Pizza

Vegan Pizza Opens in Garden Grove

If Pizza & Chicken Love Letter wins the prize for the most fanciful pizzeria name, the new Vegan Pizza would win for the most no-nonsense. Vegan Pizza serves, you guessed it, vegan pizzas. It just opened in Garden Grove and claims to be the first vegan pizzeria in Orange County. As far as I know ... More >>

Michael's Pizzeria Bar Exam

Sit at the bar to watch your pizzas being made at its new location in downtown Long Beach

An Unsliced Bit of Italy in Fullerton: Fuoco Pizzeria Napoletana

"This place is the real deal," I said. My friend Angelo, who spent his formative years playing calcio in a dusty lot in Catanzaro, near the toe of the Italian boot, rolled his eyes."Everybody always says that," he grumbled, "and then I go and they're putting sausage and pepperoni on crappy focaccia ... More >>

Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana To Open In Crystal Cove

Mozza, Ortica, Il Dolce, meet your newest competitor. A new pizzeria by the name of Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana is planned for Crystal Cove Promenade in Newport Beach, and they're pretty much offering what every new pizza joint that isn't Pielogy and 800 Degrees is offering these days: pizz ... More >>

Michael's Pizzeria Opens In Downtown Long Beach

Michael's, which began as a very good fine dining Italian restaurant on Long Beach's Naples Island (and still is), is opening its third pizzeria today. This one is at Downtown Long Beach's Promenade. According to its Facebook, the mayor will be there for a ribbon cutting at 11:30 a.m.

Former Playground Sous-Chef To Open New Restaurant in Laguna Beach

Frank De Loach, Jason Quinn's sous chef at Playground, is striking out on his own.Come next week (the planned opening date is November 3), the man who spearheaded the six-course omakase and other projects at the ex-Lime Trucker's Santa Ana restaurant is opening a pizzeria and birreria called NEApoli ... More >>

Pepz Pizza Is a North County Secret

[Hole In the Wall] This North County chain is ready to go countywide

KFC Japan Starts Selling Deep-Fried Mashed Potato With Bacon In It

We probably need to start a new blog category for food items some branches of our homegrown fast-food brands are coming up with overseas. That hot-dog in a pizza crust at UK Pizza Huts was genius. McDonald's in Australia's lamb burger is an idea whose time has come.See also:McDonald's In China Sells ... More >>

Some Pig: Images From Pig Out 1.0

Cocktails, glorious cheese, fresh coconut water and swine served 15 different ways. Or as some of us called it, Sunday at Newport Dunes. While we bounced between cocktails and pork, occasionally we remembered to take a photo. Here's a taste of what stopped us in our tracks.Dee Nguyen's Break of Dawn ... More >>

Revisiting a Review: Pizzeria Ortica

It's been three years since I reviewed Pizzeria Ortica; two years since Chef Steve Samson left to start Sotto in LA. In that time a little place called Mozza opened in Newport Beach; Ecco debuted not far off at The Camp; and the irrepressible Il Dolce quietly did its thing near Triangle Square. Thou ... More >>

On the Line: Greg Pugliese of Pizza e Vino, Part Three

The second concept in the works was previously written up by Niyaz. Pizzeria Solo in Yorba Linda will feature 10 classic pizzas, plus a full kitchen to accommodate an extended menu of chicken, steak and fish entrees. We're crossing our fingers that both joints will launch by end of the year.Greg inf ... More >>

The New York Pizza Faktory Joins OC's Burgeoning Halal Scene

The thought of eating an oozingly delicious all-halal BBQ chicken pizza at another restaurant besides Anaheim's San Giovanni's Pizza seemed blasphemous at first, but the more (halal) pizza, the merrier, right? The New York Pizza Faktory has opened its second location in Tustin, after having well-est ... More >>

On the Line: Greg Pugliese of Pizza e Vino, Part One

Greg should be the unofficial city ambassador for San Clemente. Not only does he reside there and prefers the beach, but he enjoys dining close to home. And why not? Greg shares stories of his mom's insane cookie-making skills, and we discuss two more concepts the owner has in the works. More on tho ... More >>

Brizio Pizza in Lake Forest: The Oily, Saucy Pizza of Your Youth

For a neighborhood with a lot of chain restaurants, the area around the Lake Forest/Mission Viejo border has a lot of independent pizza places. Rubino's cheesy slices, with their bread stick-like crust, tend to be my favorite, but Big O To-Go, the two (totally-different) Cicero's and Biagio's all ma ... More >>

The Best Of Coachella: Friday, April 20, 2012

See also: *Our complete Coachella coverageThe first weekend of Coachella: cold, damp, and wet. The second weekend of Coachella: hot, sultry, and steamy. Here are our scribes' picks for the best of what they saw on Friday, April 20 at Coachella.

Pizza e Vino Owner Planning New Restaurant in North County

​When Steve Dickus opened Pizza e Vino a few years ago on Rancho Santa Margarita Lake, I wondered how he would stay in business. His Neapolitan pizzas are the best in South County, but opening a high-end pizzeria in the middle of a recession in one of O.C.'s most remote locales seemed crazy (Ortic ... More >>

Eating Good Mexican-American Food In... Greenwich Village?!

​I hate driving past signs advertising New York pizza. With a couple of very rare exceptions, it's almost never any good, but people have this einredenish--this self-imposed delusion--that places advertising New York pizza will actually be able to produce the chewy, slightly sour crust, the tangy ... More >>

Chow, Bella, at Ciao! Deli and Pizzeria

[Hole In the Wall] The Costa Mesa dive perfects Italian-American classics

10 Great Pizzerias In Orange County

​We'll start at the end of the mystery, like the film Memento: Why didn't I include your favorite in this list of 10 great pizzerias that we Weeklings love? Because that's what the comments section is for, dear reader. Without further delay, here are 10 great pizzerias in Orange County!

Five Shitty Corporate Ripoffs of Regional Food Favorites

ProfessorSalt.comWhat real bagels should look like​ You know what bugs me about chain restaurants? It's the way they co-opt the names of distant regional foods and market their shitty versions as the real thing to people in a different part of the world who don't know any different and grow up thi ... More >>

Mozza Offers Pizza By Batali

Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton's long-awaited Newport Beach outpost of their pizza hut finally opens

Pie-ology Has Pizza Possibilities

[Hole In the Wall] This Fullerton shop lets you customize your pie

[UPDATED, With Mini-Review!] Pizzeria Mozza Newport Beach Open Today. NOW!

ProfessorSalt.comMozza's Ipswich clam clam pizette​UPDATE: September 2, 4:15 pm. So after we broke the news of Mozza's opening late in the evening, we rushed over as soon as we could and fought our way to the hostess station to put in our name. Apparently lots of Newport locals were keeping watch ... More >>

Five Signs Of a Real New York Pizzeria

Flickr user nicksherman​If I had a dollar for every time I've been into a "New York Style" pizzeria and walked out amazed at how awful people are at interpreting the seminal food of my misspent youth, I'd be able to retire and never write another word again.It's amazing--people will attempt to clo ... More >>

Pizzeria Mozza's Newport Beach Branch to Open Next Week?

Mozza Facebook ​On Saturday afternoon, Joe Bastianich (business partner to Mario Batali and many, many restaurants) made an appearance at Hi-Time Wine Cellars to promote the soon-to-open Pizzeria Mozza. In addition, the shop held a special tasting featuring the family wineries of La Mozza and Bas ... More >>

A Slice of New York Pizza to Open Second Location

ProfessorSalt.comA Slice of NY Pizza's Seal Beach location​Huntington Harbour residents will soon have a new neighbor: Seal Beach's A Slice of New York Pizza will open its second location, next to Trader Joe's in the Huntington Harbour Mall. According to employee Eric Hodgin, the expected opening ... More >>

Pie-Ology Pizzeria: The Study Of Kustom Pizza

​If Costa Mesa is the county's epicenter for the noveau pizza movement best exemplified by Pizzeria Ortica, then North County is the land of the dinosaur joints, where places like Cortina's in Anaheim and Placentia's Tony's Little Italy haven't changed their pie recipe in decades, if ever. Fast-fo ... More >>

A New York Slice of Mind at Al's New York Café

[Hole In the Wall] Costa Mesa pizzeria offers a beautiful slice of the Big Apple

Killer Pizza, Part Two: Oven Technique

Photo by Flickr user Jeff Kubina​ In Part One, we talked about how to ferment a wet pizza dough recipe slowly in your refrigerator. This week, we'll talk about tips and tricks to shape that dough and turn your home oven into a reasonably good replica of a brick-lined deck oven like you'd find in ... More >>

Locally Grown Finale Featuring Reel Big Fish at the Grove of Anaheim

Meg Strouse/OC Weekly​Check out our Reel Big Fish slideshow here!Chase Long Beach, Starpool, Suburban Legends, Reel Big FishSeptember 18, 2010Grove of AnaheimThird-wave ska, that unapologetically goofy genre, was born and raised in Orange County. Turn on the radio in the mid-1990s, and there was n ... More >>

Taste of Downtown

East Village Arts District

Domino's Calls Out Papa John's

A while back, Papa John's claimed they used better ingredients in their pizzas than Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut sued them and won a judgment that Papa John's couldn't use the slogan "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza." because it falsely implied that the competition's ingredients were not fresh or wholesome ... More >>

Il Dolce Has Mastered the Sweet Art and Science of Pizza Making

Recipe of the Week: Talk Dirty to Me, Cookbook(blog)

Recipes can be so damn genteel sometimes, especially in the food porn-heavy cookbooks of recent years, where every egg is photographed as if from a golden goose and each step, each direction reeks of timidity. Batters are folded gently. Greens are dressed lightly. Soups are simmered slowly. Even Gor ... More >>

Il Dolce Pizzeria To Debut This Week In Costa Mesa

Craig Medici​Look out Pizzeria Ortica: another artisanal-style pizzeria cometh. Fellow chowhound and frequent tipster Craig Medici has clued me on a place which I've only heard about on paper. This one is called Il Dolce and looks to be a contender to be reckoned with. He writes: "I thought ... More >>

Best News EVER? LA's Mozza Might Be Coming to OC

​This really is the most exciting thing I've heard in a long time.According to the LA Times' Daily Dish, Mozza is considering expanding its brood into the OC. No word yet on whether we're talking Osteria or Pizzeria or--dare we even think it?--both.

[Hole in the Wall] Calzones Away at Buccaneer Pizza in Santa Ana

Dance Music Pick of the Week: Sultan at Code

​In the early '00s, after the hype of club culture peaked and many Johnny-come-latelys went home, a new generation of DJs and producers ascended. These younger men and women entered club-land for the right reasons--the music--and came armed with digital-production and social-networking skills that ... More >>

[Hole in the Wall] A Little Little Italy at Joey's Luparello's Pizza

Dangerously Good Desserts At Pizzeria Ortica

It's not often that hubby and I nearly come to blows over dessert (or anything else, I hasten to add), but we had a very close call during a recent meal at Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa. (For Edwin's review of the sleek eaterie, CLICK HERE).Our bellies already filled with pies, we thought we were be ... More >>

More Dining Bargains--Fashion Plates at South Coast Plaza

Seems like the OC can't get enough of dining and drinking deals these days, what with the recent Orange County Restaurant Week, upcoming Happy Hour Week and a ton of other random bargains and promos. Lucky us!This time it's the Fashion Plates event at SCP, a ten-day affair running from March 20 to 2 ... More >>

We Got David Myers' Pizzeria Ortica First. So, Suck It, LA!

His Way

Tribute to Sinatra

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Breaking Into the Upper Crust: New York's Upper Crust Pizza

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Pizza for Pesos: Chicago Pizza

Deep Dish Deliverance

Solving the horror of the pizza lunch with Tony’s Little Italy

Beach Cities Pizza

Moonlight Pizza and Chicken

This week in north North County

Love Your CountryEat American

A Guide to Orange Countys Best U.S. City Meals