New & Noteworthy

Whole Foods Pizza

Whole Foods

Fifth & Lamar, 476-1206

Daily, 8am-9:30pm

I know it might be irritating and insulting for native Austinites to keep hearing the refrain from newcomers that "there isn't any decent pizza" in Austin. I'm sorry. Truly. I am a loyal Austinite, but you just have to trust me: They really make much better pizza on the East Coast. I sometimes wonder if there is a magic spell that dictates that wherever Mexican food is spectacular (like here), pizza cannot be, and vice versa. (Mexican food on the East Coast is so wretched that transplanted Texans usually just learn to make it at home.)

But we can't do that with pizza, because to make a really great pizza, you have to have a pizza oven. The kind you can fire up to nearly a thousand degrees. I don't have one of those in my kitchen, so I am forced to continue looking for acceptable pizza at local pizzerias.

In my search, I have discovered that the downtown Whole Foods, while not ideal, does make a nice pie. They have an authentic and professional 800-degree brick oven, and the pizzas are made with imported Italian cheeses and super-fresh ingredients. (You know all the ingredients are good because they get them at cost from Whole Foods!) On the downside, they don't deliver, so you have to go and pick it up. The unexpected upside: The pizzas are pretty cheap! It's $12.99 for a large, and you get three free toppings. I honestly can't see how they make any profit off them. The pizza is New York style: thin in the center, with a puffed-up chewy outer crust, sometimes with authentic cheese bubbles – like in New York City. You can get a whole pizza made any way you like, a personal 8-inch pizza for $4.99 (three free toppings), or just a slice from one of the eight by-the-slice pizzas they keep under the hot light. (The slices are $2.99, or two for $5). The pizza-tossers know their stuff, the sauce is good, and the texture of the crust is right. The service is friendly (but not in that fake way), the pizza is cheap, and, importantly, the quality is consistent. One caveat: Sometimes the pizza counter is really mobbed, and they take the pizzas out of the oven a little too soon. Make sure the counter people know you would rather wait a little longer than have an underdone pizza.