Hail Mary Pizza — Restaurant in Los Angeles

In a nutshell: be prepared as it may be smokey from burning pizzas or something in their oven. Smoke is thick so if you have breathing problems be cautious. My throat still hurts, but I'm sensitive. staff is friendly and willing to help, just give them a chance. GET THE BASQUE CAKE!!! pricey, but might be because of quality ingredients. music is very loud, I would tone it down a bit. don't ask for your pizza ingredients on the side, you will be hit with a no. cozy comforting ambiance.

Details: First, gotta say immediately when I walked in the ambiance felt warm and comforting. Staff was very polite and willing to address any concerns I had. I'm giving 3 stars in hopes I can give 5 the second go around, my experience here wasn't the greatest for the first time, but they could just be having a bad day.

Unfortunately, it was very smokey today. Not sure if they were having just a bad day with burning pizzas or what, but the harsh smell of burnt smoke throughout the meal was very unappetizing. I arrived home still smelling of burnt smokey pizza.

I seem to have bad luck in restaurants, as staff is always forgetting my food. This place was no exception; I had to ask twice for my dessert at the end and our pizza was burnt the first go around so we had to wait longer to eat. The pizza also looked a little thrown together in a rush (I understand tho, it's a Saturday night), but very tasty. This place handles their pizza dough beautifully. I just wished my garbage pizza had a bit more substance and didn't look so thrown together. Funny saying that as it's called garbage pizza 😂. That being said, they gave us a cookie on the house for burning the first pizza and apologized.

Don't ask for stuff on the side, they won't do it. I asked for the onions on the pizza to be put on the side and they said "We are just going to hold them". I guess it messes with their work flow or something, they didn't give me a reason other than that no.

The basque cake is incredible! Never had it before, but it sure seemed worth the wait; be sure to try it! To give you an idea on price, we ordered 2 pizzas and a cake and no drinks which came to $47 with tip total. Definitely pricey, but you can tell they don't skimp on good...

Ordered a full Hail Mary Caesar salad and Margherita with jalapeños on half. Upon getting the salad, we noticed that there’s barely any dressing. You could say there’s a hint of dressing. Caesar salads don’t need much dressing to be distributed, but there was barely any on this and it’s apparent upon tasting. The cuts of the salad didn’t seem intentional - very large, uneven, and inconsistent cuts from what you can see in the photo. It’s the saddest bowl of lettuce priced at $17. There’s hardly any shards of parm and the croutons were disproportionate to the amount of lettuce. I gave up on eating it with a fork halfway through and just started picking up lettuce because that’s how difficult it was to eat. With the cuts in mind, these could’ve been just a whole leaf of lettuce for myself to personally cut. Man, it was just disappointing to put out something like this.

On the other hand, my friend and I were seeking thin pizza, and that’s what we got. The crust sufficed; a little more color would’ve been better. The sauce, I couldn’t care for really. The mozzarella stood out. The jalapeños were pickled and too vinegary that it was off-putting, unfortunately. Quite skimpy on them, too. A bit above subpar in taste. It helped my disparaged salad.

At the end of the meal, I wanted to let someone know about our salad situation, so we patiently waited to flag down someone. I’ve told the man about the weird cuts, the dressing that didn’t dress any lettuce, and just the distasteful state of this bowl of greens. Instead of receiving an empathetic and accommodating response, he decided to refute the obvious, and go, “Well, I see some dressing.” Sir, a slight sheen on pieces lettuce with some parm does not translate to proper dressing. If it was better inspected, you’d notice the cuts were inconsistent and hindered the distribution of sauce. I was dumbfounded, and as I was about to justify my complaint, my friend was over it. We just asked for a box and left.

Overall, 2 stars is forgiving. The bad service + subpar food does not justify the praise for this establishment. Also, now I’m $47 short over...

Happened to find myself on the east side of LA - I'm normally a westsider - so I thought I'd give this Atwater pizza place, located along the main drag in Atwater Village, a try. I placed an order for pickup that was ready in about 25-30 minutes. I ordered the Casanova pizza, which is topped with mushrooms, onion, arugula (kept on the side for takeout), mornay sauce (had to look up what this was - basically a bechamel with grated cheese), and ricotta, along with a side of meatballs. The pizza is large enough to share between two people (I ate three slices in one sitting, leaving the remaining three for a future meal), and the meatballs - which come in a group of three with a little pesto topping, copious red sauce, and some grilled bread - are dense enough to be filling as a mini appetizer. The flavors of everything was great, but the pizza crust is the real showstopper. I dipped them in the meatball sauce, which was 👌🏾. Masks are required for entry, and if you're dining in, proof of vaccination is also required. I picked up around 3:25pm on a Saturday (granted, it was the first day of the new year), and it wasn't crowded at all. There were plenty of open seats, and since I arrived a little early for pickup, I was able to wait inside at the main entrance without taking up too much space or disturbing the...