800 Degrees

Lazy post time! Well, not really. But I didn’t actually go to 800 Degrees, so I don’t really have as much to say about the place than an usual post. Eugenia and Linh-Nam were nice enough to bring back some pizzas from the new casual Neapolitan pizzeria in Westwood, from the guy who’s infecting the rest of the U.S. with Umami Burger. She had it the week earlier, and liked it enough to make a return trip.

I have to say, a Neapolitan pizza for as little as $6 is freakin’ amazing. You have places like Mozza that charge around $20 for one, and 800 Degrees dares to do it for under $10? Realistically, you’re going to spend around $10 for a pie, because you’re going to want some toppings. And 800 does have a wide variety of them, in seemingly decent quality. All of this makes the pizzas here great values (if you can bear the lines – although I heard they move very quickly). Really, $10 for this type of pizza is pretty damn impressive.

But how’s the pizza? I mean, if the sauce and (more importantly) the crust is bad, what’s the point? I requested the tartufo pizza, one of the per-assembled combinations they have on the menu. The bianca pie (white pie, no sauce) was very aromatic, due to the truffle oil. I’m not too big of a truffle oil advocate, since it’s chemically created, but the moderate use here worked pretty well. The sauce on the margherita was solid – not too sweet or salty. The crust didn’t really have much of a char. The dough still looked relatively white upon consumption. Also, the consistency was in between chewy and crunchy. A bit of an identity issue, but wasn’t bad.

Overall, the pizzas at 800 Degrees were good, but nowhere near the best Neapolitan pizzas in L.A. My current hierarchy is probably like this: Pizzeria Mozza > Stella Rossa >> Milo & Olive > Sotto > 800 Degrees. But what 800 Degrees does that no one else can do is bring Neapolitan to the masses. And I do appreciate it. Not going to go out of my way for these pies, but if I’m in Westwood, there’s nowhere else (besides In-N-Out) I’d rather be.