That’s Amore

This article is published in partnership with The Food Section.

It’s late. Or at least, it feels late to Raleigh restaurateur Ashley Christensen after being on her feet all day. She hasn’t eaten, not properly, except maybe “something fast and light” that morning. There’s no time when she’s working an opulent benefit dinner at a food festival.

In those high-energy environments, the decorated chef tastes food all day, but only to make sure it’s cooked correctly. Running on adrenaline, it’s not until the event ends and engorged guests have stumbled away that it hits her: She should order Domino’s.

Christensen is drained, but not to the point where she’d take just any pizza or greasy fast food. It’s a specific urge for Domino’s thin crust. If she’s the one ordering, it will come topped with extra cheese or, if she’s in the mood for something more substantial, diced tomato, banana peppers, and sausage.

“It’s such a bizarrely delicious thing,” says Christensen, owner of AC Restaurants and a perennial mention in conversations about the South’s most talented chefs. She almost always orders it after wrapping up at the Triangle Wine & Food Experience in Raleigh, which is where a friend and regular first introduced her to the thin crust about six years ago. “It just kind of blew my mind.”

Her friend Jason Stanhope, the longtime executive chef of FIG in Charleston, South Carolina, and another one of the region’s undisputed best chefs, is often nearby when the urge hits.

“Within the food community, there’s a whole group of people who have a secret Domino’s handshake,” he explains. “I always order Domino’s pizza when there are great chefs or food people around.” 

Whenever former Southern Living food editor Jennifer V. Cole comes to Charleston, the two of them order Domino’s. All his chef friends love it, Stanhope insists. Like Christensen, he regularly orders it after a “fancy, high-dollar charity auction” or similar event.

In just about every way, Domino’s is the antithesis of these events, and the public perception of big-name chefs. Domino’s is accessible. It’s everywhere. Other than being American, it isn’t rooted in place. The plating is whatever you have on hand, and at times nonexistent.

And yet, on a Thursday night at 11:30 p.m., during this year’s Triangle Wine & Food Experience in February, Stanhope texts me a photo of three Domino’s pizza boxes spread on a massive kitchen island. Recognizable chefs from Houston and Chicago hold wine and cocktail glasses in the background.

Stanhope and Christensen embrace both the everyday and the elite in their personal lives, and over the years have brought those broad tastes into their restaurants. They wouldn’t mind if more civilian diners felt comfortable following suit.

“I think sometimes people are hesitant to love something that’s from a chain or isn’t local,” Stanhope says, “but the simple fact is: it’s delicious. Those chain restaurants are what they are for a reason. They’re consistent and they’re really good. I’m not eating Domino’s every night of the week, but when you have it, it feels like a nice little treat.” 

It’s In The Dough

Domino’s is not the only major pizza chain with a thin-crust pizza. Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, and Little Caesars all have their own takes. But Domino’s was first. 

Debuting in 1993, the Domino’s thin crust made it to market three years before Papa John’s launched its own, followed by Pizza Hut’s version called “The Edge.” Although contemporary news accounts don’t reveal why Domino’s wanted to shrink its crust, the nation was on an anti-carb tear following the 1992 publication of Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution. (Little Caesar’s didn’t chase the trend nationwide until 2018.)

But quality bears little relationship to primacy.

In 2018, acclaimed food writer and cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt conducted a taste test pitting Papa Johns’ and Domino’s thin crust against each other. He concluded that “While Papa John’s might be a bit more substantial, Domino’s simply tastes better,” because it wasn’t shouldered with the former’s sickly sweet tomato sauce. 

It’s not clear even Domino’s knows what makes its version superior. The company didn’t make someone available for an interview, but a spokesperson gave terse responses to questions submitted via email. 

Regarding what makes its thin crust so special, Domino’s senior director of communications Jenny Fouracre wrote: “Our thin crust is crispy, with toppings and cheese that go right to the edge and cut into squares for easier eating and sharing.”

The same could be said of a Little Caesars pie, and it was true of “The Edge,” which Pizza Hut discontinued in 1999 but brought back briefly in 2021. (It still offers a “Thin ’N Crispy” crust, but it isn’t the same tavern-style, rectangular-cut pie.) 

Domino’s might want to steal the praises sung by the likes of Christensen and Stanhope, for whom the competition doesn’t even register. 

“The dough, it’s almost like eating a super delicious pastry,” Christensen opines. “It has a laminated quality to it. It’s incredible how it holds up.” 

Stanhope, who says he doesn’t acknowledge that the company sells anything other than thin crust, cited the ratio of ingredients and texture of the crust.

“The dough is definitely leavened,” he says, “It’s got some lightness to it and is not as simple as a cracker. I like those weird corner pieces, and the rim-to-rim toppings. They’re not too cheesy. A lot of food is ruined [by excess].”

He’s right on the leavening—it’s one of the ingredients the company lists on its site, along with enriched flour, water, soybean oil, salt, corn starch, preservatives, and dough conditioner, a chemical compound to improve consistency. But this pizza is the counterpoint to artisanal, or the kind of refined slice both chefs have been known to sling.

Domino’s crust is made at one of just two facilities in the country, “one in the Midwest, the other on the East Coast,” according to the company, which wouldn’t elaborate on where. The recipe was developed in partnership with store owners in the St. Louis area, and thin crust sells best in the Midwest.

Not exactly local. And the opposite of farm-to-table or heritage-grain, just a couple terms that hang in the rarified air around chefs like these two. 

Until recently, Christensen operated a Neapolitan pizzeria in Raleigh called Poole’side Pies, shuttering it late last year to make space for an expansion of her flagship restaurant next door, Poole’s Diner. Stanhope has never made pizza professionally, but brags about an oven in his backyard and hosts gatherings called “Pizza Bar,” where friends swing by for “expensive Champagne and pepperoni pizza.”

That difference between what they serve and Domino’s is the essence of its allure. You don’t have to overthink it, Stanhope says. 

“It’s like the opposite of what we live and breathe,” he says. “Especially in the chef world, we scrutinize things to an unhealthy level, but I [also] want a sure thing to make me feel happy and safe.”

That must be why The Quinte, one of his new ventures, pitches itself as providing “crushable beers and hard-to-find Champagnes.” Similarly, Poole’s offers Southern staples such as pimento cheese, and mac and cheese done exceptionally well.

Edge Case 

Domino’s may be corporate, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that its product is consistent, satisfying, and deftly executed. The company declined to elaborate on its R&D process, but no doubt it involved the meticulousness we’ve been trained to associate with celebrity chefs.

“It’s not shocking that it’s delicious,” says Stanhope, who favors his with sausage and jalapeño. “It’s perfectly salty and fatty and crunchy.”

The highest praise for the pizza may be that neither of them does much to “chef it up.” Stanhope likes his with something bubbly, be it a beer, Champagne, or a cold Coke. Christensen will often combine some Hidden Valley ranch mix with buttermilk to drizzle or dip (a wise move given that Domino’s occasionally offers the inferior Ken’s ranch dressing with its deliveries).

“I am one of those rednecks that finds ranch dressing on pizza irresistible,” Christensen says.

Stanhope and Christensen have realized they don’t have to settle on a single identity. After banging out a meal priced higher than the average American’s monthly rent, they can stand around the kitchen island in a friend’s home, Domino’s thin crust in hands, feet in both worlds. 

Despite their outspoken embrace of the pizza, they’re a little more measured when speaking of other fast-food affairs.

Christensen can also be found dipping into a Jersey Mike’s for a quick sub with some regularity, but she mentions it’s just down the street from her home, as if hedging against judgment.

Stanhope admits he and a food writer friend share a surreptitious affinity for an occasional McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish. There’s less enthusiasm in his voice now, and maybe just a shade of shame (or defiant pride) as he explains the circumstances—generally a long drive when nothing else is available.

Without chef consensus behind it, the sandwich remains a true taboo. The two text each other photos of their orders and “never speak of it again.”

Eric Ginsburg is a Raleigh-based food writer. He previously worked as an editor at several alternative weekly newspapers and has written for Bon Appétit, Serious Eats, Wine Enthusiast, VICE, Southern Living, and many other publications.