You won't find the word "pitruco" in any Italian dictionary. As the name of the month-old mobile pizza operation patrolling Drexel, LOVE Park and various fall festivals, "It's a portmanteau of Pizza Truck and Company," according to partner Nathan Winkler-Rhoades, who put his MIT post-doc on hold to launch this slice-slinging cart with childhood friend Jonah Fligelman and the Food Trust's Eric Hilkowitz. "We liked it because it sounded vaguely Italian, and our cooking is vaguely Italian. Or at least not staunchly traditional."

After a lovely lunch from Pitruco, I'm not so sure these self-styled mavericks are that untraditional. Sure, their dough's proprietary blend of flours (AP, pastry and a dash of whole wheat) eschews the traditional doppio zero d'Italiano. And yeah, the wood-burning oven in which their pizzas crisp and inflate is entombed in a trailer hitched to Fligelman's brand-wrapped F-150. But Pitruco's blistered, misshapen pies possess an honest sensibility that can only be described as staunchly Italian, in a very good way.

Winkler-Rhoades is a pizza obsesser — he persuaded his girlfriend's parents to let him build an oven in the garage of their home in the Boston 'burbs — and the fanatical attention to details shows in the toppings, like zesty sausage rolled into mini meatballs and studded to a béchamel base with mushrooms, sweet caramelized onions and shaved grated padano and pecorino. Blobs of whipped ricotta, smooth and milky sweet, join the eggplant pie after cooking to provide a refreshing temperature contrast. Gently warmed by the piping-hot pizza, the fresh cheese spreads like Cool Whip on warm toast. Even an on-the-fly twist on the classic Margherita seemed smart and instinctual, sliced tomato overlapping petals of Claudio's sopresatta and bufala mozzarella.

Pitruco impresses not only for its crisp-bottomed, puffy-rimmed pies, but also for where those pies are made: outside. Mother Nature fucks with dough like a catty older sister, putting it on par with a temperamental 2-year-old when it comes to fluctuations in humidity and temperature. It's hard enough to turn out consistently good pizza in a climate-controlled restaurant, let alone in a truck parked in full force of the elements.

Currently, Pitruco bakes six styles, augmented here and there by specials and one-offs, but the Center City work force and Drexel student body can expect antipasti and salads soon, plus truck-baked loaves of sourdough. Pizza, apparently, isn't the only thing the Pitruco boys can bake. Mother Nature, consider yourself warned.

(adam.erace@citypaper.net) (@adamerace)

Pitruco Pizza | pitrucopizza.com, twitter.com/pitrucopizza. At LOVE Park (16th Street and JFK Boulevard) Mon. and Wed., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; at 33rd and Arch streets Tue. and Thu., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4:30-7:30 p.m. Pizzas, $6.50-$9.