One of my new favorite pizza spots in Los Angeles is a wooden table in the corner of the backyard of a coffee shop off Pico Boulevard, founded by a former management consultant who was briefly vegan.
Talking about pop-ups in Los Angeles can lead to a ridiculous but all-too-familiar Californian argument (remember that “Saturday Night Live” sketch where they made fun of our insistence on sharing driving routes, complete with highways and exits, in every conversation?).
I felt like a Californian trying to describe my recent pop-up restaurant visits to a friend: I placed an order via Instagram DM, paid via Zelle, then met the chef in the parking lot of Albertson’s on Tujunga, under the big sign in front of In-N-Out. He told me to look for the black Mini Cooper with a red stripe.
That pizza I brought for Saturday dinner with a 25% whole grain crust? I ordered it via email, paid via Venmo, and picked it up at that bagel shop in Silver Lake. The pizza chef, who has worked in the culinary department of several Food Network cooking shows, is friends with the bagel shop owner. You get the idea.
But with limited availability, online pre-orders, precise pickup instructions, and a bit of mystery built in, it comes with a big payoff.
Wednesday
A slice of pepperoni pizza from Mievè, a pizza pop-up at Kiff Kafe in West Los Angeles.
(Jenn Harris/Los Angeles Times)
Mievè, pronounced “mee-vay,” takes up residence in the back corner of Kiff Kafe coffee shop and restaurant in West Los Angeles, Wednesday through Saturday nights. Park in the cafe’s parking lot, beneath the monstrous mural of two round-bellied, blue-haired figures drinking coffee, walk to the back patio and look for the chalkboard sign advertising pizza.
It's a bare-bones operation, with a small team led by Amirali Ghasemipour, a former management consultant who left his corporate job last summer to sell pizzas.
He makes three varieties at a time and changes the offerings every week. He bakes the pizza in four worn and dented silver pizza ovens that he sets up on the patio.
“It may look Sicilian, but it’s our own,” says Ghasemipour. “It’s oven-baked pizza.”
I order a slice of each dish and wait for my pepperoni, lasagna and zucchini pizza on one of the patio’s folding wooden chairs. Across from me is a woman in a Zoom meeting. Most of the people on the patio are drinking coffee and working on their laptops, oblivious to the pizza operation on the corner.
I watch as one of the cooks uses a blowtorch to char a pile of shishito peppers on a silver platter. He sprinkles the now-blackened green circles over a slice of pepperoni pizza, then rains down ultra-fine shavings of Grana Padano on top. It covers the entire surface and part of the paper plate beneath.
Pepperoni is a variation on the spicy honey pepperoni pizza, with dollops of creamy or milky cheese that can now be found in pizzerias across the country. Ghasemipour adds ricotta with a hint of garlic, shishitos, and chipotle honey to the mix. The peppers mimic the smoky flavor of charred jalapeños, but with a more herbaceous and potent freshness. The ricotta is cool and creamy beneath the sweet honey.
For the lasagna pie, Ghasemipour hand-cuts beef tongue, cheeks and ribs for the base of his 12-hour bolognese. He layers cheese, red sauce, béchamel, bolognese and a green sauce meant to emulate the flavor of spinach pasta.
The self-taught chef chose sweet yellow zucchini for the zucchini pizza at the Rocky Canyon produce stand at the Santa Monica Farmers Market that morning. He pairs the yellow ribbons with torpedo onions, garlic cream and a combination of breadcrumbs and crushed fried garlic bits.
“I don’t consider anything I do to be a fusion, because I’m not actively trying to merge different worlds,” he says.
A slice of lasagna pizza from Mievè, a pizza pop-up at Kiff Kafe in West Los Angeles.
(Jenn Harris/Los Angeles Times)
The foundation of Ghasemipour’s pizza is his dough, a secret recipe he developed over the past three years. While working at his company, Ghasemipour hosted dinner parties and did various catering jobs around Los Angeles. He started making about 15 pizzas a day for friends, quit his job and launched Mievè last summer.
“It is a mixture of flours from various mills and suppliers,” he explains. “We mix the dough by hand, about 30 to 36 kilos, and we don’t have a very high level of hydration.”
Whatever the method, what Ghasemipour prepares is unlike any other pan pizza I've had in recent memory. The base is golden and delicately crisp. The center is incredibly airy, a light and fluffy crust that coats all the ingredients.
The goal is to open a full restaurant, where Ghasemipour plans to serve pizza and a few other dishes. But while the freedom that a permanent base gives him is important, what he's really after is consistency.
“We don’t have full control over the conditions, the temperature and the humidity,” he says. “Sometimes the dough comes out perfect, sometimes not. One day it can be a nine out of ten, other days a ten out of ten.”
Mievè is open from 5 to 9 p.m. or until supplies run out. They allow limited pre-orders of whole pizzas online, but if you want to try a few slices, you'll have to order them on the Kiff Kafe patio.
And if you’re wondering about the name, Ghasemipour says “mievè” means “fruit” in Farsi, taken from his native language.
“It also refers to the fruits of labor,” he says. “But it also brings a new element to the reflection on food and nature.”
My dear
Caro Mio's Suicide Pizza, a pop-up pizzeria at Maury's Bagels in Silver Lake, California. The establishment is named after Caro Mio, chef Jackson Baugh's orange tabby cat.
(Jenn Harris/Los Angeles Times)
Like many people during the pandemic, Jackson Baugh spent much of quarantine experimenting with carbs. Making bread and pizza dough is something he did often in the 14 years he spent working in the culinary department of various cooking shows, including “Tournament of Champions” and Guy Fieri’s “Guy’s Ranch Kitchen.”
During the pandemic, Baugh bartered with friends in the music industry, trading bread for band merchandise. His hobby turned into a business when his friend Jason Kaplan, owner of Maury's Bagels in Silver Lake, California, offered him the space to start hosting pop-up pizza dinners.
Late last year, Baugh left the world of TV cooking shows and started her in-store Caro Mio pizza delivery business. It's named after Caro Mio, her “big, red, tabby cat.”
Baugh’s style of pizza is a mix between the puffed crust you might find at a Neapolitan pizzeria, the pizzas at a New York slice shop, and what sits under the heat lamp at your local health food bar. It features 25 percent whole grain flours from Grist & Toll, including a hard red flour that gives the dough a mild, nutty flavor.
Caro Mio's Creamy Combo pizza, a pop-up pizza at Maury's Bagels in Silverlake.
(Jenn Harris/Los Angeles Times)
The outer edge is chewy, bubbly, and has an extra-thin base that has a crust that doesn't fall apart. It has a slight tangy flavor, with a distinctive earthy and malty taste. No crust was discarded during the cutting of this pizza.
Baugh likes to think of himself as something of a mad scientist when it comes to ingredients, and he's not afraid to take a mix-and-match mentality when it comes to putting together his menu. He named his Suicide pizza after the suicide drinks he'd make at 7-Eleven soda fountains as a kid, squirting a little of each flavor into his cup.
In pizza form, the Suicide is a less scary mix of pepperoni slices, a garlicky tomato sauce, burrata, and spicy honey.
The Creamy Combo fuses its “creamy mushroom” pizza and its “creamy sausage” pizza. It’s a labor-intensive process that involves making a mushroom sauce, an umami mushroom glaze, and pan-roasting cremini, enoki, and shimeji mushrooms for the pizza. Add chunks of fennel-flavored Italian sausage, thick slices of sweet red onion, and dollops of ricotta seasoned with lemon zest.
Baugh says his “creative ingredient brain” is always working, so keep an eye out for new flavors next time he pops in. He’ll be at Maury’s Bagels every Saturday in September and plans to announce future dates on social media.
