When it comes to delicious, high-quality pizza, Berkeley has it all. From thin crust to deep dish, the pizza here rival the best of the best. In this crowded and hyper-competitive space comes a new pizzeria, promising to shatter your perceptions of what a pizza can and should be.
BUILD Pizzeria Roma opened several months ago in Downtown Berkeley to much fanfare. The concept is an interesting but simple one – what if you could pick and choose your own ingredients and watch your pizza being made in front of your eyes? What if that same pizza then enters a wood-fired oven and is ready to eat in three minutes?
It’s been done before, but not to this extent and with this much ambition. The interior of the restaurant is a clean, urban-deco design, with a bar section that’s beautiful and fancy in look and feel. You might expect to see caricatures of the mustachioed Italian pizza man around this Roma-styled pizzeria, but the workers here are tattooed, pierced, and might sport mustaches – ironically.
I walked to the line, glanced at all the fresh-looking ingredients, and picked out my favorites – tomato sauce base, smoked mozzarella, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and mushrooms. Everything was either locally-sourced or straight from Italy. I watched as my pizza took shape from the dough, received a mishmash of my preferred ingredients, and went into the oven.
Within a few minutes, a piping-hot and very tasty pizza was set before me. The ingredients were indeed fresh, and while I personally still prefer the pizzas of Cheeseboard and Sliver, BUILD gets high marks in my book for quality and taste. The price was a bit higher than normal, but for the experience and with friends, a trip here is a solid bet!
Pizza builder at www.TheFoodSpotlight.com.
List of 100 amazing dishes around Berkeley at The Food Spotlight 100!