San Diego’s Best Pizza: Ambrogio15 Review

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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.  On Mother’s Day we visited Wheat and Water in Bird Rock.  For Father’s Day we went a mile down the road to the newer Ambrogio15 in Pacific Beach.  This is our Ambrogio15 Review after also visiting the new location in Little Italy.

Right off the bat I can say that Ambrogio15 is the real deal.  This place was started by three former management consultants from Milan, Italy.  One rainy day they got the idea to move to sunny San Diego and start a pizzeria.  In 2016, Ambrogio15 was opened on Turquoise St, in a spot formerly home to one of our favorite Cajun restaurants.

WEBSITE: https://www.ambrogio15.com/

The pizza at Ambrogio15 is definitely of the upscale variety.  This is mainly about specialty pizzas.  Toppings include prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, porchetta, spicy and non-spicy Salame Calabrese (aka pepperoni), olives and Italian sausage.

We ordered a basic Margherita pizza for $14.  For an extra $5 you could add buffalo Mozzarella, for $4 you could add prosciutto.  This was a great version of Margherita pizza which my son gobbled pretty much all by himself.  He did let each of us try a bite or two.

The  other pizza we tried was the cannibalistic Hannibal Lector.  I didn’t really care for the name, but the pizza was excellent.  It has prosciutto, porchetta, Italian sausage, Spicy Salame Calabrese and grilled red bell peppers. The cheese included mozzarella and Parmigiano Reggiano.  This pizza was $19, about the price of an entrée at a nice restaurant.

The other main thing Ambrogio15 serves is gourmet Focacce sandwiches.  These are pizza sized sandwiches, with two round focaccia breads stuffed with a variety of toppings.  The one we got had pork roast and mixed greens.  This is one of the best sandwiches ever and very reminiscent of the wonderful sandwiches you find in Italy.  The sandwiches range from $18-22 but can easily feed two.

We were so impressed that for desert we ordered a cheese plate, tiramisu and gelato. With its variety of meats and cheeses, Ambrogio15 is probably more typical of a place you would find in Italy than almost any other San Diego restaurant.

Of course, Ambrogio15 is not cheap pizza.  This is special occasion dining.  However, in this category, Ambrogio15 has definitely shot to the top.  We have a lot more places to try in this category, but this will be a hard one to beat.

To see our full guide to San Diego’s best pizza go here.

San Diego’s Best Pizza Overview

Hopefully, you have read my pizza philosophy piece.  If not go here.  That piece is my introduction to how I classify pizza into 4 major styles.  It is essential to understand how we are rating pizza places in our quest to find the best pizza in San Diego.  As I discuss in that article, San […]

Note, right after we visited Ambrogio15 opened a second location in Little Italy.  This is an express location with a limited menu.  You can check out our overview of this location and the Little Italy Food Hall here.

A Visit to Little Italy Food Hall

Little Italy has become one of the hippest parts of San Diego.  In July 2018, the latest hot spot opened, the Little Italy Food Hall.  For my birthday lunch I asked my family to take me their for a visit. The Little Italy Food Hall is basically an upscale food court.  It was sponsored by […]

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