The Best Pizza in the Valley: How we Lucked into Finding this Gem
How did we find the best pizza joint in the Valley? Honestly, sometimes you just get lucky – which is frustrating for a person that writes reviews! What’s the point of what I’m doing if a person can just wander out on a lark and find the best that an area has to offer without having done their research?!
MidiCi was the very first pizza we went out for in the Valley, for no greater reason than we drove by on the way home from Target one day and they had a wood-burning pizza oven that was visible from Ventura Blvd.
We’ve been to plenty of pizza places since. Because it would be crazy to move to an area with SO many options, yet only ever go back to the single place you had ever tried – right? It doesn’t change the fact, though, that we keep finding ourselves returning to MidiCi. Here’s why:
The Setup
Ordering
MediCi is set up as a quick-service restaurant. Sidney and I aren’t certain if this is a generally normal thing in just LA; California; or just a genuinely common American thing, but since moving to LA we’ve been exposed to so many restaurants that we consider much “higher-end” than what our Canadian-grown stereotype for quick-service would have us expect.
In fact, MediCi was one of my first experiences of this in America. The place was an absolute madhouse the first time we went! It later turned out that it was one of their busiest days of the year – their annual 5$ Margherita promotion. It led to us feeling a bit rushed and anxious our first time through. Once we saw the family in front of us get four pizzas, two appetizers, two glasses of wine, and two fancy bubble-waters for a mere fifty-four dollars, though – we knuckled down and got serious. Recent Canadian prices have really done a number on us. Not only is this the best pizza in the Valley – suddenly it’s cheaper than the mall food court? Yes, please!
Ordering was ultimately easy. Just remember to grab utensils, napkins, and Parmesan cheese (so much Parmesan cheese) at the sidebar before getting seated.
Seating
Sidney and I usually try to sit near the big gas fireplace, which you can enjoy both from inside the restaurant, and out on the patio. It looks great, it’s cozy, and it sets you up for some great people-watching without being too close.
The interior is nice and open. The service is generally quite quick. And working the paddles for a wood-burning pizza-oven is the most fun I’ve ever had working in a restaurant kitchen. I never get tired of watching people doing it while dealing with the organized chaos of a dinner-rush.
My only negative is that the patio is quite tricky to navigate given how narrow it is, with a trio of really awkwardly placed columns right in the corner of the two wings. If you forget all the napkins and sprinkle-cheese, like I tend to, it makes for a tricky shuffle to recover.
The Food
We’ve fallen into a pattern with our ordering, now that we’ve found ourselves coming back every other week: one Margherita (for safety), a burrata caprese (for cheese!), and something we haven’t tried yet (for adventure!).
The Good
- The Pizza Dough. I honestly consider this to be the single most important element of a pizza and they’ve done a great job here. It makes not a lick of difference to me what you put on it. I’ve had to sign an NDA once, before being given the pizza dough recipe for where I was working. I’ve had guys from the Neapolitan Pizzaiolo Association (yes, that’s a thing) come over from Italy to hover over our shoulders in the kitchen in order to qualify for our “seal of authenticity”. It’s a predictably flawed institution, but when I say this is good dough; I consider my opinion to be reasonably informed. This is the best pizza in the Valley (so far!).
- The Burrata. Tasty, very well-priced, and reliably the size of Sidney’s fist. Other stuff comes with it, but none of us ever order the burrata for the other stuff.
- The Spicy Bee. We’re both suckers for hot honey on pizza. I think it’s a consequence of the climbing prices of maple syrup in our homeland. Most importantly, it has the little cup-pepperonis that help keep the honey from dripping onto your pants.
- The Truffle and Prosciutto. I’ve always found that it’s really easy to overwhelm other flavors when you’re playing around with truffles and truffle oils. MidiCi manages to not do that.
- By-the-Glass Options. We’re usually stopping in to grab a quick bite in between doing other things. One of us is usually driving, so it’s great that we haven’t found a by-the-glass option that we haven’t liked so far.
The Mid
- The Meat & Cheese Board. Nothing crazy here. It’s a generous portion size for 20 bucks, and it delivers exactly what it claims. Meat and cheese abound without giving up space for pickles, olives, or spreads. We just happen to like our pickles.
- The Tiramisu. I’ll be honest, these are just always better when you make them at home. MidiCi’s is fine. It’s just hard for a restaurant to put the proper amount of booze into a tiramisu when they have to potentially sell them to children.
- The Pesto Base. Unfortunately, it’s just hard for the relatively delicate flavors of a pesto to hold up when exposed to high temperatures. Industrial pizza ovens like the one used here are generally kept between 700 to 1000°F. You get much more flavor out of pesto dishes that are served cold or merely warm, rather than hot.
The Ugly
- No Reso’s. I would consider MidiCi to be a great date-spot. Just remember to take into account that you may not get a table during a rush, or that you may end up sat right near the lineup of people ordering.
Summary
Now, by no means is this an exhaustive list. This is our “best pizza in the Valley” for the moment! We will never stop our search, but you can be sure that we’ll be returning to MidiCi whenever we’re looking for comfort as opposed to adventuring in the unknown.
We do suggest just trusting the menu and ordering from the specialty pizzas rather than building your own, but that’s strictly because you get a better variety of ingredients for cheaper that way. If you’re wanting just one or two ingredients on yours, then it hardly makes a difference.
If you take too much Parmesan cheese from the sidebar, we also expect you to down it like a shot out of their little portion cups at the end of your meal. Throwing it out is unacceptable.
Want to see more? Check out this Reel from our very first visit:
