PIZZERIA BIANCO
I’ve been eating Chris Bianco’s pizzas for half of my life, beginning in 1997 when the first Pizzeria Bianco had been operating in Phoenix for three years. Even then there was national excitement over the Bronx native — about the ways he was melding Neapolitan pizza traditions and New York know-how into something fresh. The Sonny Boy (a sausage pie covered in mozzarella he smoked over pecan wood) and the Rosa (red onion slivers as thin as a new moon, Parmesan, rosemary, crushed pistachios) taught many of us about the elegance of restraint. The ingredients never overshadowed the crisp, bready crust.
The arrival of Pizzeria Bianco in Los Angeles, its first location outside Arizona, has been long in coming. The massive Manufactory at Row DTLA — his previous, shortlived partnership with Tartine that included Bianco’s restaurant Alameda Supper Club — closed at the end of 2019 after 11 months. In June, he returned to the same complex to open Pizzeria Bianco.
Dinner service, which began at the end of August, focuses on Bianco’s classic menu of pizzas. As of this writing, the restaurant was operating only for lunch, during which the team was experimenting with slices in other pizza styles.
Options include wide, sturdy triangles painted with red sauce or, for a fun departure, spinachcream sauce, and standout Roman-type squares covered with a mix of mild and sharp cheeses and thin circles of Meyer lemon. They hint at Bianco’s greatness, but I’m betting Los Angeles will better understand what makes him a legend when the wood-burning oven lights up at night.
1320 E. 7th St., Los Angeles, (213) 372-5155, pizzeria bianco.com/los-angeles