Lazy Sunday Pizza Pie

Lazy Sundays are my favorite days. The sort where you roll out of bed whenever the urge hits and go embark upon the world with no agenda except to find whatever you find.

This past Sunday, by eleven a.m. with newspapers read and coffee gone, we were on the hunt for food and spent a stroll through the streets of Venice and Santa Monica perusing menus posted outside of restaurants that looked intriguing. Madame Chou Chou’s winked at us for the future when we would be looking for a place that served lush duck pate on toast for brunch. Stella Rosso pizzeria looked vast and hearty for a dinner date. Amelia’s was a little too strictly coffee shop for our loll around and eat slowly kind of tastes. We ended up at Pizza Antica in the Santa Monica mall’s rooftop food court because we’ve been on a curious pizza spree of late – hunting out versions of thick and thin and low brow and high brow and any other kind in between. 

Couple things that immediately floated my boat: 

Outdoor seating on the open air roof, hit by the wafts of sea air from the ocean across the street...

Great white wine list at affordable prices...

Good room temperature water in a large glass jug

Nice serving staff 

and...

 Very creative baby vegetable antipasto plate with mozzarella with olive oil, lemon aioli, grilled and caramelized red onions, curried butternut squash, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted red peppers with crimini mushrooms and sliced, buttery fingerling potatoes

And then there's the delicious pizza, served in a personal size which basically is the diameter of a large dinner plate or a large version which is the personal size squared by two. With so many delicious options, we chose to get two personal pizzas and share both. I was impressed by the non-flimsy but still nicely flat crust that was not only flavorful but managed to get that perfect balance between crispy in parts that were meant to be crispy and chewy in others. Plus, generous toppings packed full of flavor. 

Grilled Radicchio, Local Goat Cheese, Pancetta and Pesto PIzza

Spicy Fennel Sausage, Portobello Mushroom and Roasted Onion Pizza

Pizza Antica earned some nice points in my book and is definitely my favorite place for pie so far within walking distance from my home.