Steel Pan’s quattro formaggi with garlic, mushrooms and Italian sausage

Steel Pan’s quattro formaggi with garlic, mushrooms and Italian sausage

If you were to stand on the corner of Nevada Avenue and Costilla Street, looking at the former Iron Bird Brewing Co. and wondering what kind of business had moved in, you would have to make some guesses.

The graffiti-inspired logo of Steel Pan PNP tells passersby approximately jack squat about what’s going on inside. That’s a shame for many reasons, especially since Steel Pan serves some killer food and drink.

The PNP in Steel Pan’s name stands for pie and pint — it’s a Detroit-style pizzeria with attached game room and a simple but quality bar program. It’s owned and operated by Tim Dionne and Shaunah Estrin, who also now own La Cava Fine Mexican Cuisine. Downtown diners will note that Steel Pan’s directly across the street from White Pie, a Denver brand with enough hype to match sister taco concept Dos Santos.

402 S. Nevada Ave., 719-694-9675, steelpanpnp.com

Noon to 2 a.m., daily

Our server says that they’re not per se direct competition, which tracks: White Pie serves Connecticut-style pizza with higher-end “hip” sides and cocktails with an Instagram-minded design, whereas Steel Pan serves Detroit-style ’za with cheap-and-tasty drinks in a no-frills, rebar-and-sheet metal interior.

For drinks, PNP offers batch-made cocktails, all doubles, $8 a pop. The Harvey Wallbanger’s a screwdriver plus pineapple juice and Galliano, the latter of which adds subtle anise and vanilla to a smooth and friendly beverage. Also fruit-forward, the Rum Runner sees banana, pineapple and orange defining the flavor and blackberry gifting the color, going down easy as can be. A modified Bee’s Knees — gin, lemon, honey as the base — gets finished with tonic water, which adds a bracing bitterness that we mentally associate with Italian-style cocktails. None of these drinks tastes like a well double, neither in flavor nor burn, so it’s easy to forget that they’re mighty strong and add a cab ride home to meal plans (no shame in that).

The fried trout hoagie earns the ignoble honor of being the one dish we’re genuinely disappointed with. The soft Amoroso roll holds some sound coleslaw and a remoulade that’s way too heavy on the mayo, all atop a trout fillet with crispy skin and some tomato slices. The trout’s cooked fine, but the creamy flavors it’s paired with overwhelm its mild flavors — it’s the wrong fish for this job, plain and simple. The side slaw we order is totally different from the basic American stuff that’s on the sandwich, with peanuts, cilantro and an acidity that makes it a worthwhile choice. Also healthy, the strawberry rocket salad’s mix of spinach, arugula, strawberries, goat cheese, almonds and orange honey vinaigrette rates superlative — another customer who’s just finished her meal raves about it, and we get it.

But it’s the pizza we’ll be coming back for. Quattro formaggi, four cheese, tops a mix of smoked fontina, blue, goat and mozzarella cheeses with garlic, mushrooms and Italian sausage. Smoky and funky notes rate subtle, except on the crispy edges, but the garlic’s pretty forward, and it’s a great, classic flavor combo atop a substantial crust. The putanesca pizza’s caper pesto adds a salty hit to a light mix of artichoke hearts, tomato and Kalamata olives that doesn’t for a moment miss red sauce.

These pizzas cost $14 or $15 and will satiate two or stuff one diner. More affordable, the spot offers a cheese or pepperoni ’za with a “crap tap” beer (rotating; we get Oskar Blues’ Oskar’s Lager) for $13. After one bite of the pepperoni pizza we order, we’re sold, almost all thanks to the tomato sauce. It’s not too sweet, not too acidic and inundated with garlic, a bloody wonder of a thing. Now if the marketing and signage gets on the quality level of this sauce — or most of what we eat and drink — Steel Pan should see plenty of business. 

Fiona Truant is a food reviewer and contributor for the Colorado Springs Indy. This Colorado Springs native joined as an intern in early 2014, freelancing until they joined the staff full-time in late 2015.

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