Our cousin took us out to dinner and we wanted to return the favour since they tend to cook for themselves more than go out. And San Francisco has far too many places to go out. The combined effect means you’ll never stay on top of them. Friday is typically pizza night for them so we headed out early to get to a “gourmet” pizza place in the SOMA district. Una Pizza Napoletana used to be based in New York. I guess a combination of expensive rents and probably a different lifestyle caused the owner to move cities.

I have no idea whether he used to have a wood burning oven in New York, but it’s the grand centrepiece in the converted warehouse, now restaurant area. There’s plenty of space although the dining area looks tiny in comparison to the extremely open kitchen preparation area including lots of flour thrown on the ground. I couldn’t tell if that was for effect, or just the culmination of hard working pizza making. The pizza restaurant has plenty of articles, all of them posted up in the corridor that leads to the restroom, and if you were really impressed by the pizza can take home merchandise like these trendy Italian coloured socks.

The menu is pretty simple. There are no shared pizzas. There are no single slices and unlike the American way of having alterations there are no extras you can put on them. Most of the pizzas abstain from a tomato sauce base. The closest thing are the smattering of cherry tomatos or the delicious San Marzano tomatoes flecked across.

They ran out of Chinotto and of course offer a number of bottles of Italian wine and beer. Pizzas aren’t exactly cheap at USD20 per bite but what you’re paying for is essentially super fresh, Italian pizza. Despite a very large oven, they could only make three pizzas at a time and with the four of us dining, I took the hit and waited whilst everyone tucked into their hot slices.

I couldn’t resist this gorgeous creation that included smoked buffalo mozzarella, rocket and cherry tomatoes. The crust was a little bit thicker than I expected from an Italian thing, but that might be a regional thing. It was extremely fresh and light and I ate mine probably far to quickly.

Look out for the sign way above your head. I missed it the first time since it’s not really at eye level.

Great tasting pizza and worth getting there early to avoid the queue.

Name: Una Pizza Napoletana
Found at: 210 11th St + Howard St San Francisco, CA 94103, United States
Website: http://www.unapizza.com/sf/