Pizza Hut Becomes Pizza Haute At B.J. Novak’s Chain Pop-Up

Out of all the loving odes to chain-restaurant food that Hollywood multi-hyphenate B.J. Novak and chef Tim Hollingsworth’s Chain pop-up has created in Los Angeles, the latest drop might be the most nostalgia-inducing.

Welcome to Pizza Haute, an official collaboration with Pizza Hut that’s just been unveiled at Chain’s West Hollywood house. (You can text Chain at 323-310-4642 for a chance to reserve a spot at the Pizza Haute series on May 19, 20 and 24. And you can get updates on this and future drops on Chain’s Instagram account.)

Pizza Haute features three pan pizzas: the tri-tip supreme (with bacon fat and thyme-roasted confit potatoes along with steak), a classic pepperoni and a vegetarian supreme, alongside Chain’s ranch dressing and “everything pizza” seasoning blend. The dough is as fluffy, bready, squishy and buttery (to use just a few of the descriptors Hollingsworth offers) as all your Pizza Hut memories.

And it’s the result of an ardous R&D process from Hollingsworth and renowned dough doctor Noel Brohner (who’s helped esteemed chefs like Ori Menashe, Evan Funke, Jackson Kalb and Chad Colby develop recipes). Even the very specific, soft-but-chewy texture of the (cooked but not cooked too much) mushrooms at Pizza Haute might bring back memories.

Hollingsworth, who was born in Houston, has a formative Pizza Hut memory himself.

“I was like 5 years old, and there was a flash flood, and I got stuck inside a Pizza Hut for several hours until the flood went away,” he says. “One of my earliest food memories was of the smell of the pizza in that old traditional Pizza Hut building back in Houston. At Chain, it’s really about trying to recreate that.”

So Hollingsworth and Brohner (whose Slow Rise Pizza offers dough-making classes and restaurant consulting) perfected the fermentation process for the dough and then came up with a way to bake the dough twice: once with just cheese and sauce, and then the second time with the toppings. The elaborate process involves a Rational oven and a steel pan and then finishing the pizza with butter in the bottom of a cast-iron pan.

The result is a crispy caramelized crust that’s basically been fried in butter. (It’s a little bit like how the legendary Dom DeMarco, who passed away last year, would finish off his crust in olive oil at Brooklyn’s Di Fara Pizza.) Light, airy and ridiculously rich at the same time. It’s a pretty neat trick.

Besides being buttery, the Pizza Haute crust is cheesy on the edges.

“We want to make sure that the sauce comes around the side a little bit, and the cheese comes around the side to get that nice frico around the crust,” Hollingsworth says.

Meanwhile, the actual Texas-based Pizza Hut chain is creating its own kind of cheesy overload with a new cheesesteak pizza featuring grilled sirloin. This flavor combination is also available as a crispy handheld Pizza Hut Melt. Just like Hollingsworth’s food at Chain, Pizza Hut’s cheesesteak options are available only for a limited time.