Azar`s Gourmet Pizza — Restaurant in Newport Beach

We went on vacation 2 adults, 2 growing boy kids, 2 toddlers. Had one 18" pep pizza while we were waiting on the whale watching tour. It was a quick stop with little planning and little expectations but turned into the best pizza I ever had. I am ruined now as I dream about it and nothing else compares.. we tried a couple other places while on vacation as my family LOVES the ZAA but was too thick, too much cheese, or not enough cheese..... the crust at Azar's was super crispy, it was thin but not too thin that the toppings wouldn't hold. There was a lot of cheese, so much it dripped off the tips as we pulled the slices from the pie, it reminded my kids of teenage mutant ninja turtles however it didn't stick to my throat like many others... it was.., to put it simply, the best pizza I had in a long time..... it's been 6 days since I had this delicious Zaa and I know it will be many more since I live over 340 miles from here but every time we come back I will be right here!! I hope it will be here too, awaiting my return.. GO THERE!! So that I may once return.. with an empty belly ready...

Dirty, slow service even when they say 5 minutes I waited 12...just to catch the chef peeling carrots without gloves and eating them at the same time, no hand washing and he proceeded to cook my pizza slice. The other man, the cashier was so upset that I wanted my money back due to their poor health practices that I caught behind the counter. He looked at me with attitude and threw away the pizza, as he should because food shouldn't be dirty or made with haste. Luckily I went across the street and spent a little more money to get a pizza slice twice as big and twice as fast with the 1st most important quality in taste, freshness! Head over to New York...

I wasn’t happy with the taste of the pizza, and regretted it once I started eating it. It was nice that it was made fresh in a wood-fired oven. But the finished product’s taste was subpar. The cheese was not very flavorful, and tasted a little like plastic. It could have used a lot more of the red sauce to improve the sauce to cheese ratio. The bread of the pizza is very thick, but the crust tastes good on its own. I was anticipating an NYC style pizza, and that’s not what I got, so it wasn’t a pepperoni slice that I enjoyed very much. I didn’t get to try the NYC pizza around the corner, but I might try that one...