I Tried 6 of Atlanta’s Weirdest Pizzas and I Have Some Thoughts
Pizza is a simple enough concept. Bread, sauce, and cheese.
There’s something so pure about a perfect pizza. When 99% of humans hear the word, they imagine the same basic food.
But what makes a pizza truly a pizza?
Is it the shape? The ingredients? The cooking method? Being delicious whether it’s hot or cold?
It’s tough to say.
But here are 6 restaurants that reimagine what pizza can be…6 restaurants that simply ask “why not?”
Tandoori Pizza & Wings – Tandoori Chicken Classic
We already included their Mango Chili Tandoori Wings in our Unexpectedly Delicious Wings list, but as you may guess from the restaurant name, they make pizzas too!
Each of their pies is an Indian-style concoction with a piece of fresh naan as the base. If you’re ready to blow your taste buds’ minds (I’m not sure if this is anatomically possible), get the Tandoori Chicken Classic. It has tandoori chicken, spinach pesto, mozzarella, red onion, cilantro, and a mango chili drizzle.
It’s insanely flavorful. It has the subtle spice of the chicken, the brightness of the cilantro and mango chili drizzle, and a mild balance provided by the spinach pesto and the mozzarella. The foundation of the magnificent flavor, however, comes down to the pizza’s literal foundation: the naan is perfectly buttery but not overpowering.
Varuni Napoli – Colazione Americana
While we all love cold pizza for breakfast, what if you could enjoy one made specifically for the morning hours?
Varuni Napoli, already one of ATL’s favorites, changes the pizza game with their various brunch pizzas, available every weekend (along with Bloody Marys and Mimosas, because…duh.) If you want to fully embrace the brunch side of things, enjoy the Colazione Americana: fresh mozzarella, egg yolk, sausage, mushroom, pancetta, and olive oil infused with black truffle and Pecorino Romano.
Egg on a pizza? While it may sound odd, once you try it, you’ll wonder where it’s been your entire life.
Tacos La Villa – Birria Pizza
Is a birria pizza essentially a quesadilla? Yes. Is it as delicious and comfort-inducing as any pizza you could possibly get? Hell yes.
For the uninitiated, birria, most commonly found in tacos, takes beef braised in a rich broth, then shreds it and puts in a tortilla for you to crisp up and dunk in the cooking liquid. It’s meaty, it’s cheesy, and once you start eating it, you’re going to wish you had more. Luckily, the birria pizza is a much larger serving size, taking Tacos La Villa’s already impeccable birria and putting it in a pizza format.
Once you drown it in the side of sauce and top it with the two spicy salsas, you’re going to have a tough time not eating the whole pie.
Athens Pizza – Athens Special
This beloved Decatur fixture has been serving Greek-style pizza since John and Asiemoula Papadopoulos first opened this location in 1977.
If this is your first (or fortieth) time at Athens Pizza, get the Athens Special, piled high with feta cheese, ground beef, sausage, pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, and peppers. The crust is fluffy and buttery yet still light and airy. The toppings are perfectly stacked so you get a little bit of everything in each bite
Get a side of marinara and dunk that crust for an irresistible encore to your meal.
Poke Burri – Sushi Pizza
The only thing that really makes this sushi pizza a “pizza” is its appearance. The “crust” is seaweed, the “cheese” is shredded crab and rice, and the toppings are spicy tuna, edamame, and cucumber. There is essentially nothing evocative of traditional pizza with the ingredients, the preparation, or the flavor. But MAN is it good.
Poke Burri offers a variety of unique dishes made of sushi: donuts, burritos, and pizza. Each of these is fantastic but there’s just something special about the pizza. It’s packed with rice, filling, and sauce, so it can be quite messy. You may want to eat it with utensils, but I promise it’s so much more fun to pick it up and eat it like a slice of pizza.
Once you get to the crust, you’ll be treated to rolled seaweed stuffed with tuna, so think of it as your very own dessert roll. You’ve earned it.
Humble Pie – Loaded Baked Potato Pizza
Sure, this place literally has “pie” in its name but they serve some pizzas that are oh-so-very weird yet oh-so-very tasty. Humble Pie is the latest concept from James Beard Award nominees Chefs Ron Hsu and Aaron Phillips, of Lazy Betty and (temporarily-closed) Juniper Cafe fame, and the food here more than meets the standard of their other restaurants.
The Loaded Baked Potato Pizza takes one of the best side dishes in the game and promotes it to a starring role. It has bacon, chives, Locksley’s cheddar, and of course, discs of crispy potatoes (which, by the way, are cooked in the aforementioned bacon fat). It unlocks flavors and textures you’d never expect in a pizza but which nonetheless work unbelievably well.
They have plenty of other surprisingly strong pizzas, like Clam Pizza (topped with clam butter dip, mozzarella, and lemon) and Ragin’ Cajun Shrimp (with etouffee, scallion, and soppressata). And what goes better with pie than more pie? End your meal with a dessert like Cranberry Slab Pie or Chocolate Mudslide Pie to check all the Humble Pie boxes.
