The famous Hot Brown — allegedly fashioned as a midnight snack for Roaring Twenties revelers famished after a night of dancing in the Brown Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom — is just an open-faced sandwich of turkey, bacon and cheesy Mornay sauce. Nothing so inventive there, and it’s a cardiologist’s nightmare.
The inventive folks at BoomBozz Taphouse in the Highlands have put a new spin on the old tradition by marrying it in weird but delicious union with a pizza.
If the Hot Brown is really Louisville’s most iconic local culinary tradition, we’re in trouble. It’s not what you’d call the most creative food invention that ever landed on a plate. Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing to try to list the dishes that made Louisville famous.
Benedictine? Cream cheese and cucumber dip tinted with green food coloring. BO-ring!
Modjeskas are mere chewy caramel-coated marshmallows, renamed to suck up to Polish actress Helena Modjeska, who was a big hit in Louisville … in 1883.
Burgoo? This hearty stew is Appalachian fare, not city food. Some country folk even put squirrel meat and maybe weasel in it. It’s not even original but an import from coastal Georgia, where they call it “Brunswick stew.”
And the famous Hot Brown — allegedly fashioned as a midnight snack for Roaring Twenties revelers famished after a night of dancing in the Brown Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom — is just an open-faced sandwich of turkey, bacon and cheesy Mornay sauce. Nothing so inventive there, and it’s a cardiologist’s nightmare.
Be that as it may, the inventive folks at BoomBozz Taphouse in the Highlands have put a new spin on the old tradition by marrying it in weird but delicious union with a pizza.
You heard that right: While it’s available, order the Hot Brown pizza ($15.99 large, $12.99 medium) at BoomBozz Taphouse, and you’ll be rewarded with a deconstructed Hot Brown, shorn of its toast points and spread instead atop an excellent, thin crust, fired in the pizza oven until the crust is toasty and the toppings melty.
You have to be open-minded about innovation to accept this bizarre yoking of ingredients previously thought incompatible, and there’s probably a verse somewhere in Leviticus that forbids it. My wife was horrified, and LouisvilleHotBytes Forum pal Bill P. put it succinctly, saying, “The ghost of Pepe is weeping someplace in New Haven.”
I say, let the originator of New Haven-style pizza weep. I unrepentantly enjoyed this invention. Ample sliced deli turkey, crumbled bacon, diced tomato and a rich, creamy cheese sauce with a dash of hot pepper that warms the back of your throat all come together on a cracker-thin pizza with a crusty rim that’s reminiscent of artisanal Italian bread. I like it.
BoomBozz Taphouse
1448 Bardstown Road
458-8889
boombozz.com
facebook.com/boombozzfamouspizza
