A New Go-to for Pizza, Wings and Craft Beer: Coals in Port Chester, NY

Billy Dee Williams approves this establishment…

The weekend after our big move all we seemed to do was go from Home Depot, to Target, to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, to Home Goods and more to return and buy more crap for the house. Oh, and then we put all that said crap up and away. As you can imagine, after such a busy day, we were famished. But we didn’t want to go anywhere fancy. We just wanted some nice pizza, craft beer, wings and a laid back environment. If we were still in Stamford in this mood, we would’ve hit up Coalhouse, but where were we to go near Greenwich?

We drove past Coals earlier in the day and thought maybe, just maybe, that could be our new go-to place to fill the hole in our heart from being farther away from Coalhouse. After two trips there, we’re pretty confident we were right…

Started in da Bronx, Coals Port Chester is just a few minutes away from Greenwich. Here, the chefs and pizzaiolas are dishing up and serving some great food. But, maybe even more importantly, they love beer.

Beer? Yes, in fact they have a flight of four 4 oz. drinks for just $8. We went with Troegs Dreamweaver Wheat, Laguntas Pils, Wachusetts Blueberry Ale, and Oskar Blues Deviant Dales to share and taste. Now, onto the food…first came our fresh mozzarella salad with housemade grilled red peppers and arugula. The peppers were delicate and full of flavor, grilled in their kitchen just like their pizza and wings. The mooz was very fresh and was more of the denser style, but was still great.

The wings here are grilled (as all wings should be in our book), then smothered in a spicy and tangy sauce. The sauce was close to pink in color, but didn’t take away from the crispy slightly charred nature of the chicken wing skin. When we bit down, the chicken was still moist and delicious. We tried very hard to get to the core of what made the sauce so good, but aside from figuring out they used Frank’s Red Hot, the chef guarded one secret ingredient from our knowledge. Damn, we tried. These rocked!

Next came the Smokey Joe pizza, made with fontinella, smoked mozzarella, pecorino, tomato, sweet coppa (cured pork), and red onions. The crust was close to cracker thin (like a flatbread), crispy, and had a nice gentle char from the grill. What’s interesting is that the pies come out as ovals (though on our second visit, we saw a circular pie), sliced in half then up and down making strips. While the cheese and meat together created a slightly salty pie, it balanced out nicely with a sauce just a bit on the sweet side. You definitely must love cheese and not mind a slightly strong taste if you’re ordering the Smokey Joe pie.  Just a note, the kitchen was fine with us adding some coppa to our Must Have (fresh mozzarella, ricotta, grana padano, vincotto) during our second visit.

As we were taking pics of the food, our neighbors asked if we were food journalists. Well, that’s a complicated answer, but we explained. As a good neighbor should, they offered us their huge plate of Brussels sprouts to try. It was on the Specials menu that day, but let’s let you in on a secret…if it isn’t up there, ask. Why? OMG levels! Caramelized Brussels sprouts served with walnuts and some cheese on top for a great contrast. BEST EVER!

Final Thoughts

Although there isn’t any extraordinary amount of room inside Coals, it’s still nice and cozy. Service is slow to start and it might be a few minutes before you get your order in. The kitchen, on the other hand, paces the food nicely and is responsive. The rotating beer selection is really outstanding and would make any real beer swiller blush in excitement. On second visit, we downed a very rare and limited production 10% ABV Sixpoint 3Beans.  The wings, as we mentioned, are some of the best that we’ve had. And, we dig the pizza. We definitely plan on coming back for some more, grilled dish after grilled dish.

COALS

Noms: 4

Cost: $$$

Address: 35 North Main Street

Port Chester, NY 10573-4208

Phone: (914) 305-3220