Foodie Fridays: Mother Dough Pizza

There are a few topics of conversation I tend to avoid when I would prefer a quiet evening over impassioned and frenzied debate. Those topics include: politics, religion, and where to get the best pizza.

Everyone can offer up an opinion on his or her favorite pizza pie, but such a subjective discussion tends to end with “agreeing to disagree.” However, it’s hard to refute what the Italians have to say. The Italians are the innovators and architects of the pizza so it only seems fair that their opinion should weigh just a bit more than the rest of us, no?

I proceeded to ask a few of my Italian friends, “where can one find the most transcendental, life changing, extraordinary pizza pie in Italy?” And rather than harsh debate, the Italians all quickly agreed (which is not common for Italians) that the best pizza comes from Napoli.

Pizza has never been an underrepresented food group in the Los Feliz/Silver Lake neighborhood where I live. We’ve got a plethora of non-chain options to choose from, but the abundance of pizza parlors did not stop Bez Compani from confidently opening up just one more in the neighborhood. His new venture into the restaurant scene, Mother Dough, serves up his favorite kind of pie, the same variety my Italian friends claim is the most delizioso: Neapoloitan pizza.

Bez, an Iranian-born Angeleno who arrived in LA via London and Italy, is the driving force behind Mother Dough, and I’ve yet to see a restaurateur more hands on than this guy. He works the dough with his own two hands, stares down the heat emanating from his 900 degree wood burning oven, and even built the wooden tabletops himself – from a fallen oak tree. He ships in his olive oil from Naples and has no tolerance for anything less than the finest buffalo mozzarella

So what about the pizza? First of all, it’s important that you don’t walk in here expecting NY style pizza. These pies are baked for only sixty to ninety seconds in a very special, very hot oven. (Most pizza cooks for about ten minutes at half the heat.)

The dough is chewier and softer than what you’re used to. The flavors, just like all good Italian food, are exquisite in their simplicity. It’s all about letting the natural flavors of the high quality ingredients speak for themselves. When was the last time you can remember tasting the bold flavor of olive oil in your pizza? At Mother Dough you can.

The beautiful combination of a house-made red sauce, buffalo mozzarella and basil are served on a barely baked, chewy, but just crisp enough dough. The ingredients are anything but the sum of their parts. The bold yet simple flavors sing in harmony. I think the tune goes something like “You found me! The best pizza!”

Mother Dough Pizza, 4648 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. 323.644.2885, www.motherdoughpizza.com, MAP.

NEXT TIME on Foodie Fridays: We're finally returning to the Westside, to sample the modern American comfort food at Upper West in Santa Monica.

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