Passionate About Pizza

“This is the best pizza in L.A.,” says Vito DiDonato, contentedly coaxing another pizza crust into shape. He certainly does make wonderful East Coast pizza at the Los Angeles City College hangout Vito’s. It has a thin, chewy crust full of sweet fresh-bread flavor, the leathery bottom mottled brown and charcoal from the oven floor, all gritty with cornmeal.

It’s a rough, generous street snack, and toppings are almost beside the point. A plain cheese slice, with a little sweet tomato sauce and tangy cheese, is about as much pizza-type fun as anybody could want. But Vito does make a pleasant, fresh-tasting vegetarian model (better described as tomato-less) scattered with spinach and broccoli, the latter being the dominant flavor.

You can get the usual pizza toppings, of course. And Vito also makes terrific fresh bread sticks, basically the same pizza crust in twisted lengths splashed with garlic and oil. But you have to bear in mind that an order will take 20 minutes, just like a pizza.

There’s plenty more to the menu. The salad list includes an antipasto salad and an anchovy-heavy Caesar salad (pretty authentic for a pizza place, really). The pastas, such as baked ziti and ravioli marinara (the latter the big flying saucer shape, filled with ricotta), are generous.

But the strong suit outside the pizza list is the cold roast beef sandwich, made with particularly sweet, fresh roast beef and a tangy mustard and mayo dressing on a roll, along with lettuce, tomatoes and good Swiss cheese. Though the hot subs and the other cold “deli” sandwiches are good enough in their own right, this is a great roast beef sub.

Vito’s is right across the street from LACC. One sign is the presence of lost pet notices and student government posters on the wall, among the photos of Sophia Loren, Vito and his friends and a church of San Vito somewhere in Italy. Another is the selection of herbal teas.

Still another, unfortunately, is the severe parking shortage much of the day. You may have a hike ahead of you if you want to taste that crust.

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Village Pizzeria is another pizza place with East Coast roots (this time New York; the walls are thickly crusted with Big Apple memorabilia) in another tough neighborhood for parking, Larchmont Boulevard. This one is more restaurant than takeout place, though. It even has beer and wine.

Here you can get your pizza with either a thick or a thin crust, and the emphasis is more on the toppings. This place is more experiment-minded with them too. It offers a couple of “veggie” pizzas, and feta cheese often shows up.

Still, none of them can really beat Village Pizzeria’s devastating pepperoni pizza. The excellent mozzarella is topped with spicy, aromatic sausage slices cooked down so far they’ve turned into a sort of pepperoni jerky, so chewy, salty and concentrated it almost hurts the tongue. This is a gorgeously, indefensibly rich pizza, too--the plate positively runs with orange sausage grease, and the waitress is likely to volunteer extra napkins.

A couple of simple pasta dishes are available. For instance, chewy meat or mushroom ravioli, baked ziti in fresh tomato sauce with lots of garlic or penne with chicken and broccoli and even more garlic.

No choice of hot or cold submarine sandwiches on the menu here, they’re all heated up in the pizza oven, and seem to have been pressed--the effect of the ham sandwich is pretty close to a Cuban pressed sandwich. The sausage pizza, made with homemade sausage and a judicious amount of tomato sauce, is one of the more satisfying around.

Larchmont may have its parking shortage, but this place manages to be pretty busy most of the time, proving the old saying: If you build a serious pizza, they will come.

BE THERE

Vito’s Pizza, 814 N. Vermont Ave., (323) 667-2723; fax 667-2724. Open 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. No alcohol. Street parking. Takeout. MasterCard, Visa and ATM cards accepted. Prices: Pizza slice $1.25-$2, sandwiches $3.50-$5.50, pastas $4.94-$6.95. What to Get: cheese pizza, vegetarian special pizza, beef deli sandwich, baked ziti with meat, bread sticks.

Village Pizzeria, 131 N. Larchmont Blvd., L.A., (323) 465-5566. Open noon-9:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-9 p.m. Sunday. Beer and wine. Street parking. Takeout. All major cards. Pizza slice $1.75-$3.95; sandwiches $4.40-$5.95; pastas $7.95. What to Get: ham sub, sausage sub, pepperoni pizza, penne with chicken and broccoli.