Dr. Ho's Humble Pie.

Overview

Drive south out of Crozet on Route 29 and Plank Road for about twenty minutes and the country opens up — pasture, woodlots, the occasional historic farmhouse, the rare gas station. Tucked in among them is a small clapboard restaurant calling itself The Alternative Pizza. That's Dr. Ho's Humble Pie, and it's been one of central Virginia's better pizzas — and odder dinner experiences — since the 1990s.

What to order

The pizza menu reads like a tour. The Bellissima is the must-order: a margherita base — fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil — but built up with peppery arugula, a sharp lemon vinaigrette, and thin shavings of sugar-cured country ham from Turner's Ham House. The combination is one of those orders that sounds chaotic on the menu and turns out to be the only thing you want to eat. Order it, share it, order another.

The Humble Pie is the house special; the Jack London is the meat-heavy counterpoint. The Buddha Pizza carries the vegetarian and vegan flag — marinated tofu, sautéed greens, a custom-built sauce — and is one of the genuinely good tofu-on-pie executions in central Virginia. If you arrive skeptical, the kitchen has handled skeptics before.

The dough is hand-tossed. The toppings come from local farms when local farms have them. Salads are credible side orders. The wine and beer list is small but well-curated, and the cocktail program is bigger than the building suggests.

The vibe

The room is small and wood-paneled, the lighting is amber, and most nights it's louder than you'd expect from a country pizzeria. A corner of the dining room serves as a music stage. The room runs unplugged shows regularly — local Charlottesville musicians, occasional national acts on tour, friends-of-the-house singer-songwriters. There's no separate ticket: the music happens above the dinner, and the dinner happens around the music. On a slower weeknight you'll get a duo playing whatever they want. On a busy Saturday you'll get a packed room and a real show.

The walls hold the kind of paintings and odd flea-market finds that a place earns over thirty years. There is no minimalist restraint. There is also no pretension.

Visiting

4916 Plank Road, North Garden VA 22959 — twenty minutes south of Crozet via Route 29 and Plank Road, just past the village of North Garden proper. Phone (434) 245-0000. Website drhoshumblepie.com.

Dinner-forward hours; the kitchen runs late on music nights and tends to wind down earlier on weeknights. The dining room is not large — reservations help on Friday and Saturday, especially around the music nights. There is a small patio for warm-weather nights.

Why it matters

Crozet's pizza identity is dominated by Crozet Pizza, and rightly so. But the area's pizza geography doesn't end at The Square. Sal's holds the New York corner from Old Trail; Crozet Pizza holds the historic American slice from downtown; Dr. Ho's holds something the others don't — the alternative-pizza-with-music room that doubles as a small live venue on a country road.

For Crozet residents heading south for dinner, it's the destination that turns a thirty-mile round trip into an evening rather than a meal. For visitors trying to map the regional food scene, it's the proof that Albemarle's pizza talent didn't all settle on Three Notch'd Road. And for anyone who's spent a weeknight listening to a local songwriter inside a small room over a wood-fired margherita with a Turner's ham finish, it's the place you keep going back to.

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