Boise brothers went to N.Y. for pizza faculty. Their new restaurant serves ‘perfection.’
Jan. 15—Biting into a very hot slice of Neapolitan pizza pulled from his brother’s backyard brick oven, Carlos Duncan had a realization.

“I imagined, ‘This pizza is far better than everything I could obtain in any restaurant in Boise,’ ” he remembers. “It can be like, ‘Man, if I could have that each and every day … .’ “
That’s where the thought for 3 Wood Pizza & Pub, 10497 W. Lake Hazel Road, started.
But not in which it finished.
Just before Carlos, 49, and Richard, 51, opened their community hangout in late December, the duo traveled to Staten Island past summertime. They put in a week performing in New York’s 1st brick-oven pizzeria, Carlos Duncan claims. They learned Old Planet-type pizza-creating at — very well, he prefers not to say.
Far too a lot of beneficial secrets and techniques, he describes by cell phone. Their education came through the exact channel where they purchased 3 Wood’s “awesome, special brick oven from Italy,” Duncan states.
“You learn to make the dough, you understand to make the sauces,” he states. “Quite a few of the recipes. And some of the administration factors of it.”
Sold in 12-inch — and, finally, 16-inch — measurements, 3 Wood pies are all about the crust. And sauce. “The crust is a massive offer,” Duncan states. Dough is proofed for 3 days, as the cafe touts on its Fb web site. The sauce is hand-milled from vine-ripened plum tomatoes.
It is really not New York-design and style pizza that begs you to fold it. “It really is not like a Manhattan-fashion skinny crust where you go and you obtain your slice on the avenue,” Duncan states. “It really is a lot more like a vintage Brooklyn model. It has a wonderful, chewy bite with a crunch on the complete.
“It is genuinely light. That’s where we’re acquiring compliments — that and the sauce. But it is beginning with just an outstanding bread foundation and making from there.”
Duncan suggests the Pepperoni Lovers ($11.99), “so men and women can get a taste of that cup and char.” The pieces of sizzling, curling pepperoni build “pleasant bacon crisps all-around the edges in the oven.”
Okay, that or the Typical Margherita ($9.99), “which exhibits off every thing.”
“The margherita is ideal,” he suggests. “It displays off our design. We will not load it up with shredded cheese. We basically do a sliced cheese and enable it marry with the sauce on the pizza in the oven. Fewer is additional. Simplicity. It is really just simple perfection.”
3 Wood also sells sandwiches and salads. A meatball and marinara sandwich, or a basic Italian Godfather, each individual cost around $8.99 for a 6-incher. Increase a cup of soup for $2.50. The sandwiches are a “generous, significant” lunch, Duncan provides. “There is a great deal of protein on there to go away you contented.”
Oh, and in situation you have been thinking? Yes, there is gluten-absolutely free pizza on the menu, which arrives in a 10-inch sizing. And, certainly, there are 14 beers on faucet — quickly to be 18. “By the end of COVID, we hope to have all 24 running,” Duncan says. And, of course, takeout pizza is available.
But at 3,000 sq. toes, 3 Wood has an occupancy load of 148 people today. Of training course, which is when the coronavirus pandemic is about. The cafe also has a patio — launching, most very likely, in April, when the Duncans hope to hold an official grand opening celebration.
The Idaho brothers grew up in Twin Falls right before winding up in Boise. The day following he turned 19, Carlos started tending bar at Cafe Ole in Twin Falls, he says, just before embarking on a lifetime in the restaurant industry. Richard wound up with a career at Micron.
Now the brothers are jointly each working day at 3 Wooden, named right after the reality they both use a 3-wood off the tee in golf.
“Chefs? Head janitors? You title it. We are it. We are accomplishing all of it,” Carlos Duncan suggests. That involves transforming the southwest Boise house, previously a Garbanzo’s Pizza.
The brothers picked up their hammers in November 2019. And they recruited relations.
“I imply, Mom was in there, my nieces were being in below portray and accomplishing do the job. It was a labor of really like from the spouse and children,” Duncan suggests.
“And it can be stunning.”
