Eleven Lives

Like the seams of a well tailored shirt or the plumb lines of a door jam, the pizza at Eleven is unremarkable. Their pies are thin crusted, sauces tangy and balanced, their locally sourced toppings can be playful and provocative(Anchovy lemon or Hawaiian). Pack all this into a funky old Bolinas home with a vaguely punk-feminist, causal-upscale aesthetic and the new restaurant glides effortlessly into a slot carved out for Cali-politano pizzerias. If you can snag a weekend reservation or find time for a night out on a low key Thursday, go and eat the pizza with friends. Imbibe in a few selections from the jewelry box list of 'natural' wines. If you're the foodie type, you will notice the little touches like fried capers or the refreshing bite of lemon zest in the sauce for the anchovy pizza. You might comment on how the chili flakes are more mortar and pestled than flaked. Are they house smoked? Is that slight brininess in the cheese from a blend of fontina and mozzarella? Ultimately though, your critical mind will relax. You will raise your voices over the hip hop music and rambunctious children. You will raise a slice to your mouth. You will not think about how the cheese has cooled, about pizza as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life. You will eat, drink and be merry. Eleven hits all the marks of a hip, California pizzeria exactly as we expect it to and in this way, it is unremarkable. But don't discount it for this. When one day the door doesn't quite close, the shirt bunches at the armpit, when the thin crusts, nicely scorched and sauced are gone, we will realize what we had taken for granted and we will be sad.