Luna Pizzeria

http://www.lunapizzeria.com
Pizza Style: NY Neapolitan
Venue Style: Sit down/takeout
Food Orders: 1 LG sausage and mushroom
Lg Cheese Pizza: (15”) $14.00
Beverage Orders: Craft Beer

While on a business trip in the Uptown District of Houston, I had to hunt down a solid pie offering. Turning to Yelp, I filtered it down to Luna Pizzeria. Located in a strip mall, Luna has all the feel of a traditional take out place that you grew up with; order at the counter, beverages from a cooler or a soda fountain and even, and I absolutely love this, a table top arcade machine, (free to boot, bravo.) But where that ends, the high-end begins. This place is clean and sleek, with sharp lines and dark hues decorating the interior. It definitely was not what you would expect from a strip mall pizza shop.

The menu was old school in its simplicity but featured high end ingredients. Like an old school takeout pizza joint, the menu was minimal, pizza, subs and salads; that’s it. Their menu chopped salad had Sopresatta, provolone and artichokes, sub sandwiches with homemade fennel sausage, high end cold cuts and house-made meatballs. Luna also offers insanely good boutique microbrews and a high end, owner picked, wine selection of which they are more than willing to give samples.

I only have one question for Luna, WHY THE CONVEYOR OVEN?!?!? It definitely does not do the pie justice. Since this is my first review of a place that uses a conveyor oven, what better time to offer my thoughts on this contraption. The conveyor is used for the mass marketer pizza maker, ie Dominos, Papa Johns and Papa Ginos (Papa Ginos, why!?!?!, I grew up on and loved your rotisserie pizza ovens). The conveyor oven is nothing more than an oversized toaster oven that can pump out an insane amount of, normally, sub-par pizza. Luna is the exception to the rule. They definitely get the most out of this contraption. If this was delivered to me I would have had no clue that a conveyor oven was used. That being said, I feel that Luna pie could reach new heights if a tradition pizza oven was used. I was in there for a good hour or so, and it appeared that they had good traffic but nothing to warrant the conveyor oven.

I ordered my go to, a large sausage and mushroom. The pizza did not disappoint. The high end ingredients came together real well and the holy trinity of condiments offered were the best I have ever had. Fresh oregano, red pepper flakes and freshly shaved parmesan cheese. The photo speaks for itself. The two issues that I have is that the crust was thin and cracker like and the melt resembled more of a toasted cheese sandwich. Both of these issues I attribute to the conveyor oven.