San Diego’s Best Pizza: Wheat & Water Review
Fun Diego Family is on a quest to find the best pizza places in San Diego. One category that is hard to review is what we call Fancy Italian/California pizza. This is the stuff served by fancy restaurants and our bank account simply doesn’t allow us to visit these places on a regular basis. Mother’s Day 2018 provided us the special occasion we needed to pay a visit to Wheat & Water in La Jolla’s Bird Rock. This is our Wheat & Water Review
WEBSITE: https://wheatandwater.com/
Wheat & Water is located right on the main drag of Bird Rock. Parking is usually pretty easy. Wheat and Water is a full-service restaurant, but the emphasis is definitely on pizza. Other menu options include a hamburger, some pastas, salads and an extensive charcuterie and cheese option. We went for Sunday brunch where they had some traditional brunch items.
Wheat & Water is a relative newcomer on the San Diego pizza scene, having opened in late 2016. The head chef at Wheat & Water, Christian Fiol, worked at our current favorite high-end pizza spot Cucina Urbana/Cucina Enoteca. So right away we knew we were in good hands.
Like most high-end pizza spots, Wheat & Water has a high-end Forno Bravo pizza oven. Of course, the pizza options tend towards the exotic. There are several pizzas with béchamel sauce as a base. The vegan pizza features squash and brussels sprouts. Meat options include pork shoulder and chorizo.
The pizzas are all specialty pizzas, designed to serve one person. Of course, ordering a pizza and a salad to split among two people is always a good option at these places. If you want to order a basic cheese or margherita pizza you can add pepperoni, bacon, two eggs, meatball or prosciutto for $3 each ($4 for prosciutto).
The pizza prices range from $12 for a basic cheese to $18 for the more fancy options. I picked the $18 La Pitza, while my $12 son got his favorite type of margherita (ie it has tomato sauce and not sliced tomatoes). The La Pitza features braised pork shoulder in salsa verde, jalapenos, garlic, caramelized AND pickled onions, cilantro and mozzarella, Parmesan and cotija cheese. It also contained an ingredient I had to look up, hoja santa. Rick Bayless has a good description of hoja santa aka Root Beer Plant.
The La Pitza is about as unique pizza as you are likely to find while still remaining in the zone of pizza normality. This was a very good pizza, but at $18 it will probably be awhile before I try it again. When I go back to Wheat & Water next time, I plan to try either the sausage and fennel or the Kitchen Classic with meatballs, pepperoni, jalapenos and ricotta.
My son raved about his margherita pizza. However, the main judge is not what he says but how much he eats. In this case, he ate the entire pizza, minus some crust (I don’t understand why my family leaves crust behind so often it is my favorite part of a good pizza). For him to eat an entire pizza like that is a major endorsement.
We went for Sunday Brunch, so we did not partake of their large drink menu with many local draft beers. We may come back for their happy hour when certain pizzas are $5 off. They also have cocktail specials after 8 PM. Well drinks are $5 and specialty cocktails are available for $7.
It is hard to say where Wheat & Water will end up in our overall assessment of high-end pizza. Right now I can say it is not quite as good as Cucina Urbana/Cucina Enoteca but better than the highly regarded Buona Forchetta. However, we plan to visit both places again before making a call. As we said this is going to take sometime.
To see more places in the Fun Diego Family quest for best pizza in San Diego go here.
