This Echo Park café known for its breakfast fare also secretly produces great Chicago deep-dish pizzas. So great that the pies take nearly an hour to manufacture, so call in advance. Made daily from fresh dough, these thick, hot, bubbling concoctions come in four basic flavors (meat, more meat, cheese and veggies) or with a variety of standard toppings and, when available, specialty toppings like Scala’s authentic hot Giardiniera (a tapenade of vegetables pickled in vinegar), Italian beef, roasted garlic, roasted shallots and veggie pepperoni.

In business since 1959, Petrillo's is a true neighborhood classic. Even a hardcore thin crust lover might be tempted to stray for Petrillo's thick doughy crust. Their tomato sauce is tasty and not too sweet. And aside from the mushrooms, which look and taste like they come from a can, the ingredients are top notch. Nowhere is this more evident than in their savory, springy homemade sausage or their pepperoni, seasoned perfectly, sliced paper thin and cooked until the edges are lightly crisp and the center still tender.

Mozza is to pizza what Hungry Cat is to the hamburger: A pricey, gourmet version of a pedestrian staple. The 16 pizzas offer an array of toppings: gorgonzola dolce, fingerling potatoes, radicchio & rosemary; egg, guanciale, asparagus, onion & parmigiano; rosemary and lardo (yes, that is exactly as fatty as it sounds). Among these luxury pizzas, the Rolls Royce of pies is Mozza’s burrata pizza, which bubbles with the so-soft-it-might-be-butter consistency of burrata amidst squash blossoms and tomatoes.

Despite the many downsides of eating at Joe's Pizza -- cash only, no public restrooms, nightmarish parking situation, whole pies come in only one size: 19" -- they make a to-die-for thin crust pizza that's probably the most authentic New York-style slice in all of Los Angeles. Joe Vitale and Matt Thomas have opened a branch of popular New York pizza joint here in L.A., and their crust is a thing a of beauty: a disc that's wafer-thin yet crisp and sturdy. This is dough that won't wilt under an onslaught of toppings. The price is a bit steep ($2.75 for a cheese slice), the ambiance is unappealing and the crowd is a mix of tourists, casual shoppers and the occasional bum. And if you're flying solo but want a fresh pie, you'll have to settle for way more than you can reasonably eat in one sitting, because Joe's only makes whole pizzas in 19" rounds. Because of Joe's proximity to Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica beach, parking (especially in summer) is always difficult. The paid city lots are frequently full, and on summer weekends traffic on surface streets slows to a crawl. Fortunately, Joe's delivers.

PS - Ignore the various online listings that claim Joe's Pizza is located at 111 Ocean. It isn't. It's on Broadway near 1st St.

Santa Monica’s most loved pizza place is notable for its bagel crusts (your choice of poppyseed, sesame, onion or garlic) and creative combos like the Popeye’s Chicken Pizza, which features tequila lime chicken, spinach, mushroom and onions atop garlic pesto sauce, and the Wild Mushroom Pizza, which can be distilled as 4 mushrooms (portobello, oyster, button and shitake) + 3 cheeses (parmesan, romano and mozzarella) + 1 olive pesto sauce = heaven. If none of the combos strike your fancy, choose from the 25 toppings to create a slice or pie of your own.

Village Pizzeria offers thin crust (Neopolitan) and thick crust (Sicilian) pizzas, but the thin crust pizzas are so perfect, it’s hard to want to try anything else. Specialties include clams & garlic (a dish they claim to have invented back in 1979), the Estafeta (no mozzarella, only feta, red peppers, green onions, roma tomatoes, pesto & artichokes) and the Village Special (meatballs, sausage, pepperoni, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, olives & anchovies). Pizza is sold by the pie or the slice. Or try a calzone, a hero or one of their parmesan dinners. And if you swing by early enough, the breakfast pizza is 9” of dough topped with scrambled eggs and a light sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.

If you eat at only one pizza parlor co-owned by an actress who was once slapped around onscreen by Robert DeNiro, make it Mulberry Street. Nearly two decades ago, Cathy Moriarty (AKA Mrs. Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull) opened a modest Beverly Hills pizza parlor aimed at serving authentic New York-style pizza alongside a few Italian dishes. The pizzas range from basic (Sicilian, Hawaiian, vegetarian) to slightly more unique (tomato & artichoke, eggplant parmesan, fresh white spinach). If those don’t strike your fancy, try an Italian hero (eggplant, chicken, sausage or meatball), a Lorna Luft chopped salad or the joint’s signature lasagna pizza, which piles ricotta cheese, meatballs and spaghetti onto the wafer-thin crust.

Zelo’s deep-dish pies are anchored by a thick, chewy cornmeal base that upends the pizza crust paradigm. In addition to the basic meat, veggie and four-cheese combos, Zelo’s offers a corn pizza that features balsamic marinated red onions, smoked mozzarella, fresh chives and, of course, corn, while the Della Salute is a veggie pizza without the cheese. A variety of specialty pizzas (menu changes daily) include a broccoli rabe, potato pancetta, goat cheese, finocchiona, Greek, leek and spinach pesto

A restaurant more than a pizza joint, Palermo serves great thick-crust pizza with standard toppings and offers a few notable combos: the Pizzarosa (feta, mozzarella, parmesan and tomatoes), the Nino (zucchini, onions, tomatoes, feta, mozzarella and parmesan) and the Palermo, a cornucopia of onions, peppers, mushrooms, anchovies, meatballs, pepperoni and sausage.