Looking for pizza perfection at Taste, the Pizzabar Experience

Positive word of mouth is the best marketing tool a restaurant can have, and Taste, the Pizzabar Experience, is getting a lot of it.

Maybe it's partly that catchy title. And also because of its offbeat location, tucked into the second floor of a very old building on Times Square that requires a little searching even though it's in the heart of downtown. There's something about a hidden-in-plain-sight location that is oddly appealing.

Most of all, though, it is because the pizza, made by chef/proprietor Dale Daniel, is the real thing. In a city where pizza is one of the top favorite dishes, it isn't easy to stand out from the crowd.

Daniel says he literally spent years coming up with the recipe for the crust, using the trial-and-error method. The result is a crust (from fresh dough using organic flour and extra-virgin oil made twice a day) that is both crisp and soft, and just the right heft. His red sauce is made with San Marzano tomatoes, the classic heirlooms from Italy.

The menu offers 18 different pizzas, from the purist's tomato and fresh basil margherita pizza to one heaped with scallops, lobster and shrimp on smoked mozzarella; and if 18 aren't enough, patrons may put together their own combinations from a list of no less than 29 ingredients, including all the expected ones and a few surprises, including smoked bacon, chicken sausage and lobster.

Aside from the ordinary black olives, the toppings are high quality. The chunks of grilled chicken breast atop the Mona Lisa are moist and flavorful, and the mushrooms on the Shrooms pizza not just the garden variety, but crimini, portobello, shiitake and oyster.

Also a cut above is the house salad, a nice mix of field greens, red and green leaf lettuce, cucumber, red onions and smoked mozzarella, that teams well with pizza. The house dressing is an unusual blueberry pomegranate vinaigrette.

Daniel manages to elevate chicken wings over their bar snack reputation. The lightly battered wings are meaty, tender and admirably nongreasy, and can be embellished with either a smoky barbecue sauce or traditional hot sauce, although they don't need much embellishment.

Lunch specials are notable. For $6.50, diners may have a six-inch pizza with a Caesar or house salad, or a barbecued chicken panino with salad at the same price.

I like the fact that the Pizzabar doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. The menu is focused, the decor barebones, with just the old brick walls as a focal point. Tables are bare, napkins paper, and the casual atmosphere is comfortably unpretentious.

On Friday and Saturday nights, when the separate downstairs lounge called Premium is open, the Pizzabar tends to reverberate with the booming music from below. It gets a little noisy, but it's just part of the good vibes in the room.

You can reach Molly Abraham at (313) 222-1475 or abraham67@comcast.net">abraham67@comcast.net.