News story the Olympian
The Mark, mostly closed since March 2020, is back. Lisa Scott Owen’s 21-year-old restaurant, lounge and event venue is still stylish and still serving creative cocktails and authentic Italian cuisine, but instead of pasta, steak and fish, the only food on the menu is pizza. It’s not just any pizza, though. It’s pizza al taglio, a rectangular Roman street food with a crust that is lighter, crisper and more structured than the familiar round pie.
Owen bakes it herself, getting up at 6 each Thursday morning to start the long-rising dough. She serves four varieties at any one time in rotating flavors ranging from sweet blueberry and fig to tried-and-true pepperoni. Always an option is a topping-free variety; think focaccia but with a completely different texture. “I work 18 hours a day on Thursdays right now,” she told The Olympian. “I’m working behind the bar to help train staff and redesign the cocktail menu. It’s like opening a new restaurant, but it’s an old restaurant.”
The restaurant’s reinvention, an adaptation to COVID, isn’t as unlikely as it might sound. Owen spent a year in Italy in her early 20s and fell in love with the country, the language and, of course, the food. “Once you live in Italy, you only like the most beautiful things,” she said. “Your relationship to food is completely different.” In the time since COVID emerged, Owen has hosted a few tiny weddings at The Mark, gotten ordained so she can perform ceremonies, and redesigned the space behind the restaurant for use year-round. But like business owners everywhere, she struggled to find a way forward.
The idea for pizza came from friends Liz and Mike McConnell, who own O Sole Mio on Vashon Island. “They said, ‘Lisa, you have to do pizza,’ ” Owen said. “I realized they were right, and I dove right in.” She apprenticed with the McConnells and then used frequent-flier miles to head to Italy, a place she’s been visiting regularly for decades. During the pandemic, Romans reinvented pizza la taglia (which translates to “pizza by the cut,” since pizza makers cut off a rectangle for their customers). Once strictly street food, it became a sit-down restaurant meal.
“All these restaurants serving pizza and cocktails and wine had appeared in Rome during COVID,” Owen said. “It was a way to get out and have a chic experience outside with friends. I realized that this was what I should do, because COVID is still here, and we just don’t know how bad it’s going to get. People don’t go out as much as they did.” She’s being cautious, asking that customers eating indoors be vaccinated and wear masks when away from their tables. She’s also being cautious about finances, accepting only cash. (There’s an ATM in the restaurant.) But within the parameters of pizza, Owen is finding the fun. She’s continuing to refine her dough recipe with help from longtime friend Eugenio Aliotta, who owned the now- closed but still iconic downtown Italian restaurant Trinacria. She’s also getting creative with toppings — the fig and blueberry is one example — and incorporating the local ingredients she loves. Fresh corn and golden cherry tomatoes from Rising River Farm have been featured on recent pizzas. Her motto, she said: “Go small and stay open.” THE MARK Where: 407-409 Columbia St. SW, Olympia Hours: 6-11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday Details: 360-754-4414; http://themarkolympia.com
Read more at: https://www.theolympian.com/entertainment/restaurants/ article265473166.html#storylink=cpy
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