Location: 406 Bering Street Nome, Alaska. Kitty corner to Anvil City Square.
Hours:Monday thru Thursday 7 a.m. 10 p.m.
Friday and Saturday 7 a.m. 11 p.m.
Sunday 9 a.m. 9 p.m.
Airport Pizza has been featured on NPR's Weekend Edition, the CBS Evening News and a wide variety of newspapers and magazines across the country. Why? Because they brought the commonplace American luxury of home pizza delivery to rural Alaska. Residents of Savoonga or Kotzebue or White Mountain can call the restaurant in Nome and order a pizza delivered to their airstrip on the next available Frontier Flying Service flight. Price? $35. You can hardly beat that.
But you dont have to live in a remote Alaskan village to enjoy Airport Pizza. This popular restaurant in Nome has a full breakfast, lunch and dinner menu, as well as an extensive wine list and numerous microbrews on tap. Breakfast menu items include a choice of egg and potato variations as well as an Alaskan breakfast of blueberry hotcakes and reindeer sausage. Prices range from ten to thirteen dollars for very generous portions.
The lunch and dinner menu includes a variety of items on several basic themes: pizza, burgers/sandwiches, pasta, salads, burritos and calzones. They also offer steak and shrimp. There are a large variety of pizza options, including unusual choices such as Thai chicken, gyro, chicken ranch, and reindeer supreme. Of course they also offer the standard pizza choices (such as pepperoni and Hawaiian) as well as some vegetarian options. Calzones are similar and just as delicious. The garlic buttered crust has a great texture and the filling is flavorful. At $25, they are not cheap, but again, portion size is generous. One calzone can easily feed two people. Salads range in price from thirteen to fifteen dollars, burgers and sandwiches (with fries) from ten to fourteen dollars.
Airport Pizza has a pretty standard appetizer menu ranging in price from ten to thirteen dollars. The mountain of nachos appears to be a popular choice. Other items include French fries, roasted peppers, breadsticks and several others. They also have a small kids menu with a choice of spaghetti, quesadilla or chicken strips for five dollars.
During the week I was in Nome, I visited Airport Pizza several times. Every meal I had there was delicious flavors were nicely blended, food was hot and fresh, employees were friendly. The restaurant is clean and unlike other restaurants in Nome is completely free of smoke odors a big attractant for me. I was pleasantly surprised by the tea, which came hot and steaming in an oversized mug. The generous amount of loose leaf tea packed into the tea bag produced a flavorful and relaxing herbal brew.
The most amazing thing to me was how fresh everything was. The restaurant uses high quality and unusual (for Bush Alaska) ingredients artichoke hearts, dried tomatoes, and reindeer sausage are all available on pizzas or calzones. Salads were made with romaine and leaf lettuce, not the chopped up iceberg that most restaurants in rural and Bush Alaska use. Their ability to get large quantities of fresh ingredients to Nome in good condition is impressive, especially when one can hardly find those things in the local stores. It costs more, obviously, but people are willing to pay for the quality. The restaurant has grown from a rented building near Frontier Flying Service to a two room restaurant and bar at its current location. Most evenings it is packed during the dinner hours, so you may want to opt for brunch, a late lunch or early dinner if you are looking to avoid crowds.
I highly recommend eating at Airport Pizza at least once if you are visiting Nome. In my opinion, you wont find fresher food or a better dining experience anywhere else Nome.
Save to Del.icio.us
