Las Vegas Weekly

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I’m not sure if you appreciate the greatness of D.O.C.G., Scott Conant’s enoteca on the third floor of the Cosmopolitan. That damn secret pizza joint—just a few steps away—has become so popular, and with Conant’s Italian powerhouse Scarpetta gobbling up lots of attention, too, this smaller pizza-pasta-wine stop may be getting pushed around a bit.

So let me square things: D.O.C.G. is serving my favorite pizza in Las Vegas right now. It’s much more authentic Italian than the secret stuff, Neapolitan style with a thin, chewy, wonderfully charred crust. Very recently, D.O.C.G. added some new wrinkles to its small menu of pizzas, basically improving on what was already great.

My tasting began with the prosciutto pizza ($23), the standard tomato and cheese topped with ribbons of the sweet, delicate dry-cured ham, shaved parmigiano and a pile of peppery arugula. Paolo Barbieri, sommelier at both D.O.C.G. and Scarpetta, paired this favorite with a crackling Aristos Kerner from Germany, stiff sweetness that was made to match the arugula.

Photo: Brock Radke

Currently an off-menu pizza, the spicy diabla will blow you away.

Round two got rich, real fast. The new truffle pizza ($35) has two kinds of mushrooms, nutty fontina and creamy sottocenre cheeses, and shaved white truffle to finish it off (white truffle season is just getting started, so now’s the time). To match this pizza’s over-the-top luxuriousness, drink the Brunello Di Montalcino, a big red Tuscan Sangiovese. This combination elevates pizza and wine consumption to unheard of levels of awesome.

Finally, I sampled a pizza that D.O.C.G. sous chef Gina Marinelli has been trying to add to the permanent menu, the spicy diabla. After a few bites, I can understand if it’s too much for the common nosher. It’s a volcanic variation on the current soppressata pie ($22), with red pepper and ricotta, except the dry salami on the diabla is way hot, and there’s some cool, fresh basil added to the mix. To match this flavorbomb, Barbieri offered his very own syrah from Santa Barbara—that’s right, this sommelier is a winemaker, too. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to match it with Marinelli’s super-spicy creation.

D.O.C.G.’s signature pizza, with fonduta, egg and truffle, and the simple yet sublime margherita are still on the menu, along with a few others. Whether you’re trying the new stuff or enjoying an old favorite, you can’t make a bad choice eating pizza here.