoever brings your food; I think we saw 4 different people at our table. That's fine, but the 2 male table staff we had, including our main waiter, were the LEAST friendly people imaginable. Like to the point you wonder if you looked like someone who ran over their dog! That might have been overlooked (and I emphasize "might") except the pizza was very disappointing and grossly overpriced. I got the Farmer's pie with sausage added ($2.50 extra for what was a nearly undetectable amount of sausage). It sounded really good, with tomato sauce, mozzarella and ricotta, olive oil, basil, mushrooms, etc. What actually came out was extremely dry and about the opposite of what you hope pizza will be. As to "artisan pizza", I swear they must paint the tomato sauce on with a tiny artisan brush, because it was only enough to give the crust a slightly red color. The olive oil must have been similarly applied, as it was about impossible to detect. This is a fully $20 personal pie we're talking about, on which it seemed they could barely spare the ingredients, and any semblance of moisture was long gone into the oven. My glass of wine could not keep up to keep my mouth from drying out. Poor. The Moose's Tooth not far away is almost infinitely better, which I hesitate to mention because that place is already too crowded. Obviously, there's a reason, but Hearth was pretty full, too, and I could not imagine why. I know I won't...

Man, was this ne good place to go to. M behind the bar was friendly and answered all my questions. He even came over and chatted about the food and place, and I learned a few things. 1st, 99% of what they use in theory food is fresh. Not canned or frozen or no5hing like that. 2nd, they have a 24-room conference room people can use for free. As long as you spend at least $450 on their product. Making the p9zzad was J and his team. It was steady but you have never guessed with the staff. They were like a bee hive. Everyone had a job to do to keep everything going, and that is what they did. I even saw ppl helping each other out and was just all amazing to watch. The Meatball starter was yummy, and their special pizza they have right now was very yummy. I will warm you to be careful with the spicy oil and fkak3s they serve with it. It creeps up on you and can get hot quickly. I tried the cheesecake with raspberry topping for desert, and that was a good way to end the meal. I highly recommend this place. It's worth it, and it's worth supporting a locally...

Really wonderful pizza! Terrific crusts and probably the most creative in town. Not overcrowded like other places and the prices are a good value. I'd recommend the sweet potato pizza and my favorite is the heironymous bosc. Do not miss the chocolate avocado pudding, it's fabulous!

Edited 10/27/22 Not the same after the pandemic. It's very popular and still pretty good, but my very favorite pizza, the hieronymous bosc, just isn't as good. To much blue cheese, apples instead of pears, the arugula isn't coated anymore. I think costs have kicked in, it's $2 more but not as good a quality. The pudding is good, but last time it tasted as if it were made from bananas and not avocados, and this week the pistachios were replaced with walnuts. Again, cost cutting, but not good. I understand inflation, but it's hard to get as excited when I'm paying more for a poorer pizza. They were also out of several sodas and it was crowded. Service was friendly and food came quick but things don't feel the same with dining out after...