Apizza Doho — Restaurant in Dana Point

If you've been looking up the same pizza joints I have, you might have seen a review from me. I'm on my search for Orange County's best pizza. In my previous review, I thought I'd found it....then I went to aPizza Doho.

Simple start, the service. Exceptionally friendly (and upbeat) staff. The manager was a very friendly guy, our server was wonderful, and the owner came in while we were there. Had the chance to talk to him for a few minutes on the way out, great guy also. Got to learn a bit of his story and the shaping of the identity of this restaurant. Happy to have supported his establishment. Service and ownership couldn't have been better.

When I go to a place for the first time, I always order a cheese pizza (here, The Original) as the baseline test. What they brought out was the most beautiful pie I've ever seen, and one that tasted as good as it looked. The crust was outrageous...thin undercarriage but enough support, great undercarriage, nice crisp on the crust with amazing chew, and a perfect char. Best crust I've had, I believe. The sauce was fresh and bright, clearly a very high quality sauce brimming with flavor. The cheese was the perfect amount and incredibly delicious. Pleasing cheese pull when removing slices when it came out piping hot and fresh. There was very, very finely chopped basil on top which I loved---I like the basil flavor on a pizza, but hate biting into a leaf a la Margherita style. It was a great touch. The freshly grated pecorino romano on top was the perfect finishing note. Truly no notes on this pizza, it was amazing in every way. We (2 people) finished this pizza quite easily. While I'm not a skinny man, and while I do eat a lot of pizza, I never house half of a pizza in a sitting at a restaurant. I couldn't stop.

More amazingly, after eating half of a decent sized pizza, I did not feel physically bad at all. The pizza was not really greasy, and given how much I ate, really felt clean. Likely a result of fresh, high quality ingredients that you can really taste. These ingredients also provide an incredible burst of flavor with every bite.

The price---for The Original, it was $19. In my opinion, that's a fantastic value. That's a very common price for good pizza, and it's often more. When I eat out, I always consider flavor to cost ratio. For a long time, I had In-N-Out at the top. Sure, there are better burgers out there, but there isn't a better burger for the price. Best tasting food you could get in relation to it's cost. That throne now belongs to aPizza Doho. In this case though, I'm not convinced there are better pizzas out there in OC, and there's no pizza close to this near this price. Basically $2 a slice for 8 slices of heaven. How can you beat that?

The atmosphere might be the only thing I'm not over the moon about. The location is fine...it's off a busy part of PCH in Dana Point, and there isn't a ton of parking, but we had no issue on this Friday afternoon. The inside was very nice. No real criticism, but for me I enjoy pizza places that are a little more "basic" or old-school in aesthetic. I love the feel of an classic family pizza joint. Given the area, a more upscale interior admittedly does make sense and they did a great job with it.

I still have a few of the more highly rated and more interesting looking pizza restaurants to go on my journey, but I greatly fear I've already hit the peak with aPizza Doho. Admittedly I've not been to New Haven (the beautiful style of pizza this is) to compare in that way, but I've literally eaten World Championship award winning pizza, eat a lot of tremendous pizza in general, and I'm 95% certain today I ate the best pizza I've had in my life. Certainly it's the best I've eaten in Orange County to date (and there are a surprising amount of GREAT spots), and I don't believe it will be beaten. Perhaps in a pizza mecca like New Haven there is better, but I highly doubt it here on the west coast.

I could go on forever, but I don't think you'll find a better pie in Orange County. Thank you aPizza Doho for a...

This is a very good spot. Went in for the first time after hearing about it from some friends and finally got to try it and left beyond satisfied. The service was great, I went in during lunch hour and was greeted and sat by Andrew who was also our server, as well as Marcos who is one of the founders. Both great people and delivered one of the best guest experiences I have ever had. As a server I enjoy seeing what great things can come out of people and places like this. I came with a friend and my big appetite so we ordered the arancini, Cesar salad, and the hwy 1 pizza and they all had GREAT taste. Starting with the Cesar Salad, the dressing wasn’t as creamy or heavy like you would get in other places and just tossed perfectly, the lettuce looked fresh and Andrew did the traditional table side pepper sprinkling which I believe having that in any restaurant means they don’t mess around when it comes to giving great service. I also used to be a pantry a chef so I will say this salad beats all the Cesar Salads I’ve ever made in my whole career with its taste and visual. Right after was the arancini, who ordered meatballs? This is still new to me but it tasted so good too and a great starter to share, also if you’re vegetarian(not vegan)this would be a great alternative I’m sure there are also vegan options I didn’t fully pay attention to the menu since I was skimming through it but knowing one of my friends who has a dairy allergy has eaten here before I’m sure this place will go above and beyond to meet your needs! And finally the Hwy. 1 pizza came out fresh from the oven, Every topping looked very fresh. I don’t know what secrets other pizza places hold but this place isn’t hiding anything from you and the pizza says it all. You can see the chefs making your pizza from your table and it came out pretty quickly. The aromatics from the sauce mixed very well with the vegetables, I want to say it was the caramelized onions that created the explosion of flavor in my taste buds but maybe it was just everything. Not only did I leave with a full stomach but also a full heart. No those aren’t heart palpitations it’s really cupids arrow telling you this is the pizza and this...

Phenomenal Customer Service and Food! This was our first time to Apizza Doho. My wife had heard good things about it so we decided to go try it out. The moment we walked in, we were greeted by the owner (Marcos). He was extremely friendly and seated us right away. We then were approached by our server (Joel) with a friendly demeanor. He took our drink order and when he delivered our drinks, he did a fantastic job explaining most of the items offered on the menu. He quickly recommended some of the local customer favorites. So we settled on getting a “Simple Salad” and a ABeets pizza. Our friend ordered the food and did not realize that there was a Burrata option to add to this pizza. When the food arrived, the pizza was lacking the cheese. I told my friend that the Burrata cheese was an added option and that we had missed it. We then turned to Joel and asked if we could add the cheese on top of the Pizza. He briefly checked with Marcos. Knowing that this was our first time here, both Joel and Marcos wanted to ensure our 100% satisfaction and felt that putting the Burrata on top of the pizza and then throwing it back in the oven would not deliver the quality they are use to achieving. Marcos quickly said for us to not worry and that he would provide us with a new pizza with the Burrata cheese at no charge to us. We told him that this gesture was very kind and it was not necessary, especially when it was our mistake, not his. He insisted and he proceeded to deliver a brand new pizza, no charge, no to ensure we were 100% satisfied. This was one of the best customer service experiences we ever had at a restaurant. Kudos to Marcos and the entire staff for going the extra mile to ensure that their customers are 100% satisfied with their food and experience. This is so rare to see nowadays in the restaurant business. Thank you so much for providing us with such a great dine-in experience at your restaurant. We are raving about you already with our friends and family. We will...