It seems we may never reach peak pizza in California. In the past year alone, a dozen brilliant new pizza spots have opened in the Bay Area. Longtime favorites like Flour + Water, Che Fico, A16, and Piccino are spinning new shops. Fresh contenders like Outta Sight, Jules, and June’s in Oakland have been coming in hot. They’re joining Pizzeria da Laura and Rose Pizzeria in Berkeley, also slinging excellent pies in the past few years. 

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Pizzeria Sei is moving and expanding their cool omakase experience, while the square pizza and cake party rages on at Quarter Sheets. There’s an underground pizza scene with pop-ups like Lupa Cotta and Fiorelli Pizza roaming the city with mobile wood-fired ovens.

All across California, you can find exceptional pizza, from the sourdough pies at Bettina in Santa Barbara to the airy crusts of Truly Pizza in Orange County. 

Spread out your napkins and your facts, and on this we must agree. There is so much delicious pizza in California happening right now. But wait, would we call it California pizza? 

Unlike the regional pizzas of New York, New Haven, Chicago, and Detroit, California pizza feels the trickiest to define. There is a narrative traced back to Spago in the ‘80s, when Wolfgang Puck dazzled diners by putting smoked salmon on pizza. Chef Ed LaDou worked at Spago before creating the menu for California Pizza Kitchen, bringing barbecue chicken pizza to ‘90s kids across the country. As did 1990 F&W Best New Chef Nancy Silverton, who went on to develop her own iconically crunchy style at Pizzeria Mozza in the 2000s. 

To many people, California pizza can mean sourdough crusts and seasonal produce, a natural extension of our bread tradition, scattered irreverently with local artichokes and goat cheese (please see the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley, for one crisp example). Once on an airplane, a small child asked where I was from, and I proudly said San Francisco. “Do you really put broccoli on pizza there?” She had seen this in a Pixar film. “Of course!” I laughed, horrifying her. “It’s so delicious.”  

In San Francisco, Flour + Water Pizza Shop is opening in Mission Rock — the new mixed-use project/neighborhood — in a matter of weeks. And it kind of showcases the recent style evolution of pizza in the city.

The OG pasta temple Flour + Water opened 15 years ago at the height of the leopard-spotted Neapolitan craze, when it started with just one pizza a night, a sourdough crust ripped for 90 seconds in a 1000-degree woodfired oven. But today, now opening their third restaurant, chefs Thomas McNaughton and Ryan Pollnow have developed what they call an “American artisanal” hybrid style. 

The dough uses commercial yeast, but gets a slow cold ferment. They’re sourcing the most nostalgic mozzarella and pepperoni from the Midwest, but of course, topped with local and seasonal veggies. They’re baking in a deck oven for a leisurely six minutes, resulting in some of the crustiness of NYC and a hint of char like Naples, and near that slightly smaller Neapolitan size (13 inches).

While freewheeling flavor combos, like cacio e pepe tricked out with anchovies or arugula, “Hawaiian” capicola and pineapple drizzled down with chili crisp, and thinly shaved eggplant rendered meaty and smoky. “Pizza is literally this blank canvas of a food concept,” McNaughton says, and he believes California pizza has room for interpretation. “There’s a pizza boom here, but there’s not a common thread of one style being developed,” Pollnow agrees.   

Aaron Lindell of Quarter Sheets in LA may have grown up in Michigan, but he dances around calling his style “Detroit-ish.” He and his wife 2023 F&W Best New Chef Hannah Ziskin slung pizza out of their home during the pandemic, opened a mom-and-pop in Echo Park in 2022, and it’s still a pizza and cake party every night.

If you’re going to call something Detroit pizza, you’re messing with Midwest nostalgia, and have to tick certain boxes, Lindell insists. Okay, well what about California pizza? “This question keeps coming up. People want to talk about it,” Lindell says. He agrees we’re in the thick of a boom, “But it’s more nebulous than ever. I’m as confused as anyone.” 

He adds some sourdough to his dough, plus a sprinkle of whole wheat flour, bumping flavor and texture. He originally patted it into quarter sheets at home, although after a few minor oven fires, switched to deep Detroit pans, hitting crusty corners and cheese skirts. He also balances Midwest mozzarella and “cupping” pepperoni with California seasonal stunners.

The menu swaps every two weeks, so right now catch heirloom broccoli di Ciccio with housemade sausage, soon spring will bring all kinds of alliums (spring onions, green garlic, etc.), which inevitably leads to a summer obsession with Jimmy Nardellos. “Isn’t that the pepper of our time,” Lindell muses. 

Outta Sight recently opened their second slice shop in Chinatown in SF. The place is loosely known for NYC-style pizza, although it careens pretty quickly off the rails. “It’s thin and by the slice, and those are two pretty big defining factors for New York style,” acknowledges chef Eric Ehler. But he would in fact call it California pizza or more specifically “San Francisco-style pizza.”

“Everyone’s losing their old dogma,” Ehler explains. “I’m really happy about that, because it allows people to incorporate their cultures and backgrounds, rather than just doing pepperoni and sausage. We incorporate skateboarding, hip hop, anything that’s from the Bay Area, whatever we’re into.” 

They shape extra large pies (18 inches) to be thin and chewy, and slices get that second bake for a crisp bottom. They also toss together a mix of Midwest and Cali ingredients, and flavor combos go wild. There are Bay Area cravings like Peking duck, butter chicken, and corn cheese.

Sometimes they go gas station-style with ground taco meat and shredded cheese and lettuce, or occasionally they ball out with our beloved local Dungeness crab, lemon aioli, and excessive herbs. Either way, you can fold a slice while watching Scooby Doo cartoons and admiring the Ninja Turtle tchotchkes. 

I recently visited my littlest brother in Brooklyn, where we hit up an ultra cool pizza spot. We waited out the long line, studying a menu filled with meat. I ordered the one and only veggie-forward slice, a truffled mushroom situation. Then gasped when I spotted a pale white mushroom. “Not even cremini!” I muttered to myself. “Yo dude, you like it?” my brother asked. Everything else about this pizza was inarguably excellent. But respectfully — Cali could never.