If the vast menu at his new restaurant Napa Woodfired Pizzeria is any indicator, Chef Brandon Wiggins clearly thinks big. Nearly overwhelming, the menu offers 34 different pizzas (plus the option of creating one of your own from 46 different ingredients), 20 appetizers, 14 sandwiches, eight salads, and a calzone that is roughly the size of a rugby ball (but much, much tastier). For an indecisive diner like me, it's torture. What if, by ordering one thing, I'm missing out on something equally wonderful - or even better? The good news is that you could pick at random, find something good to eat, and still have nearly unlimited options for future visits.

Eating at Napa Woodfired invites comparison to Chef Wiggins' first restaurant, Slice of Napa in Victor. Slice is a small place, five or six tables plus several on the porch during good weather, crowded, convivial, and warmed by a mammoth wood-fired pizza oven. Napa Woodfired still has the oven, a huge stuccoed brick affair that consumes nearly a third of the floor space in Chef Wiggins' open-design kitchen. The new restaurant is airy and open, suffused with a mellow light, and furnished with roomy booths, a few tables, and a bar that will eventually offer beer and wine.

Those familiar with the menu at Slice of Napa will notice old favorites like pizzas and piadine (the chef's cross between a wrap and a pita sandwich), but rushing to the familiar would be a mistake: the appetizers are both interesting and varied. We started our first meal at Napa Woodfired with the Eduardo, the only "named" dish on the menu ($7). The chef named it after a friend who suggested the combination of sliced chorizo and figs, to which a balsamic glaze has been added along with mandarin oranges. The result is a study in the contrast between sweet and savory with the sweetness occasionally overwhelming the subtle flavors of the figs and the chorizo.

The mushroom quiche with gorgonzola ($5), a fine pastry crust filled with a dense, nearly black, and very flavorful combination of sweet-earthy gorgonzola, wild mushrooms, and fresh herbs (akin to the filling in stuffed mushrooms), was well-complemented by the balsamic glaze drizzled on the plate. Glazed sweet potatoes with mascarpone ($5) were equally good - a spicy, smoky glaze roasted onto potatoes topped with a generous dollop of mascarpone. Each bite had a shot of both heat and sweet creaminess to accompany the perfectly cooked sweet potatoes.

For my money, though, the best of the appetizers came over from Slice of Napa: Chef Wiggins' interpretation of chicken wings ($4). Instead of deep frying the wings, the chef skewers them, and then roasts them on a cast-iron griddle in the pizza oven. The resulting wings, served with barbecue and honey mustard sauces, taste very much like the best pan-fried chicken I've ever had (my late grandmother's). The crisp, slightly smoky skin cracks open, releasing a burst of steam and rich flavor that catapulted me back to gramma's house on Sunday afternoons.

The sandwich menu at Napa Woodfired is more extensive than at Slice, including both piadine and panini. Chef Wiggins' piadine are assembled on a folded pizza dough filled with everything from barbecued pork ($8) and roasted vegetables ($8) to the whimsically named "Greens, Eggs, and Ham" (arugula, egg, and black forest ham, $8). The beef brisket piadine ($9), which came out wonderfully gooey and oozing, was stuffed with tender slices of brisket, arugula, and cheddar cheese. Dipped in an exceptional red pepper ketchup, this made a tasty dinner entrée (and a very good lunch the next day). The panini ($8), cooked and flattened in a sandwich press (think of a waffle iron), were good but oddly less melted than the piadine: the cheese in both the turkey, bacon, and pesto panini (a smoky gouda), and in the black forest ham and cheddar Panini, was not quite melted enough to hold the sandwich together.

The real star at Napa Woodfired is pizza. Chef Wiggins tops his thin yet substantial crusts with familiar ingredients, but he also breaks into new territory with shaved steak, chicken sausage, caramelized onion, roasted red peppers, wild mushrooms, shrimp, chorizo, roasted squash, arugula, and a list of cheeses including feta, goat cheese, robiola, smoked gouda, and both smoked and fresh mozzarella. Combined with his own signature red sauce (a sweet and very intense sauce that will ruin you for any other), cream sauce, pesto, red wine reduction, garlic oil, and white truffle oil, the possible combinations are infinite and guaranteed to both surprise and delight. A small pie ($6-$11; large pies range $11-$20) is perfectly adequate to split between two people, and two smalls (as compared to one large) give you the opportunity to "double dip" when the ability to decide between two pies fails.

Napa Woodfired Pizzeria is still a very young restaurant and it's evident that it is still getting the kinks out of the system. On two occasions, appetizers arrived after the entrees had been served. Once the soups we ordered never arrived at all. And one of our servers was clearly at a loss when we asked her to put in an appetizer order and then come back for entrees in a bit (she checked back every two minutes until we finally ordered). These are issues that will likely resolve themselves with time, and certainly won't stop me from making Napa Woodfired my first call when I need a pizza fix.

Napa Woodfired Pizzeria

687 Moseley Road, Fairport (Perinton Hills Shipping Center)

223-5250

Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday noon-9 p.m.