Los Angeles, CA (The Joy of Food) — If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be an ultra-rich asshole living in Brentwood hidden behind 10-foot privacy hedges that wrap every inch of your house, you can get an idea by sitting in Pizzana’s patio for lunch. It doesn’t get more L.A. than this storefront on San Vicente: a narrow entryway with a patio next to it blocked by a giant shrub.
Pizzana is chef Daniele Uditi’s homage to a redefined Neapolitan pizza tradition in a city that is no stranger to reinvention. For chef Daniele, cacio e pepe is a pizza. So is amatriciana. A foodie minimalist like me could learn a thing or two and live a little.
It’s a classic rags-to-riches story that began with the Italian-born bread-baker chef and his brother living in a van down by the river — in L.A. that would be Venice Beach — and finding himself an artisanal pizza chef to the stars. Famous friends like Candace and Charles Nelson and Chris O’Donnell are co-owners. A rave review by Jonathan Gold put Pizzana on the map, and a Bib Gourmand a few years later sealed the deal.
The Neo Margherita pizza is the basic margherita amplified and reborn, a pizza that features the ‘standard’ margherita ingredients, each redone to impart and stress different flavors. If there’s one pizza chef Daniele is known for, it would be this one.
The sauce is a polpa, or pulp, a mixture of San Marzano tomatoes, salt, and thyme that’s cooked down for several hours into a concentrate, then introduced as thick dollops on the pie. The newly reduced mixture is smoky and takes on earthy, hearty undertones, different than the sweet note you’re bound to hit with fresh San Marzano sauce.
To solve the ‘there’s not enough basil’ problem, chef Daniele introduces the basil crumb, an herby dust that’s sprinkled over the pizza after it comes out of the oven. It’s the most original element, yet one that’s muted and disappoints in its lack of intensity, ironically.
The fior di latte (cow’s milk mozzarella), though sourced from Italy and flown in several times a week, is tasteless, as it tends to be. The pizza is topped with plenty of this and finished off with parmigiano. For suitable milkiness and creaminess, only buffalo mozzarella will do.
The crust on the pizza is bubbly and golden, crispy and chewy like a fresh baguette and not greasy at all, thanks to no oil being added. The pizzas are served on perforated platforms that allow the steam to escape and not soften the dough. The crust is weightless yet sturdy enough to support the amalgam on top. Bread makers make superb pizza chefs.
Pizzana’s blue-domed wood-burning oven features special stones made from the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius. Is this a pizza oven or a Marvel superhero? Everywhere you look are glittering reminders of the Mediterranean Sea, bright blue and white tiles and high ceilings that, with little effort, seem to take the old and faraway and redefine it into something modern. This is where Neapolitan pizza goes L.A.
Written by Joy
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Thanks! I wondered what life was like in Brentwood.
There’s also a location more eastward (West Hollywood) which is more central and probably a bit more laid back as well.
Possibly your most awesome opening paragraph yet. And the pizza looks great, too.
Ha ha it’s all I could think of while I stared at the business end of a shrub for an hour. If you watch the Chef Show (the Netflix series and not the movie) Roy Choi and Jon Favreau talk with the chef in one of the early episodes and they all make pizza.
If I’m ever in West Hollywood I’d definitely give them a try! Now I’m wondering what hoops (if any) they had to jump through to obtain stones from Mount Vesuvius for the wood burning oven. And why these stones? My curiosity is peaked.
Yes! It’s thought that the rich soil from Mount Vesuvius is what gives San Marzano tomatoes their special flavor – sweeter than most varieties. As per the name they are grown and harvested in San Marzano which is one of the little towns that surrounds the bottom of the volcano. Thus when it comes to Neapolitan pizza, the Vesuvius is very special!