#60 Pizzeria Lola

May 24th, 2016

Minneapolis, MN

Next on our very detailed Epic Pizza Road Trip itinerary was Pizzeria Lola, in Minneapolis. We stopped here for lunch on our way out of town, after a nice morning of running around the lake and visiting a nearby waterfall. Minnesota is so pretty, and we only got to see one of the 10,000 lakes!

We were expecting Pizzeria Lola to be just another Neapolitan pizzeria, but we were pleasantly surprised by the menu. The pizzeria was started by Ann Kim, who left the west coast and a former career as an actress to become a pizzaiola (making her one of the only females that we’ve come across to do this!) She also merges her Korean heritage and food culture into the pizzas that she creates. The menu is one of the most creative that we’ve come across, probably only bested by some of the newer Neapolitan restaurants in LA and NYC.

We tried the Korean BBQ pizza, which had beef short ribs and arugula and was covered in a soy chili dressing. The arugula was dressed so perfectly and the dressing provided just enough sweetness that this really worked on the pizza. This is probably still one of our favorite and one of the most interestingly-topped pizzas that we’ve tried. We also tried one of the “Old Reliable” pizzas, which was essentially just a regular cheese. The wood-fired crust on these was almost Neapolitan, but it wasn’t quite as fluffy, and it was more like a NY-style crust.

Um, also, they have homemade soft serve.  I’m not sure it can get any better.

Next time we find ourselves in Minneapolis (not exactly sure when that will be) we want to check out Ann Kim’s newest restaurant, Young Joni, which just got ranked as one of Eater’s 12 best new restaurants of 2017.

To visit:

Pizzeria Lola
5557 Xerxes Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55410