February is a weird time to visit Misquamicut. The parking lots are empty, the surf shops are dark,…read moreand the ocean wind comes off the water like it has a personal grudge. But that's exactly when Jeff Fleming decided to open his new pizza place.
The CornerStone Pizza Co., on the corner of Winnapaug Road and Atlantic Avenue, is where the locals know Gino's by the Beach. The Gino's sign is still up outside, and Fleming will tell you straight out it's because it's February and he has other things to worry about. The inside, though, is already fully CornerStone. Pressed tin ceilings, black check tablecloths on every table, a full bar tucked in the back, a row of booths along the windowed side. There are black and white photos on the walls and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cutout near the booths that nobody has explained to me yet but I've decided that I respect. There's a even lounge area with comfortable couches where you can just sit and decompress.
In a pizza place.
Somehow, it all feels completely right.
Standing there in February, with the ocean right outside those windows, snow still on the ground, you can see exactly what this place will become in July. The deck out back with water views, the bar humming, every zone of this sprawling room doing its job. Right now it's quiet and a little raw around the edges. That's not a criticism. That's just winter in Misquamicut.
This isn't a guy executing a business plan. This is a family doing the thing they know how to do. Fleming learned his craft at Ignazio's in Brooklyn. Thirty years ago. He runs CornerStone with his adult sons.
Fleming is also heading to the World Pizza Championships in March, in Las Vegas, where they hand you a specific set of parameters and your job is to hit every one of them while also being delicious.
As a result, he offers two cheese pizzas. One is the competition pie, tuned for Las Vegas. I had the Brooklyn style, and I am still thinking about it.
Cheese goes down first in Brooklyn style. Sauce on top. It sounds like a small thing until you eat it and realize it changes everything. The cheese melds into the crust and becomes part of the structure. The sauce stays fresh and alive on top. Fleming's sauce is tomatoes, hand crushed, not processed into anonymity, not buried under herbs and garlic to cover up mediocrity. The tomato flavor is right there, bright and honest. He lets them do all the work.
The crust is where thirty years shows up most clearly. Fleming bakes directly on the deck, no pan, nothing between the dough and the heat. What that means when you're eating it is this: the bottom develops real char, dark spots that add actual flavor rather than just looking dramatic, and the whole slice stands straight out when you hold it, ironing board flat, no droop, no fold. Crunchy on the bottom, chewy through the middle, light in a way that surprises you. A crust that only comes from someone who has been doing this right for a long time.
The pepperoni pizza is the same foundation with a pile of excellent pepperoni on top. I mean a serious pile. High grade product, edge to edge coverage, cupping slightly in the heat the way good pepperoni does. Every bite, exactly what you came for.
The pizza was only half the story tonight. This was also the inaugural RI: The Pizza State meetup at CornerStone, where three specialty pizzas were on the ballot to earn a permanent spot on the menu. The NE Clam Chowder pizza was creamy and rich with bacon and plenty of clams, a genuine beach town pizza if there ever was one. The Soupy pizza had sausage, banana peppers, roasted red peppers, and fresh herbs scattered across a white base. It tasted like something Fleming has been waiting to put on a menu for a while. But the Italian Combo won the vote, and it earned every ballot it got. A loaded base of meats with olives and roasted peppers, finished with a mountain of cold shredded lettuce and a hit of vinegar that made every bite feel like someone handed you a great Italian grinder and said have at it. That pizza now lives on the menu permanently as the official RI: The Pizza State pizza. A community of pizza lovers voted it there tonight. That doesn't happen every day.
Jeff Fleming opened CornerStone in the dead of winter in a beach town. The opportunity was there. He answered it. Come summer, when Misquamicut is humming and the deck is full and the ocean is right there doing its thing, this place is going to be a destination. Right now it's a secret. A delicious one.
