Lombardi’s or Grimaldi’s? That’s the age old question when it comes to pizza in New York City. Grimaldi’s is the other gourmet pizza place that often rivals Lombardi’s (see my post of it here). Grimaldi’s opened up another new location in Los Angeles (El Segundo), and I went to try it out.
This is restaurant #8 on my 2014 LA food expedition.
Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog. I remember being excited of this NYC pizza chain making its way to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, I don’t remember it being that good. Maybe it’s the LA water, but there were definitely better pizza pies back then. Not surprisingly, this restaurant end up closing in 2021.
Food
We ordered half and half. The first half was your typical margherita style pizza, and the second half was pepperoni and sun dried tomatoes. The crust came out kind of thin than what I was thinking for a “gourmet” pizza. In fact, the crust was rather too crispy in such a way that it tormented parts of my mouth like when you eat overly toasted bread. The margherita half was quite good sans the crust. The cheese was very good. It could’ve been great had it not been too hard. On the other half, the pepperoni was disappointing. I was hoping for larger pieces, but they came out with little mini pepperonis. Between the two halves, I prefer the margherita.
Now let’s talk about that crust. We have a chain here called Blaze Pizza, where they throw your pizza into an oven and bake it in less than 5 minutes. Blaze’s crust is very similar to this in that it’s between thin and regular. The only exception is that Blaze Pizza is significantly cheaper, and their crust doesn’t tear up your mouth.
Final Verdict
Because of the crust, I personally prefer Lombardi’s over Grimaldi’s. As for how it compares to other pizza pies in LA, I don’t think it really stands out, and there are quite a few other pizza joints I would take over Grimaldi’s.
Revisions
- Nov 13, 2022 - Migrated post from other blog.
- Mar 3, 2014 - Initial revision.