Nick Keppler

A Larry Tate @ Two Boots

Southport Pizza
295 Pequot Ave., Fairfield
(203) 259-9843
Brocoli bianca, $13 small; $18 large

Maybe I'm not hard to impress, but to me there is something classy about white pizza. It uses lots of garlic (a spice), it's less messy than regular pizza, and it's a kind of pizza I can't make in a microwave.

At the Southport Pizza House, on classy Pequot Avenue, they offer a classy "Broccoli Bianca" variety of this classy pizza. The place lays the broccoli on thick — really thick. It's like a field of the stuff. Add in a thin and crispy crust with a pretty thin layer of mozzarella and the broccoli seems to be the main ingredient, which is great if you really, really love broccoli.

Venice Restaurant and Pizza
3 Copps Hill Plaza, Ridgefield
(203) 438-7007
Pizza bianca, $11.50 small; $13.50 medium; $15.50 large

Venice Restaurant and Pizza, on the other hand, serves up a thick and doughy crust and spreads on the ricotta sauce. The ricotta makes a better fit for a white pizza than mozzarella — it's thicker, more filling and classier-tasting.

I got a pizza bianca (it means "white" in Italian!) with mushrooms and peppers (about a buck fifty for each topping), and it was so good I dug in without abandonment and relished every vapor of it burped up. Look for this place if you're ever on Route 35.

Fat Cat Pie Company
9-11 Wall St., Norwalk
(203) 523-0389
Pizza with garlic chips, $9 small; $12 large

How does Fat Cat do it? The regionally famous pizza joint and center of Norwalk's Wall Street strip somehow offers up fresh, organic ingredients and that slick (greasy is almost the right word — but not quite) pizza taste with every pie that comes out of its ovens. And this sounds cliché, but it honestly does taste good to be organic.

Order one with garlic chips and you'll get a white pizza that tastes as delicious as any other Fat Cat Pie. And you must add on a few toppings (about a dollar each if you do a few of them — and you should) because they also come juicy and fresh.

Two Boots of Bridgeport
277 Fairfield Ave., Bridgeport
(203) 331-1377
Larry Tate, $8.95 small, $16.95 medium; $20.95 large

The white pizza at Two Boots is, for an unknown reason, named after Darin's conceited, demanding boss on "Bewitched" — played by David White (actor named White, white pizza — maybe?)

The pizza is topped with thick, round tomato slices and patches of spinach stacked like coral reefs. The toppings go a long way but the best part of this pizza is the impossible-to-imitate Two Boots crust. It's like it leaves an imprint on your tongue.