Contrary to popular opinion, Los Angeles does indeed have pizza. However, like most of our other natural resources (water, air, starfuckers) much of our pizza is foul. Not being ones to let sleeping stereotypes lie, the extended Hot Knives family established our very own Team Pizza franchise so that we may, in fact, be the judge.

Up first is Echo Park, a sleepy, lakeside burg just north of Downtown that’s more known for its awesome tacos and gentrification than for its pizza pie. We stumbled upon some pretty mixed results, but we won’t jump to any wild conclusions about Los Angeles’ pizza scene based on the results. (For that we defer to an excellent example of gonzo pizza journalism.)

Last Sunday at 7:26 pm we placed the fateful calls to five pizza joints within a 5-mile radius of our mouths, including one national chain (Domino’s), one regional chain (La Pizza Loca), and three local spots (Hard Times, Pizza Buona and Masa). Pics are in order, top to bottom.

Hard Times

Our caller had a hard time getting them to even pick up; after 12 or 13 rings we decided Hard Times was disqualified. What kind of delivery pizza place doesn’t answer their phone?!

Domino’s

Immediately after dialing we realized we had forgotten to procure a scale that deals in ounces — to weigh the pizza — and made two futile trips to nearby pharmacies before returning to find the Domino’s delivery guy waiting at the door. He beat the estimated arrival time of 30 minutes by seven minutes. That didn’t save it from tasting like corporate America, however.

Thanks to its tasteless, rubber cheese and perfectly spaced burn marks (creepy!) we decided this pizza lacked character or depth. Though some of us liked the tanginess of the sauce, everyone agreed the texture of the dough was too soft and far too donut-like to be taken serious as dinner. Domino’s got a 3/10 for taste.

Meagan: No stretch in the cheese.
Aubrey: Isn’t Domino’s the one that does the…”
Evan: Republican political donations, bastards.
Aubrey: No, the cheese crusts.

La Pizza Loca

This L.A.-area chain, infamous for using Mexican queso fresco, was next to hit the doorbell, beating the projected 30 minutes by five.

During the unveiling this pie got a lot of ooh and ahhs for its grease-stained box (oohs in this case were negative, the ahhs positive). La Pizza Loca’s slice also got props for its shape: a beautiful, idyllic pointy triangle. In taste, it fared less well scoring a 5/10. While the marinara was too mild, the dairy level was off the charts. Besides the Mexican cheese, there was a mellow butter flavor released all over the palate. It also got higher points for its heavy use of crusty cornmeal on the bottom.

Alex: Proper crust, weak sauce.
Buss: Yummy, greasy, cheesy buttery.
Lake: Ehh, nothing memorable.

Pizza Buona

Pizza Buona almost didn’t make the list, some in the audience weren’t so keen on it’s we’ve-been-here-forever vibe. It’s around the corner at the busy intersection of Sunset and Alvarado in a triangular shaped space. In the end, their pie proved to be what we in the pizza judging business like to call the “Trojan Horse.”

The delivery guy, who showed up in a reasonable but not impressive 30 minutes, was definitely the most chill dude we saw that night. He caught us still wiping our fingers from the Domino’s slices so we had to explain what we were up to. His pizza, on the other hand, was intense. The slices were hard to cut due to temperature and cheese overflow. In fact, few of us could keep the cheese on the slice. The crust was both praised and denounced for being “chewy” and it got the winning (but still sad) 5.5/10.

Lake: Good with Frank’s hot sauce
Evan: Hard to serve.
Aubrey: Melts in your hand, which is a problem.

Masa

This neighborhood hot spot is a stone’s throw from the house and yet the guy on the phone estimated a good one and a half hours for delivery. When the co-owner, a grizzly pizza veteran who was muttering about famous pizza men from Chicago, showed up himself, he got massive points. He claimed to have tossed our dough too.

Too bad for him his shit flopped. Masa is well known for their Chicago-meets-Chicano deep-dish pie. But we had to test their normal cheese pizza. The guy on the phone almost refused to let us order it, and the co-owner was extremely defensive about it. We even had to order two pies because they don’t make the regular in anything but medium.

On top of these shenanigans, the pie was pathetic. The crust looked more like something you eat during Passover and the sauce was nonexistent. The chef had thrown some basil leaves on top as if to fool the judges. The cheese was OK but it tasted like a quesadilla earning a 2.5/10 rating.

Aubrey: Dough guy — so nice!!!
Buss: It is like a pastry.
Alex: CPK, man…CPK.

Conclusion

Although Echo Park hosts a number of outposts famous for New York-style and Chicago-style pizza, many of them don’t deliver and those that do couldn’t cut it with straight cheese pizza. In the end, we can recommend both La Pizza Loca and Pizza Buona, but none of us feel stoked on them.

Although all testing was conducted using plain cheese pizzas, we didn’t want to leave it to chance so we also whipped up some designer toppings to throw on our extra slices: Truffled black olive tapanade, Sage salt shitakes, Garlic tomato salad, “Meat” lovers trio. In terms of cost and authenticity, we firmly believe in the method of delivery-meets-cooking we call “Toppas.” All those recipes, which will post soon over at Hot Knives, can be made in less than 23 minutes, so you’re sure beat even the best delivery boy.