Bagby’s specialty is its brick oven pizzas. You can custom build your pizza but it’s less expensive to pick from one of 18 or so pre-designed combinations available in either a small (10-inch, $10-11) or large (14-inch, $15-18) size. The menu also includes a dozen sandwiches ($8-10), half a dozen pasta dishes ($12-14, available in half portions) and salads ($7, plus $3 for chicken, steak, or shrimp).

Visiting Bagby with a group of friends, John stayed weight conscious and opted for a spinach berry salad with grilled chicken ($10). Marty ordered a “chicken parmigiana” pizza along with a bowl of gazpacho ($4, the “soup of the day”). Our friends ordered a variety of pizzas: gourmet vegetable ($11), prosciutto and goat cheese ($11), BBQ chicken ($11), and Tennessee honey chicken ($11).

John’s salad proved excellent—a large bed of baby spinach, topped with freshly grilled, still hot chicken breast with strawberries, blackberries, sunflower seeds, and blue cheese with a vinaigrette dressing won his thumbs-up! Marty’s gazpacho was cool and delicious, full of pureed veggies and earned a thumbs-up too. Overall, consensus was that the pizza toppings were generous but the thin crusts were dry and that the outer edge was disappointingly cracker-like. Marty was less than thrilled with his chicken parm pizza (this combo just didn’t work for him); Bob felt the wild mushrooms, asparagus, and roasted artichokes on his pizza were overpowered by too much cheese. By contrast, the BBQ chicken pizza got a thumbs-up from Fred and Bernie who thought that lots of crisp real bacon bits made a great addition.

Overall, Bagby Pizza provided good food for reasonable prices—particularly given the location between Harbor East and Little Italy. (And the good-looking young men shopping at the neighboring Whole Foods will be even more motivation for us to return!)

DETAILS: Bagby Pizza Company (Harbor East); 1006 Fleet St. 410.605.0444. Open for lunch and dinner 7 days, 11am-9pm; Fri & Sat til 10pm; Sun noon-8pm. Beer & wine, vegetarian options. BagbyPizza.com

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