Marinara Pizza — Restaurant in New York

Question: How badly do you want pizza when you're keto? If you answered "badly!" this is your place... As a newyorker religiously committed to the Keto low-carb lifestyle (nearly 8 years now) being in the city of Pizza, Bagels and Cheesecake can be daunting. As much as I enjoy the benefits of my salad, vegi, unprocessed protein lifestyle, the occasional hankering for a decedent slice is daunting and inescapable. True; there are many fathead recipes to answer the calling at home, but let's be honest, it's just not the same as pie from Pizza show with a real oven... Which brings us back here to Marinara. I googled low-carb pizza options in NYC and happily found this place was a short 20 walk across the city from Chelsea. Keto diners should be advised that Marinara DOES use sugar in their tomato sauce to a regular pizza offering is not an option here. I've had several of these cauliflower based crust pizzas in various institutions now and I can say unequivocally the best I've had of them. Typically the pizza crews have difficulty dealing with the pre-made frozen cauliflower crusts, they can come out soggy and a mess. My workaround is to always ask for them to make sure it is well-done/crispy on the bottom. While I did ask for that here, the team seemed to already know to do this. Perhaps it was merely my direction, selection of toppings and TLC or simply that this team makes a phenomenal pizza, but the net result was simply perfection! I ordered the cauliflower crust pizza (only a full 9" pie is available for this) with sliced tomatoes, sausage and mushrooms, garnished with fresh basil. Upon service I took the pie to the condiment station, seasoning with Italian herb mix, a quick swig/swirl of olive oil, some black pepper, a little salt and heavy covering of Parmesan (really Romano) throughout (the above are critical because we're dealing with unseasoned tomatoes which release a lot of water moisture with the seasoning especially the Parmesan you can get a watery bland mess). All and all, let me tell you something my dear beautiful Keto family: This was amazing! crispy, cheesy, tomato-ey, herbaceous pizza bliss (for a keto person at least) yes, I know tomatoes aren't really keto friendly and yes I know eating the whole pie certainly puts you over your daily carb allowance. But friends if you're in NY, you're keto and you're craving pizza... There's simply better than what I just described above; trust me your fathead recipe at home can't touch it! So at $37 this isn't something I'd recommend doing weekly and of course it's not the ideal keto friendly meal. For that my advice is, bring a keto friend A) you'll consume 1/2 the carbs B) a whole pie is a little much for 1 C) $18.50 per personal is a hella a lot better than $37. I my case I brought a Junior's sugar free "little guy" cheesecake with me; I was in utter NY keto heaven! 😉...

I placed an online order, which noted it would be ready within about 30min., but got there and still had to wait longer. I was doing a favor for my mgr by grabbing him two Margherita slices and for myself, opted for Spicy Rigatoni and paid for the addition of 2 meatballs w/ fresh basil- perhaps it was my fault, but the pasta was HORRIBLE and perhaps it's my fault, since it's a pizza place and not an authentic Italian place, but I figured, pizza is good, let me give it a try-- BIG MISTAKE, as there wasn't any flavor, just bland and not a lick of spice and the meatballs were horrible- almost like some mystery meat.. uggh! IT came with garlic knots that tasted like it was baked days ago, just stale tasting. Very disappointed, given the price point for some overboiled/ bland pasta dish.. I'll stick...

My order wasn’t ready when I arrived, I had to wait an extra 30 minutes in the store and they kept saying they were waiting on one item. I finally got the order then they called me after I left saying I left without paying. I told them I paid through the app and they demanded I give them my credit card over the phone. The woman who called me was extremely aggressive which was weird because I was the one who had just been waiting for 30 minutes.

I finally ate the food and everything was cold, the pizza toppings were obviously just thrown on to an already existed, old cheese pizza.

Terrible employees, terrible ordering system,...