Sei Pizza Bar.

Sei Pizza Bar

William Joo crimps the rim so the cornicione chews like mochi, then bakes fast over gas and wood. The Pico room is the original one.

Why go

Joo was born in South Korea and raised in Los Angeles, and he came at pizza through the Japanese reading of Neapolitan rather than straight from Naples. He and Jennifer So opened on Pico in 2022.1

The crust is the argument. The base is Neapolitan, the bake is fast and hot, and then the rim gets a crimping technique that leaves soft airy sections next to crisp edges and charred bubbles.1 Michelin's inspectors describe the same rim as a puffy pinch with a mochi-like chew.2

Two doors now trade under this operator, and this is the Pico one. The other, on Tabor Street, carries the Pizzeria Sei name.1

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Margherita. Tomato, basil, fior di latte, olive oil, out of a gas and wood-fired oven.2
• Order: the Bismarck if you want the offbeat end, a white pie under a poached egg.2
• Avoid: letting it cool on the table. The kitchen says these pies are meant to be eaten right out of the oven.1

What locals & experts say

• Tejal Rao, The New York Times, quoted on the restaurant's own site: the pizza is almost buttery while it's hot, the dough fine and floaty, its surface salty and freckled with char, but the perimeter bubbly and soft, a delicate network of steam-filled rifts.1
• MICHELIN Guide California: Enter Pizzeria Sei, where individual pies are made with a Japan-meets-Italy flair. A handful of diners perch at the counter to watch the chefs hard at work.2

Good to know

• Which door. This is 8781 West Pico Boulevard, the room Jeff saved. The operator's second shop is at 10700 Tabor Street under the name Pizzeria Sei.1
• Timing: Monday, and Wednesday to Sunday, 4pm to 10pm. Closed Tuesday.2
• Booking: reservations, walk-ins and takeout all work at this door.1

Verdict

should-visit — William Joo learned pizza through the Japanese reading of Neapolitan and then put his own crimp on it, which leaves the cornicione with a chew the inspectors compare to mochi. That is a specific mechanism and it is the reason to come. Tejal Rao wrote that the dough is fine and floaty and the surface salty and freckled with char, which is a description of the same crust from the other side. The guide selects the room without giving it a distinction, and the operator opened a second door in 2022's wake rather than resting. It sits below the top rung because the only critic's line on file reaches this page through the restaurant's own website.