Food Review: Arizmendi Bakery and Pizzeria (Emeryville, CA)

Since my trips back to CA appear to be very far and few in between, I usually make a list of food places that I "must" visit before returning back to that one other state I live in now. I think I've just added another place to my list, that is, when I end up back in Northern California again.

For lunch, my old high school friend took me to Arizmendi Bakery and Pizzeria in Emeryville to try one of their unique artisan pizzas. Every day of the month, a different pizza is made with unique ingredients, and the list is usually revealed a week at a time on their website. For today (Sunday), it was topped with sweet potatoes, Pasilla peppers, feta, and lime oil. I was curious about this combination, especially with the sweet potatoes, but I was extremely astonished by the amount of flavor that this pizza had to offer.

The biggest surprise was that they didn't use any tomato sauce underneath the cheese. That made the pizza extremely light, flavorful, and put the focus of the pizza on the featured ingredients. The contrasting sweetness of the sweet potato and the feta cheese was a very tasty combination, the lime oil added a slight tinge of tartness, and the peppers had a zucchini-esque texture that just worked well with all of the ingredients. It was obvious that there was a lot of research put into these blends. I'll let the photos do the talking.

Left to right: artisan pizza, shortbread, cheese scone
All of the above: super tasty nom noms

I'm going out on a limb to say that this is, by far, the BEST pizza that I have ever tasted anywhere in this country, and I've had quite a few pizzas in a good number of states. I washed down this wonderful selection with a Reed's Ginger Beer (brewed right in Los Angeles).

By the way, pizza isn't the only thing they're good at. They're also a bakery, and I do suggest trying the shortbread. And if it wasn't so hot today, I would've gone for one of their coffees too. :)

Arizmendi is located at 4301 San Pablo Ave., Emeryville, CA 94608. They are a cooperative (worker owned and operated business) so it's a unique model that really puts the employees in control of their own store. Stop on by and enjoy the food.