naked pizza / pacific beach – san diego, ca

When I first saw “Naked Pizza” I had bad thoughts about it. As in, “the pizza isn’t wearing clothes?” thoughts. Naughty.

But now that I’ve actually visited Naked Pizza and seen what it’s all about, I get it. Naked Pizza is all natural pizza, not naughty pizza. There are no weird chemicals, no freaky preservatives and no strange processed stuff in their food. Their crust is made from 10 grains, including oats, brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, teff, spelt, tapioca, and two kinds of wheat. The pizza dough also has prebiotic agave fiber (making it more diabetic friendly) and probiotics – they even offer a gluten free crust. You will also find that there is no added sugar, high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oil in their pizza.

It’s a “better-for-you” pizza but it’s also not a diet pizza. There’s still plenty of tasty-but-bad-for-you toppings to choose from but it all comes wrapped up in a better-for-you pizza. So does all-natural mean a loss of flavor? Do all of these crazy healthy grains and fibers take something away from other pizzas? I don’t think so – I think it’s a much healthier, more conscious choice that’s better for you and still tastes pretty good. Check out the photos below!

I was out with Jake and Laura for dinner and we decided to use both of my Groupons for our dinner at Naked Pizza. We started off with a Spinach Salad ($5.99) and then ordered two large pizzas for us to share. The spinach salad is very simply dressed with spinach, bell pepper, black olive & red onion. We didn’t read the menu description and after we got the salad, I carefully picked all of the olives off the salad since none of us liked olives. The guy who took our order offered to get another salad for us without the olives but we told him it was fine and that it was our fault for not looking at the menu first. He also added some feta cheese onto the salad for us and I really liked that – it rounded out the salad pretty well. We just got ranch dressing but they also have Blush Wine Vinaigrette and Rich Poppy Seed for dressings.

We ordered one of the “favorites” – the Smokehouse Pizza (14″ – $16.99). This came on their original crust with hickory-smoked bbq sauce, red onions and chicken. They have 2 kinds of crust – either original or thin – and the difference seemed to be that the thin doesn’t have that outer crust handle surrounding the pizza which sounds weird to me. I liked the crust – it was a bit chewy. I felt it could have been slightly crunchier for my tastes, but hey, I get picky sometimes. The flavors on this pizza were really good – I liked that they made the sauce all pretty and that it wasn’t slathered in bbq sauce. The chicken and onions added a good flavor and this was my favorite of the pizzas we had.

We also made our own pizza and did sausage all over along with half artichoke and half basil. They also have a white sauce by request which I forgot that I wanted to try but we ended up getting it with the red tomato sauce on this pizza. This pizza was also good but I think I didn’t dig the tomato sauce quite as much on this one but I can’t quite remember why – ugh – that’s why I should do posts faster! In any case, I do think the pizza is good but don’t quite think it’s the best in town – but it’s good for you ingredients and lack of crappy chemicals and sugars makes it a winner in my book.

Overall I’m glad to see a chain restaurant that’s doing something a bit healthier and not taking the easy way out by using tons of bad for you crap in their food. They’ve done their best to make a lower fat more health conscious pizza that still tastes good with a variety of toppings (and delivery!).

About the only negative thing I have to say doesn’t have anything to do with their pizza but that there isn’t any comfortable seating for dining in. It’s basically a small walk up shop and there’s a counter top around the edge of the shop with some stools and some outdoor seating as well. The three of us sat inside (it was too cold out to sit outdoors when we visited – but will probably work well now that it’s warming up) and it was kind of clumsy setup since there were three of us passing the pizza along to each other. Ah well. The pizza is good and better for you – if you get the chance, you should check it out and judge for yourself how it holds it up to other pizza.

Naked Pizza
Multiple Locations (Pacific Beach and Hillcrest)
909 Grand Avenue
San Diego, CA 92109
(619) 752-2445