Justin Smillie's Slow Fires pizza pops up in Southold 

Closing time at the chic cafe-market Southold General is 4 p.m. but, through Thanksgiving, you’ll want to hang around after hours to sample the pizza stylings of Justin Smillie. His “Slow Fires” pies pop up from 3 to 9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.

Smillie has an impressive resume, leading kitchens in Manhattan and the East End (Il Buco Al Mare in Amagansett, Leon in Shelter Island, among others). For the past two summers, he has set up his mobile wood-burning pizza oven at Sunset Beach in Shelter Island, naming the operation after his cookbook, “Slow Fires: Mastering New Ways to Braise, Roast, and Grill” (Clarkson Potter, 2016). It was at Sunset Beach where he came to the attention of Jonathan Tibbet, Southold General’s owner. Now that summer’s seasonal sun has set on Sunset Beach, Tibbet wondered, would Smillie like to bring Slow Fires to Southold? Yes.

When he started his run last week, Smillie was using the restaurant's electric Pizza Master to put out some of the North Fork's best pies, but now he's set up his oven at the back of Einstein Square, the  little plaza that serves as the outdoor dining room for Southold General.

Smillie sees pizza as a blank canvas, an opportunity to put classic ingredients together in innovative new ways. “I am not a traditionalist at all,” he conceded. Nontraditional and also restless: He is changing up even his own long-held beliefs. His tomato sauce, for example, started out uncooked, as is traditional in Naples. Then he started simmering it, for depth of flavor. Now, he roasts shallow pans of it in the oven, and stirs the caramelized edges back into the sauce for even more flavor. “I’m always learning and unlearning,” he said.

That tomato sauce is used, sparingly, in his signature Margherita. It also provides a base for spicy pies made with pepperoni or ‘nduja (further spiced with a blend of pimenton, cumin and coriander) and on a borderline-blasphemous (but delicious) clam pie with mozzarella, salsa verde, wild garlic and Calabrian chili. Smoked Gouda, wilted chrysanthemum leaves and zhoug (a green Yemenite hot sauce) sing backup on his mushroom pie.

There’s also a cacio e pepe pie, a deconstructed caponata pie and a tart little number made with green tomatoes, labneh and feta. Prices range from $24 to $28 for individual pies.

These were, at least, the pies offered the first week. The menu changes with the season, the market and the chef’s whim. A longtime associate, Eugenio Plaja, helps with prep on the weekend but, otherwise, Smillie is lean, mean pizza-making machine. “I used to do up to 250 pies a day at Sunset Beach,” he said, “by myself.”

To accompany or follow your pizza, there’s also wine by the glass and Southold General’s homemade gelato.

54180 Main Rd., Southold, 631-458-1275, southoldgeneral.com. Open Thursday-Sunday 3-9 p.m. through Thanksgiving.