Craving a wood-fire pizza? New Beaufort eatery has you covered

Lantz Price walked through his newest Beaufort restaurant Monday, noting how its history played into the design.

A merchant built the Saltus building on Bay Street in the late 1700s and Price has now built two restaurants within its walls. The latest is Hearth Wood Fired Pizza, which opened last week at 802 Bay St. and, as the name suggests, features as its centerpiece a large pizza oven where customers watch as their pies are shoveled in and out.

Just inside the front entrance are small tables and a large bar area, followed by community tables with a live-wood edge below flat-screen televisions. And then another bar offers a front-row seat to the action at the Marra Forni oven.

Banquette seating along the wall opposite the oven features counter-height views of the cooking. And the back of the restaurant opens into a traditional dining area, with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side and high ceilings with steel beams leftover from the former Belk-Simpson department store.

“I wanted to make a room that was something to behold,” Price said.

Local touches are part of the decor.

Scenes from artist Louis Bruce hang on the wall with surfboards contributed by Price’s friends. The wall behind the oven designed to look like logs stacked to the ceiling was crafted with wood largely salvaged from Hurricane Matthew.

Price build the black walnut tables.

The restaurant held a soft opening last week and this week is open from Thursday through Sunday for dinner from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. and the bar until late night. After that, it will be open Wednesday through Sundays until staff is in place, Price said.

Hearth will eventually be open seven days a week and in the fall will open for lunch. Price hopes to eventually serve pizza until midnight.

His executive chef, Brian Waters, is also the chef of Saltus River Grill, the fine dining steak and seafood option in the same building that opens into Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.

In addition to the pizza, the new spot also makes its pasta and bread from scratch.

Price opened Plums in 1995 and Saltus in 2003. He also started Common Ground, the coffee shop that abuts Plums on the Beaufort River.

Hearth joins other wood-fire pizza options in Beaufort, but Price said his only concern is that he’s offering something different from his other restaurants. He thinks Hearth can contribute — with nearby restaurants like Old Bull Tavern and Breakwater — to Beaufort becoming a regional food destination, drawing visitors from the likes of Charleston and Savannah.

“And it’s becoming that for sure,” Price said. “I feel really good about what this downtown area has become.”

This story was originally published August 14, 2017 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Craving a wood-fire pizza? New Beaufort eatery has you covered."