TL/DR: if you enjoy great pizza, you must try Oobatz.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t dream of putting a pizza review on this Paris board. But Oobatz is that good, judged on worldwide standards, not just for France or Paris.
We went to Oobatz for dinner on a warm evening in late June.
It’s very popular, and you need to book in advance (I believe they open reservations 14 days prior). This is the Pizzamarole guy, for those familiar. I had never made it to Pizzamarole.
The menu is quite short:
My wife really enjoyed the salad that was served - American (Italian, too?) style - before the pizza.
The margherita pizza (“Un”):
The new potato with lemon confit (“Trois”):
The pizzas look like Neapolitan, but they are not really, though I guess you could describe them as hybrid. The dough is very flavorful, the edge crust has great texture and a bit of heft.
Most importantly, the bottom crust is not soft and mushy, but is fairly crisp. You can - and most people there did - pick up and eat slices by hand, as one would in New York.
The dough taste and texture is fantastic, and that is the most important part of a pizza. But the flavor of the toppings of each pizza were excellent as well.
They bring the pizzas one at a time, to be shared by the whole table.
Usually I’m a pizza purist (minimal toppings, and only certain ones are acceptable), but here I’d be willing to try almost any. Now thinly sliced potatoes on pizza happen to be one of the few “acceptable” exceptions, anyway, but the lemon confit was a delicious addition for me.
There were only two of us; I wished we had been more so we could have tried more of the pizzas on the menu.
One pizza per person is about the right amount of food.
Prices are very reasonable for high quality pizza.
As I’ve noted on this board once before, I am a pizza fanatic and pizza snob.
I could easily eat pizza more than once a week my entire life. The best pizza in the world is in New Haven, CT - and that is really not up for debate!
I’ve had fantastic pizza I return to in Boston, Brooklyn/NYC and even one in San Francisco (Tony’s). Until this year, I’ve never been a huge fan of Neapolitan style, but eating at one of the branches (not the OG in Naples) of Da Michele in May converted me. Da Michele, at least in Pompeii, now makes my list.
So it is inordinately high praise when I say that if travel were no object, and I had regular local access to all the pizzas I’ve ever had, Oobatz would make the rotation. It might be the least frequent in the rotation, but it would make it.
Of course, if you are only in Paris for a week, or you don’t happen to like pizza, then you need not go.
Otherwise, if you like pizza or want a break from French food, try this place.
You’ll almost certainly thank me. At the very worst, you’ll say it’s pretty good.