Pizza Restaurants: Los Angeles

Who has the best pizza in the country? Is it Chicago, with their deep-dish calorie-bombs? Is it New York, with their monster-sized foldable slices? Or could it be…gasp!…Southern California with some innovative creations to rival the two better-known heavyweights back East? If you’re looking for the best restaurants, Los Angeles, there’s sure plenty of top contenders in the Mexican category. We’re here to notify you of some dang fine pizza spots worth trying as well.

Our first recommendation is chef Daniele Uditi’s Pizzana, in Brentwood. The combination of a wood-fired oven and the naturally fermented dough is hard to beat, creating chewy, exquisitely charred rounds that are large enough to be shared, but if you’ve brought your appetite, you may just be able to polish one off all by yourself. The neo-Margherita is a good place to start, but if you’re feeling a little more adventurous, opt for the Messicana, with chorizo, cilantro lime sauce, queso fresco, and jalapeno. Caliente!

Next up is Dough Box, on Eastern Avenue. A casual establishment that tips its cap to the Chicago deep-dish tradition, they recently started selling by the slice, but why would you want just one? The Soto mozzarella pie will get you started, but venturing into more rarified air, try the Figueroa, with pepperoni, onion, and cherry peppers. It may be considered poor form to eat pizza with a knife and fork, but with each slice from Dough Box oozing toppings, you’ll have no choice but to take up the utensils and go to work.

Last but not least is Pizzeria Mozza, on Highland Avenue. The crust of these Nancy Silverton creations is unique, puffy in the center, slightly crisp on the edges of each round. There’s plenty of antipasti to get you started, with the winner the bone marrow al forno. But we’re there for the pizza, after all, and our highest praise goes to a little number overloaded with bacon, Yukon gold potatoes, egg, fontina, cippolini onions, and sottocenere. It’s savory, crunchy, chewy, and eminently satisfying. We don’t know if this is “true pizza” or “classic pizza,” but one thing that’s undeniable is that it’s delicious.

This list could easily have been five entries, or ten, but we’ve made our point. You can’t ignore the West Coast as a new pizza frontier, and with dining destinations like these, visitors to Southern California are bound to agree with that assessment.