Cheap Eats - Elwood’s mirrors a certain Fellini’s-esque quality

I’d heard rumors about the uncannily familiar qualities of Elwood’s Pizza in Brookhaven. The artsy-kitschy interior of Elwood’s doesn’t belie its inspiration, though. Bright red and yellow walls are offset by a mix of retro-inspired and “real art” (Rothko, Warhol, etc.) posters, bowling pins, and brightly striped booth cushions.

But devotees of Fellini’s will immediately notice a synchronicity in pizza offerings, salad descriptions, and the hand lettering of the wall menu itself. Owner/operator Alan Tyler readily admits that he branched out from the local chain to open his own place and brought some of what he learned with him. His additions and tweaks bring a freshness reflected in the layout and decor.

Apparition: Elwood’s offers exactly the house salad ($3.75) I was expecting, which is why after dipping a few leaves of romaine into the creamy Italian dressing, I passed it off to others at the table. It was fine but not part of my eating mission. For salad heads, they also offer a Caesar salad ($3.75) and pizza-dough-turned-breadsticks ($3) as starters.

Variety Lights: The beauty of pizza by the slice is that you can satisfy divergent tastes with little argument. We quickly settled on slices of spinach and mushroom ($3), white ($3), Hawaiian ($3), and Canadian bacon ($1.70 for standard cheese slice, 50 cents per topping) to supplements our whole pie order. The mushrooms on the spinach and mushroom were particularly flavorful. The slice of “white pizza,” however, is actually a slice of regular cheese pizza with an extra portion of ricotta and oregano baked on top. The sauce on all of the slices was sharply tart and tasted strongly of dried oregano and basil, leaving me apprehensive about the entire pizza that was forthcoming.

8 1/2 (slices, at least): If you bring enough folks to share, one of Elwood’s oversized whole pizzas is the way to go. The large ($12) with meatballs ($1.50 per topping) arrived at the table shortly after our array of slices had begun to disappear. The pie was fresh-from-the-oven hot, forcing us to chase the sliding cheese and meatball bits back onto our servings. The whole crust was more uniformly crispy and yeasty than the individually ordered slices. The sauce on the whole pizza also seemed less astringent than on the slices — though perhaps I just enjoyed its contrast with the generous portion of beefy meatballs.

Sweet Charity: We stayed until closing time and they were stacking IKEA chairs around, but Elwood’s servers never tried to push us out the door with stares or comments. Despite the company of four college basketball players, who I assumed would be a match for any surfeit, we nonetheless needed a box to take a few leftovers with us.