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CONTRIBUTED CONTENT — Onyx Cafe has a bold aim. They intend to sweep into a town that already has many established and favorited pizza chains and reinvent that most beloved of Italian pies. As if to add flourish to their ambition and throw down the gauntlet, the new restaurant has opened in what used to be a Pizza Hut, located near Costco in St. George.
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For Onyx Cafe chef Devon Roberts and his business partner and fellow chef, Zak Jensen, reinvention is a matter of working from classic American favorites and developing a new direction. Diners will recognize the bold strokes, but in the details are unconventional toppings like okra and chevre, or upgrades like calabrese instead of pepperoni.
“At Onyx, we truly build our recipes from the ground up,” Roberts said. “We make our own mozzarella, our own dough, all our own sauces. We cook our meat in-house. We make our own vintage sodas, chocolate drinks and gelato too.”
Roberts and Jensen also get experimental with foods other than pizza in their 800-degree wood-fired oven; imports like Welsh rarebit and entirely new inventions like the piega (think: calzone mixed with sandwich) are frequent visitors to the menu.
Onyx regular Pia Watson called the piega a “bomb of flavor.”
“The layers give it a pleasing texture, and it’s probably the most filling item they offer,” Watson said. “What I love about Onyx is that I can get things customized, like asking for my Mayan cacao to be more bitter when I am not craving sweet. Yet, there are surprises every time too, like the rotating flavors of gelato.”
Regardless of whether customers find their idea of pizza shifted, they are certain to encounter an artisan experience difficult to match in Southern Utah. As St. George continues its increasingly rapid growth with a myriad of franchise restaurants, Onyx Cafe believes “local is the delight du jour.”
“We want people to eat local and appreciate what is here in our community,” Roberts said.
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Resources
- Onyx Cafe | Address: 969 N. 3050 East, Suite C3, St. George | Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4-10 p.m. | Telephone: 435-218-9612 | Website.
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